Non-tabling of 13 additional state seats will not affect GE14 — PBS

TAWAU: The non-tabling of the 13 additional Sabah state seats will not affect the forthcoming 14th general election based on the existing 60 seats as argued by the opposition leaders.

Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) Tanjung Batu Youth chief Jhasarry Kang said the issue of the Sabah State Assembly approving the state seats from 60 to 73 and later become an Enactment was not exactly completed.

He pointed out that the process of tabling a bill must be done accordingly in parliament, thereafter lawmakers must further debate on the bill and go through the process of voting for approval before it becomes law. Therefore, he views that they should not look separately from the federal law as it affects the election law.

“It was not even tabled in parliament on March 28, 2018 so it may be just redundant for the time being. It is understood that the 13 additional Sabah State Assembly seats were approved by the State Legislative Assembly by amending the Sabah Constitution from 60 state seats to 73 state seats on August 9, 2016,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jhasarry welcomes Sabah’s proposal to the federal government for the re-delineation of the state’s parliamentary constituencies with a view of increasing the seats.

Article 113(2) of the Federal Constitution states (i) Subject to paragraph (ii), the Election Commission shall, from time to time, as they deem necessary, review the division of the Federation and State into constituencies and recommend such changes therein as they may think necessary in order to comply with the provisions contained in the thirteenth Schedule. And Article 113 (2)(ii) of the Federal Constitution provides that there shall be an interval of not less than eight years between the date of completion of one review and date of commencement of the next. It means that EC to review Sabah state’s parliamentary constituencies in the near future is possible, he said.

He feels that it is not necessary for both state and parliamentary constituencies to be tabled together in parliament for the purpose of increasing the number of both parliamentary and state seats. It can still be done individually and separately.

However, Jhasarry said he felt it was the right time for the number of Sabah representatives in the parliamentary constituencies be increased in line with the state’s status and position in Malaysia.

He said some of parliamentary constituencies were bigger than some of the states in the peninsula like Kelabakan and Tawau. So it needs to be divided into smaller areas for better representation of the people in the constituency.