A ludicrous argument by a Sarawak Assemblyman

By admin-s Last updated Jan 12, 2015

Why is the large number of seats for Sarawak so entrenched in the Federal Constitution?

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The principle of “one person, one vote, one value” was bandied around in the Sarawak State Assembly in November 2014 during the debate of the Bill to increase the number of seats in the Assembly by eleven.

Politicians like BN Assemblyman Annuar Rapaee know how to mislead and obscure. During the debate he offered one of the most ludicrous arguments I’ve ever heard.

He spoke in Malay. In the interest of brevity and to focus on only one aspect of his silliness, I’ve omitted some of his errors in this paraphrase:

“When Malaysia was formed [and after Singapore became independent], there were 144 seats, of which 24 were reserved for Sarawak. This means 17% of the MP’s were from Sarawak. Now we only have 31 of 222 seats, which means only 14% of the MP’s are from Sarawak. Since there are only 2.8 million people in Sarawak, if we go by the equal value principle of “one man, one vote, one value,” our share of Parliament should be reduced to 10%. Since none of us wish to lower Sarawak’s voice in Parliament, we must reject the principle. Be careful what you ask for, DAP.”

Rapaee is right. In 1963 Sarawak was given a disproportionately large number of seats in the Federal Parliament.

But Rapaee was silent about the reason why the equal value principle was moderated in 1963. I’ll ask and answer the obvious questions.

Why was Sarawak given a large number of seats in Parliament? Why is the large number of seats for Sarawak so entrenched in the Federal Constitution?

Despite the failure to teach political history in our schools, and despite a slew of self-serving MP’s from Sarawak, we know Sarawak, like Sabah is different from say Johor or Selangor.

Malaysia was created as a Federation with 4 partners: Malaya (the Peninsula), Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak.

Malaya wooed Sarawak into the Federation by offering Sarawak MP’s a bigger voice in Parliament. This was done in order to reduce the voice of Singapore. Singapore accepted because Singapore also got special deals, but I’ll not go into that here.

An “18 point agreement” was inked. This agreement guaranteed many differences between Sarawak and the other partners. For example, despite its massive land area, Sarawak’s Head of State never gets to be Agung; Sarawak can deny entry to non Sarawakians; official Islam in Sarawak is more nuanced, etc.

The large number of Parliamentary seats granted to Sarawak was a one-time trade: Sarawak had to give up some rights in order to enjoy the grant.