However, he said the government’s priority now is to resolve the remaining four outstanding issues under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
Leiking said the one-third representation topic is not part of the 21 issues discussed by the special Cabinet committee to review the implementation of MA63.
He said the committee has resolved 17 of the 21 issues. Those outstanding issues are on oil royalty and petroleum cash payments, oil minerals and oil fields, the Territorial Seas Act 2012 (Act 750), and state rights over the continental shelf.
“This is the first phase of solving conflicting issues between the federal government and the states (Sabah and Sarawak). We hope that once we resolve these issues, we can look into the issue of one-third representation.
“I think this is something we have to consider; how we reach there is another thing. We will deal with it when the time comes,” he told reporters after an event in Penampang, near here, today.
Yesterday, Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg said the parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak must be more than one-third of the total seats in Parliament.
“Previously, with Singapore in, we had more than one-third (of the seats) but now, we have less than that,” he said.
He said Putrajaya must get the support of Sabah and Sarawak, especially when it wants to amend the Federal Constitution, “instead of confining the support to Malaya”.
Sarawak has 31 seats and Sabah 25 out of 222 seats in the current Parliament. When Malaysia was formed in 1963, Malaya held two-thirds of the seats with one-third held by Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore (Malaya 104, Singapore 15, Sabah 16 and Sarawak 24).
However, when Singapore left the federation, its 15 parliamentary seats were not allocated to Sabah and Sarawak.
Leiking said he and Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal had also spoken to each other about the matter, adding that Shafie was concerned about it as well.
“You can see how strong Shafie felt about increasing our seats. He was the one who got the federal government and parliament to approve the additional 13 state seats in Sabah,” he said.