The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia (NECF) has decried the “moral and spiritual” dilemma Christian Malaysians are forced to be in with the Election Commission’s (EC) announcement of polling on Sunday, May 5.

Claiming this was not the first instance of “insensitivity” shown to the Christian community, the body described the EC’s decision as a “mark of disrespect to the majority of Christians who meet on Sundays to conduct worship and the Holy Communion”.

Christians attend a Sunday service inside a church in Petaling Jaya The move, NECF secretary-general Eugene Yapp said, has greatly upset the evangelical Christian community in Malaysia, particularly those in Sabah and Sarawak.

“To conduct polling on a Sunday presents a moral and spiritual dilemma to pastors, church leaders as well as congregants.

“Christians will now have to juggle between their spiritual devotion to attend Sunday service and their duty to vote as citizens of the country,” Yapp said in a statement today.

Yapp said those in East Malaysia will find it especially difficult as distance and travel arrangements would complicate efforts to travel to hometowns to vote.

However the NECF believes it is possible to both honour God and exercise the right to vote and so urges churches to hold Saturday or Sunday evening services as alternatives.

Christian votes

NONE On Monday, Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing ( left ) had said that the BN government, in allowing the EC to hold polling on a Sunday, has demonstrated the falsity in its ‘1Malaysia' slogan.

In a recent census conducted by the Catholic Church, the number of Catholics in Malaysia was said to be 926,000, among an overall Christian population of 2.2 million.

Of these, East Malaysia is home to many Christians, mostly Orang Asli, and can still provide essential backing needed by the opposition to get a larger hold in the two states in the coming general election.

The opposition had, despite winning a large share of votes in the peninsula and denying the BN coalition its customary two-thirds majority in the historic 2008 polls, only won three of 56 seats in Sabah and Sarawak.

However, various recent issues affecting Christians there have tested BN’s strength and could well have marred its popularity.

Such issues include the ban over use of the word ‘ Allah ’ in the Malay version of the Bible, encroachment of native customary rights (NCR) land by the state government and logging companies, the development of dams which have affected Orang Asli homes and allegations of citizenship-for-votes plot, deemed Project IC .

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