COMMENTARY: Decentralisation: Sarawak and Sabah should lead the Malayan states

THE fight for Sarawak’s and Sabah’s decentralisation has been done by exclusively engaging the federal government and excluding the Malayan states. Does it benefit Sarawak and Sabah by assigning the 87 per cent voters in the peninsula to be represented by the federal government?

This strategy is rooted in the ‘equal partnership’ discourse: Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore did negotiate as equal partners in formation of Malaysia, with the last three backed by the United Kingdom.

Where Borneo was concerned, much of the negotiation was done through the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC), on a 1 (United Kingdom) + 1 (Malaya) + 2 (North Borneo and Sarawak) basis.

The fear of involving the Malayan States was that it would reduce Sarawak and Sabah to be two of 13, not two of three. And this fear has a real basis in 1976: Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution was amended to collapse ‘the States of Malaya’ and ‘the Borneo States’ into an undifferentiated list of 13.

The reversal took 45 years, completed only in 2021 under the stewardship of the then Law Minister (now Sarawak Governor and Tun) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

However, contrary to a popular myth, Sarawak and Sabah were not upgraded to ‘regions’ or ‘territories’. The restored wording in Article 1(2)(b) originally installed by MA63 is ‘the Borneo states, namely Sabah and Sarawak’.

A recognition of Sarawak and Sabah as ‘regions’ would have gone beyond the letters of the Malaysian Agreement 1963 (MA63) but it would have been a better reflection of reality: Malaysia is an asymmetric federation, with Sarawak and Sabah as special regions with more rights than the Malayan states.

Here comes a pertinent question: should MA63 be the floor or the ceiling of our aspiration for decentralisation?

Coming back on whether Sarawak and Sabah should recognise and involve the Malayan states as stakeholders, the question to ask is: what happened to the Malayan states after the Malaysia Day?

As made clear by Article 1 of MA63, which reads: “The Colonies of North Borneo and Sarawak and the State of Singapore shall be federated with the existing States of the Federation of Malaya…”, the 11 Malayan states did not dissolve to form a single region of Malaya to be on par with Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore.

Instead, the old Federation of Malaya was effectively dissolved for the 11 states to join Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore to form the new Federation of Malaysia.

The equal partnership was translated into two things: a shared ownership of the federal government and more rights for Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore.

In this sense, the Federation of Malaysia today has two basic elements: first, Sabah and Sarawak as the special regions with more power; and second, the continued existence of 11 Malayan states, nine of which with a hereditary monarch to take turn as the federal King.

Represented mathematically, Malaysia is neither 1 (federal government) + 13 (equal states), nor 1 (federal government representing only Malaya) + 2 (Sarawak and Sabah), but 1 (federal government for all states) + 2 (Sarawak and Sabah) + 11 (Malayan states).

So, since the 11 still exists, which formation in negotiation would benefit Sarawak and Sabah in pushing for MA63’s realisation? Assigning the 87 per cent Malayan voters to the federal government, hence 1+11 v 2? Or, getting the 87 per cent Malayan voters to support the Borneo demands, hence 1 v 2 +11?

The answer is not rocket science. Kept free from a nationwide pressure, any PM would only make perfunctory promises and piecemeal delivery to Sarawak and Sabah. In fact, making too many concessions may make him vulnerable to anger by Malayan voters and attacks by his Malayan rivals.

Doesn’t this explain Borneo’s frustration in the progress of MA63 realisation after six PMs since 2008? While the political tsunami has turned Sarawak Sabah from fixed deposits to kingmakers, the fragmentation in Malayan politics is not enough to bring about real decentralisation.

It is time for Sarawak and Sabah to consider a second-track diplomacy between the two and 11 states, besides the Federal-Sarawak-Sabah tripartite negotiation.

Would any Malayan Menteri Besar or Chief Minister decline an invitation to a Premier/CM/MB summit that produces an agenda of nationwide decentralisation, with common and specific demands for various states?

When a 2+11 consensus emerges, Sarawak and Sabah can then press for an IGC 2.0 with a 1+2+11 composition and an MA63+ package agenda.

We should dare to dream for MA63+. For example, Singapore got to control education, healthcare and labour in MA63. This was a compensation for Singapore’s parliamentary under-representation with only 9.4 per cent parliamentary seats as compared to Sarawak’s 15.1 per cent and Sabah’s 10.1 per cent, despite having a large population than Sabah and Sarawak combined.

Can’t Sarawak and Sabah negotiate for similar powers? Sarawak has in fact claimed some autonomy in education. The next step should be entrenching that autonomy in the 9th Schedule.

Leadership is the best antidote to colonisation and marginalisation. Sarawak and Sabah leaders should step up to lead a nationwide transformation, not counting on other’s generosity.

More than any other state leaders, they can change our nation’s destiny. This has been my thought for more than a decade, hopefully soon a reality.

* Prof Wong Chin Huat is a political scientist and Deputy Head (Strategy) of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Asia Headquarters at Sunway University.