Published on: Friday, February 07, 2003 |
Kota Kinabalu: Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) is saddened over the failure of the Election Commission (EC) to reinstate the Langkon seat under the re-delineation of electoral boundaries despite the strong desire of the local voters in the constituency for such reinstatement.
Its Vice President, Yunof Maringking, said the EC should not ignore the representations made by the people of Langkon to have the Langkon seat reinstated.
There is valid ground for its reinstatement as Langkon has existed as a constituency for a long time until 1990 when it was abolished for reasons best known only to the EC, he said here Thursday.
On Wednesday, Suhakam Commissioner Prof Datuk Hamdan Adnan said Suhakam would study the voters complaints against the EC for its failure to reinstate the Langkon seat.
Hamdan said the local people in the area claimed they were deprived of their right to have an elected representative in the State Legislative Assembly although they had made numerous appeals to that effect.
It is public knowledge that the northern part of Sabah in which Langkon is situated is still economically backward, Yunof said.
The area is vast and it needs big amounts of financial allocation to develop. Unfortunately, instead of reinstating the constituency so that allocations can be channelled through the elected representative, the EC has chosen to abolish the constituency, he added.
The Langkon people had thus been deprived of development and their economic rights had been denied them.
This is an infringement of human rights under the Federal Constitution, the lawyer said.
Yunof said he saw no logical reason for the EC not to reinstate the constituency during the current re-delineation exercise.
However, he said the EC should not be wholly blamed as the State Legislative Assembly should have increased the State seats from 48 to 64 instead of 60 at present and suggested that new seats be created in the vast areas such as Kota Marudu, Kota Belud, Tuaran and Kinabatangan.
Under the present re-delineation exercise, the EC proposed that Sabah, with 48 State and 20 parliamentary seats now, get an additional 12 State and five parliamentary seats.
Yunof also suggested that the provision for six nominated state assemblymen in Sabah be abolished as it was no longer practical, saying that a similar provision in Sarawak was abolished way back in 1971.
He said the provision was ultra vires the Federal Constitution.- Bernama
