PETALING JAYA: A political scientist said it will be better for Sabah and Sarawak to pursue two other safeguards to better protect and advance their regional interests, instead of pushing for a 35% quota of Dewan Rakyat seats.
Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University said one safeguard was the devolution of power in areas such as education, medicine and health, which was enjoyed by Singapore but denied to the two Bornean states.
The other was for a fully elected and empowered Dewan Negara, with a 17% representation from each state, giving senators the right to reject bills from the Dewan Rakyat.
“I believe a holistic and well-planned decentralisation is good for not just Sabah and Sarawak, but also for the territorial integrity of Malaysia and welfare of the Malayan states,” he said in a Facebook post.
Wong was responding to statements by Bersih chairman Thomas Fann and Sarawak premier Abang Johari Openg on the matter.
While Fann said the country’s democracy would be weakened by 35% of the Dewan Rakyat seats given to the two states, Abang Johari said Sarawak agreed in principle on the restoration of the quota, although he was in no hurry to do so.
The decision to restore the quota was reached by a special council on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
Wong noted that the current combined share of Sabah and Sarawak’s parliamentary seats came to nearly 25%.
However, he cautioned that the decision to restore the quota could be a pre-election promise that was likely to be forgotten after the polls, similar to the promise to return 50% of all tax revenue collected from Sabah and Sarawak made before the 2018 general election.
He said the 25% parliamentary representation allocated for East Malaysia was not based on equal representation but over-representation.
The population of both Sabah and Sarawak combined was smaller than that of Singapore, but the Bornean states were given a total of 40 seats compared to Singapore’s 15, he said.
“However, Sabah and Sarawak did not get a better deal than Singapore,” he said, adding that in exchange for under-representation in Parliament, Singapore was given exclusive power on education and health, among others.
Sarawak was given none of these while Sabah was given power on health till 1970, he said.
