LIMITING PM POST TO 2 TERMS, REDUCING VOTER AGE TO 18 & EQUAL STATUS FOR SABAH & S’WAK AMONG KEY AMENDMENTS PAKATAN TO PUSH THROUGH IN COMING PARLIAMENT SITTING: LIEW BANKS ON SARAWAK MPs FOR TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY REQUIRED

PAKATAN Harapan is confident that with the support of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and several independents, it will be able to push through legislation requiring a two-thirds majority in Parliament, said Liew Vui Keong.

The de facto law minister said among the legislation Putrajaya is looking at were the reduction of the voting age to 18 years, capping the prime minister’s tenure in office to two terms and making changes to the constitution to make Sabah and Sarawak equal partners with Peninsular Malaysia.

“We have 135 MPs. GPS has 19 but they are not with Barisan Nasional. They are now an independent bloc.

“All the while they have been telling the world that they are PH-friendly. So we can rely on them,” Liew told The Malaysian Insight recently ahead of the next Parliament session that begins tomorrow.

GPS, which controls the Sarawak government, was formed a month after the last general election. It is made up of the Barisan Nasional components in the state which had dumped the coalition.

PH and its Sabah ally Warisan are 13 MPs short of the 148 votes required for the two-thirds super majority in the 222-seat Parliament.

Liew also pointed to five Umno MPs in Sabah who, recently led by Ronald Kiandee (Beluran), have stated their intention to join Bersatu.

“At this moment, officially, the opposition is BN, which is Umno, MIC and MCA. And then we have PAS.

“All these (parties) are like GPS – they are independent. There are 19 of them. We also have The Star MP from Keningau. I think we have a few independent MPs. We are quite near to getting the 148 (votes),” he said.

Liew said PH would be pushing to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 in the next Parliament meeting, which would require an amendment to Article 195 of the constitution.

He said PH is also seeking to limit the term of the prime minister and to amend Article 1(2) of the federal constitution to make Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia equal partners.

He could not give an exact figure of the MPs as many of them who had dumped Umno had not formally notified the Parliament of their status.

“I hope some of the opposition MPs who have left their parties inform the Dewan Rakyat speaker of their status.

“If you are no longer the opposition and you are an independent, then you are in the independent bloc. But if you decide to join PH, you would be sitting in the PH bloc.

“At the moment it is quite confusing, because I was told by the Parliament secretariat that there’s no official confirmation from them. What they have done was that they just gave a press statement referring to some of the MPs in Sabah,” said Liew.

The next Parliament meeting will begin tomorrow and continue until April 11.

THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT