KUCHING: Currently Malaya holds 166 parliamentary seats, Sarawak holds 31 and Sabah is represented with 25 seats.
The percentage breakdown of representation is 75% Malaya, 14% Sarawak and 11% Sabah.
With a combined representation of 25% in Parliament, Sabah and Sarawak are disadvantaged when motions that affect the Borneo territories are tabled as Malaya holds the upper hand with their more than two-third representation of 222 MPs.
Under the 1963 Malaysia Agreement (MA63) it was stipulated that Sarawak, Sabah, Malaya and Singapore were to be equal partners within the Federation of Malaysia.
However in 1964, Malaya held 104 parliamentary seats, Sarawak 24 while Sabah and Singapore had 15 each.
The total number equated to Malaya holding 66% of the 158 seats.
With Singapore pulling out of the Federation in 1965, the parliamentary seats were reduced to 143 and Sabah was awarded an additional seat the following year.
The Borneo representation was a combined 40 seats hitting an all time high of 28%.
This however was quickly wiped out in 1974 when Malaya had an additional 10 seats increase giving them a 74% Malayan controlled Parliament.
The number of Sarawak seats (24) remained the same and was only increased to 27 in 1987 and then in 1994 Malaya once again increased their seats to 145 giving it 76% parliament control.
Restore equality
Any changes to the current quota in parliamentary representation will affect Malaya’s influence in the federation. As such it is not in their interest to give Sabah and Sarawak more seats.
In theory, if equal representation is allowed, what should the quota be?
One-third respectively for Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah? Should Sabah and Sarawak be given at least 34% of parliamentary seats combined?
If it is equally divided then the number of seats would be increased to an ‘extreme’ of 498, with increases of 135 and 141 new seats correspondingly, to Malaya’s unchanged 166.
Or will Sabah and Sarawak get something more ‘logical’, perhaps 60 seats each. But this will see Malaya reducing its 76% parliamentary representation.
In which case will the Malayan Barisan Nasional and Umno allow for a formula of equal representation? No way!
They will never allow Sarawak and Sabah BN component parties to have control in Parliament.
What about Pakatan Rakyat? It will be no suprise if Pakatan also fears equality for Borneo.
In a hypothetical scenario of a 498-seat Parliament, with Sabah and Sarawak having 166 seats each, Pakatan will only have 20 seats in Sabah, while in Sarawak, they will have 40 seats.
In a 250-member Parliament, Pakatan Sabah will have five seats while in Sarawak, they will in theory have only 10 out of 42 seats.
This is assuming the ‘re-delineation’ process in Sabah and Sarawak is done equally in both the urban and rural areas.
Although Pakatan has strong urban support it will not gain much backing from the rural Sabahan and Sarawakian.
It seems that the current ‘inequality’ in the parliamentary seat quota is a ‘win-win’ situation for both Malayan BN and Pakatan.
It is no surprise if both BN and Pakatan prefer not to change things.
The biggest losers are Sarawak and Sabah. We do not have adequate representation in the Parliament and motions that affect us are not heard or taken seriously.
To rephrase George Orwell; “all Federation of Malaysia members are equal, but some members (one actually) are more equal than others’.
What are we going to do now?
