KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today reiterated that increasing the number of parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak has been adopted as a policy under his administration.
According to Berita Harian, the prime minister said that while the move does not fulfil the one-third parliamentary representation sought by political leaders in both states, the federal government’s commitment to adding seats is firm.
“For Sabah and Sarawak, I have already made the decision and informed the Cabinet that we will increase the seats. There is no commitment to one-third (of Parliament) for now, but there is a commitment to an increase.
“I have asked the Sabah and Sarawak state legal advisers, as well as the attorney general, to resolve the matter. But the principle of increasing parliamentary constituencies has already been set as policy,” he said during a breakfast and informal dialogue session with Sabah media practitioners in Kota Kinabalu today, as cited by the national daily.
The proposal to increase seats in Sabah and Sarawak is among the issues being negotiated in the ongoing Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) meetings.
Sabah currently has 25 parliamentary seats while Sarawak has 31.
Last month, at an event in Tawau, Anwar said this would mark the first time since 1963 that a prime minister had agreed to add parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak.
