KUCHING: Any re-delineation exercise to increase Sarawak and Sabah’s seats to one-third of the total number of seats in Parliament will proceed according to the legal process.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the proposed process must comply with Article 113 of the Federal Constitution which states that any review or study on re-delineation of electoral boundaries can only be done once every eight years.
“The last redelineation exercise for Sarawak was in 2015 and Sabah in 2017.
“This means that for Sarawak, if we want to see the addition of parliamentary seats, it will only happen in 2023. A study will be carried out before then,” he told a press conference after attending a Mesra Bersama Rakyat Programme in Kampung Tanjong Bako here yesterday.
Wan Junaidi said the claims for one-third of parliamentary seats by Sabah and Sarawak were not stipulated in the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report 1962, Cobbold Commission and Federal Constitution.
“It was only mentioned in the IGC Report that the proportion of seats allocated respectively to Sarawak and to North Borneo (Sabah) should be maintained.”
He explained that back in 1963, the total number of seats allocated to Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore were 55 out of 159 or 34.59 per cent.
“However, Singapore exited Malaysia on Aug 7, 1965 and the vacant seats were not distributed to Sabah and Sarawak, leaving both regions with 25 per cent seats allocation.
“This is what we are trying to recover so that the proportion of parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak in 1963 is maintained at 34.59 per cent or over one-third out of the total 222 seats in Parliament,” he explained.
He also mentioned that Sarawak and Sabah have their own committee led by the Sarawak premier and the Sabah chief minister respectively.
“Through this channel, we will be able to submit our application to the federal government led by the Prime Minister. If it is approved, the implementation of adding more seats will be done in stages,” he added.
