UK styled government will make Sabah, Sarawak equal partners
KUCHING: An analyst from Universiti Malaya’s Malay Studies Academy has suggested that the Pakatan Harapan federal government to emulate the United Kingdom’s devolution of powers in a bid to make Sabah and Sarawak equal partners within the Malaysian federation.
Awang Azman Awang Pawi said Sarawakians expect relations between Sabah, Sarawak and the peninsula to be similar to the devolved administrations in the UK, namely Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the other three dependencies of the British Crown: Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.
“Malaysia is one of the Commonwealth countries and we have also inherited the British Westminster model of parliamentary system,” he said, reported FMT.
He also pointed out that Sarawak wants to regain its rights agreed upon under Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA1963) that provided exclusive rights for both Sabah and Sarawak.
The rights include among others, freedom for both states to manage its own finance, education, language and the absence of state religion.
The PH coalition had promised to uphold MA1963 in its election manifesto since a subsequent amendment to the Malaysia Act downgraded both Sabah and Sarawak as one among the 13 states that made up Malaysia.
Universiti Malaysia Sabah political analyst Lee Kuok Tiung said that Sarawakians should not get distracted by the plan to drop the word “state” in all official government affairs.
“Instead, we should focus on the intention of getting back our rights as equal partners.
“The Pakatan Harapan government has promised to return the rights to us. We don’t want them to give us false hopes,” he said.
Lee also criticised the amendment of Article 1(2), urging the government to consider amending Articles 8 and 160 of the Federal Constitution instead.
“Article 112 of the Federal Constitution is clear enough, so just return whatever belongs to Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.
