ENGKELILI: The Sarawak Government will amend the anti-hopping law under Article 17 of the Sarawak Constitution in the upcoming State Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting at the end of the month.
Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg said the amendments will be introduced to improve the anti-party hopping law to be on par with the law at the federal level.
“As we know, the Parliament has approved the amendment of the anti-hopping law. Sarawak has its own law but because it is related with the freedom of association, the court used to say it was not very effective.
“Therefore, after the amendment at the Parliament level has been approved, we will improve our own law in our Sarawak Constitution.
“We will introduce the amendment of the anti-hopping law in our Sarawak Constitution so that it will be aligned with the amended law in the Federal Constitution,” he said.
He said this when met by reporters after attending the Sri Aman Sarawakku Sayang programme at Engkelili, here today (Nov 6).
He said the amendments will prevent state leaders from blatantly switching political parties.
“If they switch parties, we need to do another election, and there are other approaches that we will give in detail at the end of this month,” he added.
Abang Johari said all this while, Sarawak politics has been stable, with the exception of a few state representatives that quit or jumped parties.
“But overall, there are not many party hoppers, but if we approve the law amendment, it will become stricter and the party hopping culture will no longer exist, for the benefit of the people,” he said.
He emphasised that this is the first time he revealed the amendments.
“So, people here in Engkelili should be more careful in choosing your people’s representative later. We do not want a ‘frog’ to be our representative.
“The people want good people to represent them. Politics is not for personal matters, but it is a platform to fight for the interests of the people,” he stressed.
On August 6, Abang Johari said Sarawak will study its state constitutions to align it with the recently passed anti-hopping law in the Federal Constitution.
He said the study of the existing article is needed so that if there is any amendment that needs to be done, the state government will implement it to align with what is in the Federal Constitution.
