Asfia: Sarawak plans to increase legislative assembly seats

 

The Sarawak government is prepared to have additional legislative assembly seats as currently, 108 seats have been made available at the assembly hall, said Speaker Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar.

He said the population distribution at the district level based on the Malaysia Census 2020 enabled the parliamentarians and assemblypersons to determine the number of additional seats required.

“They should benefit from the census results for development planning and prosperity of the state towards a better life for the people.

“The statistics are very useful and it is up to MPs and assemblypersons to make use of the information for the well-being of people in their respective constituencies. We use statistical data to know how many more parliamentary and assembly seats need to be created.

“For example, the state seats of Senadin and Tupong with a high population of 132,000 and 91,000 respectively can be broken up. It is easy at the state level but the big challenge is in the Dewan Rakyat as Putrajaya does not have a two-thirds majority,” he added.

However, Asfia (above) said additional parliamentary seats in the state could not be created in time due to the coming 15th general election.

He was met by reporters today at the Parliamentary and State Assembly Constituencies Tour Series on Key Findings of the Malaysia Census 2020 and on Sarawak’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 2021.

The last demarcation of the Sarawak state constituencies was made in 2015, from 71 seats to 82.

Meanwhile, Asfia said the Constitutional (Amendment) (No.3) Bill 2022 on preventing party-hopping by elected representatives would be tabled at the legislative assembly sitting this November.

Earlier, Malaysia’s chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin when presenting the findings of the census on Sarawak said the state recorded a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.9 percent cent buoyed by the services and manufacturing sectors.

The Census 2020 commissioner also said that Sarawak recorded a population of 2.45 million with an annual average growth rate of 0.2 percent for the period 2011 to 2020.

“The elderly (aged 65 and above) in Sarawak comprised 7.5 percent of the state's population compared with 6.8 percent at the national level,” he added.

- Bernama

(Editor's note: Sarawak's electoral borders were last redrawn in 2015. The state assembly can redraw borders every eight years.)