Abang Jo renews call for Sabah, Sarawak to be given one-third of parliamentary seats

Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg has renewed his call for Sarawak and Sabah to be given one-third of the seats in Parliament.

He said this was important to uplift the status of the Borneo states in the Dewan Rakyat after Singapore left Malaysia.

Abang Johari (above), who is also the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) chairperson, raised the concern that any potential amendment to the Federal Constitution could be done only taking into account the interests of Peninsular Malaysia.

Peninsular Malaysia, he said, could pass constitutional amendments by virtue of having more than two-thirds of parliamentary seats.

Currently, Sarawak has 31 parliamentary seats and Sabah 25, totalling 56 seats - 18 seats short of a one-third in Dewan Rakyat. The figure, however, does not include the Labuan parliamentary seat.

Peninsular Malaysia has 166 seats in total.

"Sabah and Sarawak are supposed to maintain one-third out of the 222 seats (after Singapore left Malaysia). If not, the power distribution in Parliament will be solely relying on Peninsular Malaysia," he was quoted by Astro Awani as saying today.

"If they have more than two-thirds while both Sabah and Sarawak are only given less than one-third, it is possible to make amendments to the constitution.

In February, Abang Johari reportedly urged Putrajaya to increase the seats for the Borneo states via ongoing electoral reforms carried out by the Electoral Reform Committee chaired by Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman.

Warisan deputy president Darell Leiking also made the same call on a similar basis.

When Malaysia was formed in 1963, Malaya held two-thirds of parliamentary seats while one-third was held by Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore.

At that time, Malaya had 104 seats, Singapore 15, Sabah 16 and Sarawak 24.

Meanwhile, GPS secretary-general Alexander Nanta Linggi welcomed Abang Johari's call saying this would safeguard the interests of Sarawak.

"This is in line with the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 for which my late grandfather and the then Temenggong Jugah Barieng was one of the signatories for the agreement," he said.

To a question, he said GPS and PBB had yet to officially discuss the matter with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition which took over Putrajaya five months ago. 

Alexander, who is also Kapit MP, said he would raise the matter with PN now that Johari had made the call.

"There has not been any serious discussion from what I know. Now that the chief minister made a serious official statement, we, as Sarawakian MPs, want this to be seriously discussed and followed up on," he said.

"We call on PN to take his view seriously and to start preparing (for allocating more seats for Borneo states) in the next electoral redelineation exercise," he said.  - Mkini