MIRI, Nov 13 — Anti-vaxxer Penan voters in Baram have urged the Election Commission (EC) to allow them to vote in the coming Sarawak elections despite choosing not to be vaccinated against Covid-19 infections.
PKR potential candidate for Mulu Boyce Ngau said they are more willing to come out to vote than being vaccinated due to their apprehension over the efficacy of vaccines against the virus.
“When I asked if they would vote, they told me that the EC must not deny them their right to vote if they are not vaccinated,” he said in a press conference in Miri yesterday, with party vice-president and Miri MP Dr Micheal Teo Yu Keng.
Asked for the reason behind their reluctance to be vaccinated, Boyce said the Penans argued that the pandemic is still raging, and those who had already been vaccinated still required a third booster shot.
This led them to believe that the virus is not going to stop spreading with vaccination.
Over half of the Penan population in Baram have yet to be vaccinated despite the government outreach programme to send field teams and vaccines to their villages in the interior.
There have been at least three reported Penan deaths due to Covid-19 in the first three months since May this year, while scores had been infected.
Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM) president Reverend Bina Agung in countering the vaccine hesitancy among some Penans declared support for the vaccination against Covid-19 in June this year.
He pointed out that BEM upheld the sacredness of life which needs to be protected from any harm at any cost and the church was helping to create awareness in the rural settlements of the vaccines and the importance of being immunised.
There are 63 Penan churches in remote settlements in Sarawak, underlining the influence and reach of the church on this rural community of about 16,000 population.
The issue of unvaccinated Penan voters’ eligibility to cast their votes came to the fore with the state election just around the corner.
Boyce said he does not have the actual figures of how many Penan voters were unvaccinated in Baram which has three state seats — Mulu, Telang Usan and Marudi.
The Sarawak election is due to be held within 60 days after the dissolution of state legislative assembly on Nov 3 following the lifting of the state of emergency by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah. — Borneo Post Online
