SARAWAK Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chong Chieng Jen said it was Barisan Nasional (BN) that tabled and approved the 1976 constitutional amendment that reduced Sarawak’s status to “one of the 13 states” in Malaysia.

He said the 1976 constitutional amendment was supported by Sarawak’s Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) and Sarawak United People’s Party.

“Though PBB and SUPP have quit BN and now call themselves GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak), history still records that they had supported it.

“It is now the PH government that restores the rightful position of Sarawak as ‘equal partner’ status,” Chong, who is also Sarawak DAP chairman, said in Kuching today.

The proposal to restore the status of Sarawak and Sabah as enshrined in the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) is expected to be the focus of the first meeting of the second session of the 14th Parliament that starts tomorrow.

This follows Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong’s Friday announcement that the cabinet had agreed on Wednesday to amend Article 1(2) of the constitution for this purpose.

Meanwhile, Chong, who also deputy domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, said within a year of taking power, the PH federal government had agreed to return to Sarawak what the BN government had taken away since 1976 (for 43 years).

“Despite years of objection to the diminished status of Sarawak, the BN government did nothing.

“PBB and SUPP just played along with (former prime minister) Najib (Razak) in promising the sky but delivering nothing on Sarawak’s ‘equal partner’ status,” he said.

At the formation of Malaysia in 1963, Sarawak, along with the peninsula, Sabah and Singapore, was one of the territories that formed the federation.

Singapore seceded from Malaysia in 1965.

In 1976, the BN government passed a constitutional amendment, reducing Sarawak’s status from “one of the territories” to “one of the 13 states”. –  Bernama, March 10, 2019.