A proposal to reserve 35% of Dewan Rakyat seats for Sabah and Sarawak could worsen existing electoral disparities, with reform group Projek SAMA arguing that East Malaysian interests would be better protected through a strengthened Dewan Negara.
Thomas said Malaysia already faces significant differences in constituency sizes, and allocating 35% of parliamentary seats to Sabah and Sarawak would widen the gap further.
Citing an earlier Projek SAMA analysis, he said such an arrangement could result in a vote in East Malaysia carrying about 2.6 times the weight of the average vote in Peninsular Malaysia, and around four times the value of a vote in Selangor.
“That does not strengthen democracy. It creates another democratic distortion to ‘solve’ a federalism problem,” he said.
Thomas stressed that the constitutional rights and interests of Sabah and Sarawak must be safeguarded, but argued that this should not be achieved by making some Malaysians’ votes worth several times more than others.
Instead, Projek SAMA has proposed expanding the Dewan Negara to 100 members, with Sabah and Sarawak allocated 17 senators each and Labuan one.
Under the proposal, East Malaysia would hold 35% of the seats in the Senate, giving Sabah and Sarawak an effective safeguard against constitutional amendments affecting their interests.
Thomas said constitutional amendments cannot simply bypass the Dewan Negara, making the upper house a more appropriate institution for protecting the federal balance.
He also proposed that senators from Sabah and Sarawak eventually be elected directly, giving them a clearer democratic mandate.
Such an arrangement, he said, would be more consistent with the principles of federalism, where the Dewan Rakyat represents the population while the Dewan Negara protects the interests of the states and the federation.
Thomas argued that the legitimate objective of safeguarding the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) could therefore be achieved without distorting representation in the Dewan Rakyat, which ultimately determines who forms the federal government.
He added that the debate should not focus solely on increasing Sabah and Sarawak’s parliamentary representation, pointing out that several states in Peninsular Malaysia, including Selangor and Kelantan, are also under-represented relative to their number of voters.
A broader reform, he said, should include amendments to Article 46 of the Federal Constitution to address disparities in representation between states.
This should be followed by a redelineation exercise aimed at producing more balanced constituencies within each state.
Parliamentary seats should generally be distributed more fairly according to voter population, he said, while still allowing reasonable consideration for genuinely large and difficult-to-access rural constituencies.
Thomas said the issue should not be framed as a contest between Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia.
The real challenge, he added, is to design institutions that protect Sabah and Sarawak without weakening the democratic rights of voters elsewhere.
“Let the Dewan Rakyat represent Malaysians as equally as reasonably possible. Let a reformed and strengthened Dewan Negara protect Sabah, Sarawak and Malaysia’s federal character.
“We should not solve a federalism problem by creating a democracy problem,” he said.
