Sebastian Ting glad PM recognises Sarawak as equal partners

suppadmin | April 11, 2021

The announcement by the Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin of recognizing Sarawak as one of the three equal partners forming Malaysia during his two days official visit to Sarawak last week was most welcomed and encouraging, said SUPP Secretary General, Datuk Sebastian Ting.

Indeed, Ting who is also Assistant Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture said, it is always very important to remain ourselves and therefore must continue to stress that Sarawak, Sabah, Singapore (she left in 1965) and Federated States of Malaya were the four original founding partners of Malaysia

“As one of the founding partners in the formation of Malaysia, Sarawak must be treated equally as one of the remaining three original partners and definitely not to be treated like other states in other States in Malaya, because our State

has special autonomy secured in the Federal Constitution that other States do not have. For example, the power for Sarawak to implement our Oil Mining Ordinance 1958 comes from Item 2(c) of the Federal Constitution’s State List which confers the state legislatures with competence to legislate on matters relating to issuance of “permits and licenses for prospecting for mines; mining leases and certificates”. Other states in Peninsular Malaysia do not have such special autonomy like us. Even more important is that the proposed Federal Constitution amendment to put Sarawak as equal partner to Sabah and Peninsular must not merely in form but of substantive nature such as allocating one-third of the seats in Parliament to Sarawak and Sabah. We believe this is the only genuine way of power sharing among the 3 equal partners, “he said.

He believed that there should be more meaningful discussions and sharing of thoughts on the terms and conditions of the proposed Federal Constitution amendments.

Indeed Sarawak GPS Government, he pointed out led by our Chief Minister YAB Datuk Patinggi Abang Zohari, has been very consistent in wanting to have the Federal Constitution amended to reflect the true intentions of the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

Ting opinioned that Sarawak GPS Government is serious and is fully committed to fight for our rights as contained in MA63. Towards this end, the Sarawak’s State Legislative Assembly had passed a motion on 30 April 2019 to propose a comprehensive amendment to the Federal Constitution incorporating amendment to Article 1(2) to include “pursuant to Malaysia Agreement 1963” and amendment to Article 160(2) to define ‘the Federation’ as federation established under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 and believe Prime Minister was sincere when he made the above important announcement, as he knows sincerity would be crucial and important and unless the announcement by our Prime Minister brings about real changes, otherwise it is just playing with “words”.