DAP MPs opposed the 1976 Malaysian Constitution Amendment to downgrade Sabah and Sarawak from “territories” to “states” while all government MPs in Sabah and Sarawak voted in support of the Constitution Amendment

The 15th General Election on Nov. 19, 2022 is a Malaysian Parliamentary Election to elect the Federal Government in Putrajaya and decide who will be the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia and not a Sabah state election to elect the Sabah state government and the Sabah state chief minister.

DAP had always been in the forefront upholding healthy and proper Federal-State relations in the last six decades.

This is why all the Sabah and Sarawak government Members of Parliament supported the Malaysian Constitution Amendment on July 13, 1976 to downgrade Sabah and Sarawak from “territories” to “states”, which all DAP MPs (including me) opposed and voted against the Malaysian Constitution Amendment.

Now, Sabah and Sarawak want to further amend the Malaysian Constitution to restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak from “states” to “territories”.

Why then amend the Malaysian Constitution in 1976 to downgrade the status of Sabah and Sarawak from “territories” to “states”?

Can all the government political parties explain why in 1976, their Members of Parliament supported the downgrading of Sabah and Sarawak from “territories” to “states”?

This is like the Batu Sumpah to be found in Keningau.

For close to half a century, the Keningau Batu Sumpah had been completely forgotten whether by national or Sabah leaders, and never been raised in the Malaysian Parliament until I visited Keningau in March 2010 together with two DAP MPs, Teo Nie Ching and Lim Lip Eng.

Until then, I had never heard of the Keningau Batu Sumpah because no one ever raised it not even in Parliament by Sabah Barisan Nasional Members of Parliament.

The Keningau Batu Sumpah inscribed the historic guarantees given to Sabahans in the interior for Sabah’s joining in forming Malaysia in 1963 – about freedom of religion, that land will forever be a state matter and customary rights will forever be respected and safeguarded by the government.

After my March 2010 visit to the Keningau Batu Sumpah, it was clear that the solemn pledges laid out in the trinity of rights to Sabahans from the interior in exchange for the formation of Malaysia had not been honoured and fulfilled.

As a result, I became the first Member of Parliament to raise the Keningau Batu Sumpah issue in Parliament, and since then, DAP MPs from Sabah had consistently raised the issue in Parliament.

We also launched a Batu Sumpah Awareness campaign, and Czech writer Milan Kundera’s famous quote “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” was most apt to use during the Batu Sumpah Awareness Campaign.

This is the proof that through the last six decades, the DAP had been better champions of the right of Sabah and Sarawak than Sabah government MPs.

The Pakatan Harapan candidate for the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, had announced in Sarawak that if Pakatan Harapan returns to Putrjayaa in the 15th General Election, it will resolve all the issues to restore the rights of Sabah and Sarawak in accordance with the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

If Pakatan Government had five years, and not toppled by the undemocratic and illegitimate Sheraton Move political conspiracy, the PH government would have implemented its election promises to restore the rights of Sabah and Sarawak in accordance with the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

Many had claimed that the Pakatan Harapan government failed to restore the rights of Sabah and Sarawak – but the PH government had only 22 months before it was toppled when it was an election manifesto for five years.

The two backdoor governments of Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri had a total tenure of 31 months – longer than the 22-month PH government – but have these two backdoor governments restored the rights of Sabah and Sarawak according to Malaysia Agreement 1963 ? The answer is a thunderous “NO”.

Who is to be believed – the PH government or the two backdoor governments of Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri?