KUCHING, April 5 — Sarawak and Sabah will be worse off if Putrajaya’s proposed amendment to Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution gains passage in Parliament, politician Lina Soo claimed today.

The Sarawak Reform Party president claimed the proposal did not offer greater protection for Sarawak or Sabah as equal partners to the Federation of Malaysia as it was supposed to, but the opposite.

“On the contrary, it leaves Malaya in the driver’s seat with even greater menacing implications,” she told a news conference here.

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She slammed the federal government’s proposal as a disgrace and an insult to all Sarawakians and Sabahan, claiming there is a qualifying clause on finance that makes no references or commitment to an equal distribution of wealth and resources among the three federation partners “nor does it recognise that Sarawak and Sabah should have a bigger or equal share of the economy”.

“The state sovereignty and political future of both Sarawak and Sabah are at stake and we must take action to save our future generations from another round of 50 more years of hegemony from the federal government,” she said.

She urged all MPs from Borneo to boycott the vote when it takes place in the Dewan Rakyat.

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“I propose for Sarawakians and Sabahans to call or WhatsApp your respective MPs to tell them to vote against the Bill,” she said.

She also urged both governments of Sarawak and Sabah to call a special assembly sitting in their respective states and seek a public referendum on the matter.

Soo also suggested the state governments invite British and Singaporean representatives to their assembly sittings on the matter.

She said that both nations were signatories to the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and had obligations to realise the federation as long as the treaty exists.

Soo said the Pakatan Harapan federal government must revert to the original version of the Federal Constitution concerning Article 1(2) to be in accordance with MA63 if it were sincere about treating Sarawak and Sabah as equal partners and not just among the 13 states of the federation.

“By studying the language and rearrangement of English in the amendment Bill, it is obvious that the amendment is not consistent with MA63,” she said, adding that it was not even consistent with the Constitutional Amendment A354 Section 2 in 1976 which reduced the status of Sarawak and Sabah to the 12th and 13th states.

“Any Act of Parliament which breaches the MA63 cannot be constitutional federal law. Both amendments are wrong, and two wrongs cannot make a right.

“If we don’t stand up today and stop this nonsense now, we will have third, fourth and fifth wrongs,” she said.

Soo slammed Sarawak PH politicians who harp on “equal partners”, but cannot define what it means and are all muddled up without knowing what it is all about.

“Perhaps their intention is to confuse us anyway. In fact, no constitutional or legal provision for equal partnership exists in MA63 or the Federal Constitution. Equal partnership is just an attractive concept as mere political cliché,” she said.

She then said that even if the federal government were to revert to the original Article 1(2) provision, it would not necessarily mean “equal partnership”.

“It merely means restoring Sarawak to its original constitutional status as a component nation that formed the federation, but not as equal partner.

“At best, any amendment should mean no federal domination, with Sarawak to be consulted as equal partner, undefined,” she said.

Soo asked if there could truly be equal partnership within the federation.

“If equal partnership then exists or can be created, does this mean Sarawak will have one-third of the total 222 parliamentary seats, one-third of annual budgetary allocation, and a Sarawakian can be prime minister on rotation of one out of three terms?”