By Jaythaleela K<\/p>\n
MIRI, April 5: The Bill to amend Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution, in its current form, does not appear to put Sarawak and
\nSabah as equal partners with Peninsular Malaysia in the Malaysian Federation.<\/p>\n
Sarawak United Peoples\u2019 Party (SUPP) secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting said many Sarawakians were unhappy and disappointed with the proposed amendment that was tabled for the first reading by de facto Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federal government appears to be most insincere in wanting to restore Sarawak and Sabah as equal partners by just merely dividing the current Article 1(2) into 2 sub-clauses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bill has no meaning and it is just merely reconstructing the sentences and playing with words,\u201d\u00a0he said in a statement today.<\/p>\n
The amendment stated that the States of the Federation shall be:<\/p>\n
(a) Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Penang, Perak, Perlis, Selangor and Terengganu, and<\/p>\n
(b) Sarawak and Sabah.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, it means the same thing with or without the amendment,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n
Ting reiterated that Sarawak and Sabah would not be equal partners with Peninsular Malaysia by just amending Article 1(2) without amending Article 160.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how they reconstruct the sentences in Article 1(2),\u00a0as long as the Putrajaya\u00a0maintains the definition of
\n\u2018the Federation\u2019\u00a0as Federation established under the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1957,\u00a0then we will continue to remain merely
\none\u00a0of the 13 states like the rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that what we truly are? We were never involved in the formation of Malaya in the first place. Why should Pakatan Harapan\u00a0government refuse to acknowledge this fact?\u201d he questioned.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that the amendment did\u00a0not\u00a0alter the functions of the federal and state governments under the concept of
\nfederalism, raising questions whether the concept of federalism was based on 1957 or 1963.<\/p>\n
He added\u00a0that\u00a0most people would not be wrong if they were to believe and think that Pakatan\u00a0government was still insisting on
\nusing the old structure of federalism of Malaya Agreement 1957, lumping Sarawak and Sabah as two\u00a0of 13 states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would also like\u00a0to point out that nothing was mentioned in the proposed amendment Bill about returning our rights, our oil or
\nincreasing our financial grants. Nothing was mentioned on increasing the parliamentary seats for Sarawak and Sabah to one-third of the total 222 seats.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the federal government is serious about making us equal partners to Peninsular\u00a0Malaysia, they would have included these in the
\namendment as well,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
Ting said he had raised in the State Legislative Assembly sitting last November the need for Sarawak to introduce its own Referendum Bill for the assembly to \u201cdiscuss and debate on important matters\u201d for 2019.<\/p>\n
A Referendum Bill, if passed, would become our Sarawak Referendum Ordinance, where important matters would be decided by the people of Sarawak, he explained.<\/p>\n
SUPP appealed for all 31 Sarawak MPs to put Sarawak interest first and vote against the Bill, he continued. \u2014 Source from DayakDaily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jaythaleela K MIRI, April 5: The Bill to amend Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution, in its current form, does not appear to put Sarawak and Sabah as equal partners with Peninsular Malaysia in the Malaysian Federation. Sarawak United Peoples\u2019 Party (SUPP) secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting said many Sarawakians were unhappy and disappointed with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2230,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/2230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.1supp.org.my\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}