Projek Sama said all Malaysians who genuinely want Sabah and Sarawak to have veto power should support the proposal to increase the number of senators from each state from two to 17, and for these senators to be directly elected.
“The biggest difference in constitutional veto between 35% MPs from East Malaysia and 34 senators representing Sabah and Sarawak is in the elected nature of MPs.
“(Thus) the solution is simple: eliminate the difference. Let voters elect the 34 senators from Sabah and Sarawak so that they can be as independent as the elected MPs,” the NGO said in a statement.
It added that this solution is possible without affecting the existing 44 federal appointees and 22 other state appointees to the Senate.
“This pathway has been provided by the Federal Constitution but regrettably not utilised under the Malaysia Agreement 1963,” it said, referring to Article 45(4)(b) which permits Parliament to decide that senators for each state be chosen by the direct vote of the electorate.
Projek Sama was responding to criticisms over its previous proposal to allocate 15 additional Senate seats each for Sabah and Sarawak, ensuring a one-third veto power to block any unilateral constitutional amendments by Peninsular Malaysia.
A group of 11 NGOs from the Bornean states said the Senate was not where “the power lay” and that if this were the case, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak leaders would have requested a third of the Dewan Negara seats back in 1963.
They said the proper “historical correction” to be done is to redistribute the Dewan Rakyat seats given to Singapore before it left the federation in 1965 to Sabah and Sarawak.
Projek Sama, in response, said these claims were fundamentally a blanket distrust of senators from East Malaysia – that even if the 34 senators are to be appointed by the state legislative assemblies of Sabah and Sarawak, they still cannot be trusted to defend MA63.
It said that an honest reading of the Federal Constitution’s Article 68(5) shows that if 35% of senators oppose constitutional amendments, they cannot be passed, safeguarding constitutional protection for Sabah and Sarawak under MA63.