PUTRAJAYA purposely failed to pass the constitutional amendment bill to restore Sabah and Sarawak’s status, lawmakers from the Borneo states said in deflecting blame for abstentions that denied the bill’s passage.

Under fire for not supporting the amendment, the Borneo lawmakers pinned the blame on Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for coming out with a “well thought-out play”.

They said that the bill to amend Article 1(2) of the federal constitution to return the status of Sabah and Sarawak as the founding states of the federation of Malaysia was designed to be defeated.

Sarawak Tourism, Arts, Culture and Youth Minister Abdul Karim Hamzah said Putrajaya was insincere in returning the equal status to the Borneo states by tabling a bill that was certain to be rejected Sarawak MPs and the few opposition lawmakers from Sabah.

Karim said a sentiment expressed on social media posting under the heading, “Failed amendment of Article 1(2)”, summed up the feeling now pervading in the state.

The anonymous posting alleged the bill was “a well thought-out play” by Dr Mahathir and “it was set up to fail in the first place”.

It also said Dr Mahathir “set it up” so that opposition MPs who did not vote for the proposed amendment would be blamed for not supporting it.

The bill failed as it could not muster the required two-thirds majority support in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat, 138 MPs of the 221 – one vacant seat as the MP recently died – voted for the bill, 10 votes shy of the 148 votes needed, while 59 abstained.

Karim said the failure of the bill’s passage was “exactly what Dr Mahathir wanted and he got it.”

Former DAP state assemblyman for Batu Lintang Voon Lee Shan shared Karim’s sentiment and said Putrajaya had succeeded in diverting the attention of the people by “creating an impression that the amendment to Article 1(2) was a sincere attempt to put Sabah and Sarawak on equal status with the Federation of Malaya”.

Voon, who left DAP in a seat swap, said the federal government had manipulated the emotions of the people of Sabah and Sarawak by promising to amend the constitution and elevate the status of both states.

“When the people of Sabah and Sarawak were drawn into debates about MA63 (Malaysia Agreement 1963) and the proposed amendment of Article 1(2), most of them forgot to look into the legality of the formation of Malaysia in their debates,” Voon, who is also the legal advisor to a small political party, Parti Bumi Kenyalang, said.

A bone of contention which led to Gabungan Parti Sarawak’s (GPS) 17 MPs abstaining from voting was the failure of the government to agree amending Article 160 (2) at the same time as amending Article 1(2).

Article 160 (2) defines the “Federation” as the federation established under the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1948.

Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister James Masing said in order to review Article 1 (2), Article 160 also needs to be amended at the same time.

“The PH government did not do that. If Dr Mahathir is genuine in giving Sarawak and Sabah the equal status, Articles 1 (2) and 160, among others, must be amended together.

“Only then equal status between Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah will come to play,” he said.

He said Dr Mahathir’s claims that the spirit of the MA63 will be kept, was not good enough.

“Putrajaya, especially Dr Mahathir, cannot be trusted because he had made so many U-turns on Sarawak, and broke so many promises since his time as prime minister.”

Masing said the holistic approach to the tabling of the bill, by first referring it to the parliamentary select committee as suggested by Santubong MP Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, “is the only way forward to stop Malaya from shortchanging Sarawak and Sabah again and again”.

“What the PH government did was just a political drama just to show the people they have fulfilled their election promises.

“The tabling of the amendment bill was in short, just a polemic exercise with no real intention to right the wrong of 1976.”

A former Sabah assemblyman James Ligunjang said Sarawakians and Sabahans must not blame their MPs who abstained from voting without understanding their valid reasons.

“Even if Article 1 (2) was to be reinstated to the pre-1976 definition, it still falls short to meet the threshold of equal status envisaged by the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

“On a cursory read it may appear that we are of equal status but in reality it is not,” said the former Petagas assemblyman.

He said the amendment to Article 1 (2) must therefore be “done in good faith, devoid of trickery and free from ambiguities to prevent future misinterpretation and misunderstanding”.

Like Masing, Ligunjang said the federal constitution is not a Malaysian constitution but that of the Federation of Malaya as defined by Article 160 (2).

“We must lay the foundation of a strong Malaysian identity fully expressed in a constitutional document devoid of semantics prejudicial to the spirit of Malaysia Agreement 1963,” he said.

State Reform Party (Star) president Lina Soo said she smelled something fishy when Sarawak Pakatan Harapan MPs “came up one after another to ask Sarawak MPs to support the bill.

“(But) they never revealed how the amendment (would) look like. Their desperate action is akin to asking us to sign a blank cheque.”

Soo said the wording on the Article 1 (2) did not reflect the pre-1976 constitution because the words “the States of Malaya” and the “Borneo States” as per MA63 had disappeared.

Soo said when they reworded the bill to reflect the pre-1976 constitution, the English version was correct but the Malay translation of it was incorrect.

“Borneo states became Negeri-Negeri Borneo.

“If we agree that Sarawak is a negeri, then we are equating Sarawak as one Malaya Negeri,  like Perlis!” Soo added – April 12, 2019.