KOTA KINABALU: Gabungan Sabah has pointed out that it would be unconstitutional to have an election of the Sabah Legislative Assembly for only 60 members instead of 73 members.
This is because the amendment to the Article 14(2) of the Sabah Constitution in 2016 has been approved by the Assembly, assented to by the TYT (Head of State) and gazetted by the government. It is now solid law that the next Sabah Assembly shall have 73 members, said Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Datuk Yong Teck Lee.
He disclosed this during a joint press conference with Gabungan Sabah leaders, among whom were STAR president Datuk DrJeffery Kitingan, Parti Perpaduan Rakyat Sabah (PPRS) president Dato Mohd, Arshad bin Abdul Mualap and Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah deputy president Ashim Jamat yesterday.
“On 28 July 2016, the Sabah government gazette announced the bill to amend the Sabah Constitution to increase the membership of the Assembly from 60 to 73.
“On 9 August 2016, the Sabah Legislative Assembly passed the bill. The bill was introduced by the Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department. After debates, the bill was passed with 55 for the amendment, three against, one abstained and one absent; which was more than the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution.
“At the subsequent Assembly sitting on 21 November 2016, the Assembly Speaker informed the Assembly that the Head of State had assented to the amendment to the State Constitution,” he said, adding that according to the Government gazette, the TYT had assented to the amendment to the Constitution on 17 August 2016.
In view of the above facts and legal reality, the coming elections to the Sabah Legislative Assembly must elect 73 members, Yong opined and stressed that failure to do so will result in a constitutional crisis because the Constitution stipulates that there shall be 73 members whereas only 60 members were elected.
As for the 73 state constituencies to be represented by the 73 members, the Election Commission has already conducted the redelineation process in 2016 and 2017, published the proposed constituencies and boundaries and conducted public hearings. Much efforts and costs have been incurred. The only thing that remains is for the report on the Sabah electoral redelineation to be tabled to Parliament, he pointed out.
Therefore, Gabungan Sabah demands that the Umno-led BN Sabah government respects and complies with the Sabah Constitution.
As the Election Commission has announced earlier that the tabling of the Sabah boundary redelineation can be done separately from that of Malaya, there is absolutely no excuse for the Umno-led BN federal government not to table the Sabah electoral boundary redelineation in parliament, he said.
“As Parliament will reconvene on March 5, Sabahans expect the federal and Sabah governments to respect and comply with the Sabah constitution and promptly do the necessary, that is, to present to Parliament the Sabah electoral redelineation for approval.
“Failure to do so will show that the Umno-led BN government insults the Sabah Legislative Assembly, disrespects the Sabah Constitution and makes a fool of Sabahans. It would denote the collapse of government by constitution. It would mean a loss of confidence in the Chief Minister and his cabinet,” he claimed.
If, as reported, the Umno-Ied BN Sabah government would try to repeal the 2016 constitutional amendment by re-amending the constitution to revert to 60 seats in the coming assembly sitting, this would prove that Umno-BN is making a big fool of Sabahans, mocking the Legislative Assembly and disrespecting the Head of State, said Yong.
In this case, Gabungan Sabah will organise mass protests at the Legislative Assembly to show the people’s disgust at such abuse of power by the Umno-led BN government, he added.
He stressed that objections in Melaka and Selangor are not an excuse to delay the submission of the Sabah electoral delineation to parliament.
“It becomes ridiculous when we read from Dr Max’s statement in the media that if the state government does not want to go ahead with the amendment, then it might have to go back to the State Assembly to re-amend the law to go back to 60 constituencies. This is the greatest mockery of the Legislative Assembly, disrespect to the Head of State and making a fool of the people and the State Assembly.
“There is nothing to stop the BN-led government at both the state and federal levels to get parliamentary approval. This is not Selangor, which objected to the delineation. BN has a majority in Parliament, so all this can be done. There is absolutely no valid excuse for the government to go back to the assembly to re-amend the constitution to revert back to 60 seats,” he opined.
Jeffery, meanwhile, said: “The question is why did they table it, asked the State Legislative Assembly to approve it. Why was it passed and assented to by the TYT and became a law and then at the end of the process they are reluctant to go ahead with it.
“I suspect that one reason is that maybe they are not confident to win these areas, and, maybe, because these are new areas, there are opportunities for all BN components to ask for the seats and this will create problems for them.
“But for whatever the reason, that was not in the public interest, and they should serve the public interest. They initiated it, they must finish it and if they don’t, then I agree with Yong that this is a mockery of the system,” he said.
He claimed that it is shameful actually for the government to make a decision like this and then suddenly it disappears into thin air.
“What more if they want to reverse it, that would be worse. So we have to tell the people, we should impress upon the government that they should obey the law and they should implement their decision,” he said.