KAJANG, Feb 17 — PKR will review the 1963 agreement which brought Sarawak into Malaysia if it wins the right to govern the state in the next elections, PKR Sarawak chief Baru Bian said today.

Sarawakians should take the opportunity to vote for a new state government if the retirement of the state’s long-ruling chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud’s resignation triggers snap polls, he said.

“When we formed Malaysia, one of the main reason was that we would be at the same level as Malaya.

“We were about 10 years backwards then. But when Sarawakians look back , we feel that we are worse than when we started.

“We are saying yes, we want to rewrite, we want to redo what has not been done by the federal government and here is the opportunity,” he told reporters here at the end of the party retreat here.

Taib’s resignation from his post of chief minister is effective from February 28.

Today, Baru pointed out that among others, Pakatan Rakyat’s manifesto also promised a 20 per cent oil royalty from the current 5 per cent.

“A political solution is available, and that is Pakatan Rakyat,” he said.

He reiterated that the opposition pact had also launched what it dubbed its Kuching declaration on September 16, 2012, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of Malaysia’s formation.

He added that the pact had promised to review the Malaysia Agreement to ensure fair treatment to the indigenous peoples whom he said had been neglected by the Barisan Nasional federal government since the country’s founding.

“This is the opportunity for Sarawakians to vote for a new representative, a new government in Sarawak,” the PKR state chief said.

His comments were in response to political analyst James Chin, who is from Sarawak, who yesterday said there is a slight majority of East Malaysians who want the two Borneo states to leave Malaysia.

The remark, carried by news portals The Malaysian Insider and Malaysiakini, added to the growing rumblings of dissatisfaction by many East Malaysians who felt that their resources-rich states had not benefitted from joining Malaya then, to form Malaysia.

The Malaysia Agreement 1963 combined North Borneo, now Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and the Federation of Malaya, to become Malaysia.

Singapore however ceased to be part of Malaysia, two years later.