Bukit Tengah assemblyman Gooi Hsiao Leung said while senior government officials such as the prime minister, his Cabinet members and chief ministers ought to be among the first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, the next priority should be medical workers and those in frequent contact with the public.

In a statement, he said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s rationale in doling out the vaccine for all elected representatives as they are frequently meeting their constituents is “utter nonsense”.

“Supermarket and retail workers and bus drivers, for example, come into contact with many people daily in their work, and they have to wait for their turn to be vaccinated.

“Is the prime minister saying that their lives are less important than politicians who get to jump the vaccination queue? It is unethical, indecent and downright wrong,” he said.

Gooi said elected representatives can carry out their daily duties by following the strict rules in place and need not jump the queue ahead of others to be vaccinated.

Muhyiddin had earlier announced that MPs and assemblymen will be among the first to receive the vaccine under the first phase of the immunisation programme.

The first phase, involving frontline staff, will stretch from Feb 26 to April and include about 500,000 recipients.

The second phase will see some 9.4 million people in the high-risk groups, including senior citizens with chronic conditions, being vaccinated from April to August.

This will be followed by the third phase, leading to February next year, in which 13.7 million adults aged 18 and above are slated to receive their shots.