KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing has suggested a new deal or agreement be signed for the union of Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah.
Masing, who is also Infrastructure Development and Transportation Minister, said the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) was a done deal because it was agreed and signed by Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak.
Thus, he said Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) 14th general election manifesto had nothing to do with the MA63 committee chaired by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“When Singapore withdrew from Malaysia in 1965 this legally, in my opinion, rendered the four-party agreement (MA63) null and void because no supplementary agreement was signed between Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah after 1965 to validate the three territories’ union,” Masing said. He said the so-called negotiation or meeting chaired by the prime minister on MA63, in fact, was equivalent to the creation of a supplementary agreement after the withdrawal of Singapore.
“If this is what the current meeting involving Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah, chaired by the prime minister is all about, I am for it.
“Let’s renegotiate the new deal for the union of Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah.
“Let the three territories within Malaysia make a new agreement. It will not be MA63 because this new deal has superseded MA63,” he said.
Masing further said the freedom to sign the new agreement lay exclusively with the individual territories, namely Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah.
He said it would indeed be a new Malaysia as coined by the PH government.
