The failure to realise MA63, Upko president Wilfred Madius Tangau said, had frustrated the people in Sabah and Sarawak.
The first step in formulating a new deal would be via the establishment of a federal-state council within PH – of which Upko would play a part – made up of key leaders from Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak, he said.
“The council can then study and discuss how the interests of the federal government, regions (Sabah and Sarawak) and states can be rationalised and balanced,” he said in his Malaysia Day address, which falls on Sept 16.
Tangau also proposed a new political framework which he described as a “1+2+11 solution”, which involves one federal government, two regional governments (Sabah and Sarawak) and 11 state governments (in Peninsular Malaysia).
An inter-governmental committee should be established to ensure all the levels of government worked together to enhance Malaysia’s political transformation and economic resilience, he said.
Tangau also said Sabah, Sarawak and the 11 states in Peninsular Malaysia, which, he claimed, were “victims of over-centralisation” should work together to demand decentralisation from the federal government.
Calling this a 2+11 team-up between East and West Malaysia, Tangau said this partnership “can demand concurrent powers in policy domains like education and health, sharing of tax revenue and having an elected and enhanced senate with veto power given to Sabah and Sarawak”.
Tangau also added that as part of the renegotiation of Malaysia’s federalism, PH should, via the opposition’s political agreement with Putrajaya, demand for absentee voting rights for those living out of Sabah and Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia to cast their votes for their home constituency.
Currently, 300,000 Sabahans and 200,000 Sarawakians live in Peninsular Malaysia and it was not fair to ask them to pay around RM1,000 to go back to vote in their home state, said Tangau.
He added that this was among the factors which contributed to the much lower voter turnout in Sabah and Sarawak compared with other states.