The meeting in Kota Kinabalu on Friday will put Sabah’s revenue claim, Sarawak’s petroleum aspirations and East Malaysia’s parliamentary representation in focus.
The meeting will be attended by Sarawak premier Abang Johari Openg and Sabah chief minister Hajiji Noor.
It comes as Umno prepares to debate its political direction and the future of its role in the unity government at its general assembly this week. Delegates have been permitted to raise the issue, with leaders from PAS – but not Pakatan Harapan – invited to attend.
Umno has yet to decide on leaving the government, but its renewed overtures to PAS underscore the importance of Anwar’s ties with Sabah and Sarawak.
Greater parliamentary representation
Sabah and Sarawak parties will be expected to press for the two Borneo states to collectively hold one-third of the seats in the Dewan Rakyat.
The request stems from the arrangement agreed upon in 1963, which saw Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore together hold 55 (or 34%) of the 159 parliamentary seats on offer then. This distribution was designed to deny Malaya the two-thirds majority needed to amend the Federal Constitution unilaterally.
Yet, as Universiti Malaya political analyst Awang Azman Pawi observed, Sabah and Sarawak were never guaranteed one‑third representation in perpetuity following Singapore’s exit from Malaysia.
He said the current request reflects the East Malaysian states’ desire to shift from “kingmaker politics” to “constitutional insurance”.
The aim, Awang Azman said, was to enable Sabah and Sarawak to exert a more “structural” influence in Putrajaya, rather than merely seeking to take advantage of political tensions in the peninsula.
Political analyst James Chin said the creation of additional parliamentary seats in the two states would likely strengthen the federal government’s relationship with Gabungan Parti Sarawak and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah.
“There’s a better chance that they will support Anwar rather than a PAS-heavy government,” said Chin of the University of Tasmania.
Still, Chin said there was “no way” additional seats could be delivered by the end of the year, given the parliamentary amendments required and the need to consider the matter alongside the wider electoral boundary review process.
Sarawak’s demands
The petroleum dispute is expected to be one of the most closely scrutinised issues at Friday’s meeting.
Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim wrote on X that the discussions could see progress made on Petros’s role as sole gas aggregator in Sarawak, a position he estimated could be worth RM10 billion annually.
However, he warned against MA63 being turned into “a barter trade among political leaders”, and said disputes concerning Petronas’s rights should be litigated.
Senator Ahmad Ibrahim, meanwhile, rejected attempts to bill Anwar’s engagement with Sarawak and Sabah on MA63 as a mere political trade-off involving oil and gas rights.
“Negotiation is not weakness, respecting the constitution is not surrender, and fulfilling legitimate rights is not an exchange for political support,” said Ahmad, a member of the PBB supreme council.
He said disputes involving the Oil Mining Ordinance 1958, the Petroleum Development Act 1974 and other federal laws should be resolved through the courts.
“If we want to speak about the law, let the law decide,” he said.
Economist Samirul Ariff Othman took a similar view, saying it was important not to ascribe political motives to the MA63 process or prejudge matters already before the courts.
He said that while bargaining with the Borneo states may become more crucial when the “federal coalition arithmetic” becomes less certain, it was important to separate political accommodation from a durable institutional settlement.
“MA63 should be implemented faithfully, but it should not become a mechanism for progressively hollowing out the national petroleum architecture before the respective constitutional and statutory positions have been authoritatively determined,” he said.
Samirul said Sabah and Sarawak had a legitimate right to greater revenue participation, but the roles of the federal government, state authorities and Petronas must be clearly defined.
“The question is what functions remain national and what functions become state-level — and whether capital, control, responsibility and risk follow that allocation,” he said.
What Sabah wants
Samirul said Sabah’s involvement in the meeting was not merely ceremonial.
“Sabah has already said its 40% net-revenue entitlement will be a principal agenda item,” he said, adding that the MA63 technical process was also addressing several other unresolved federal-state issues.
In May, Anwar announced an RM1.5 billion interim special grant for Sabah. The final sum payable under the state’s 40% revenue entitlement, however, has yet to be finalised, with Putrajaya and the Sabah government continuing negotiations over the implementation mechanism. - FMT
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