Proposed new seven Sabah seats ill-conceived, says politician

By Ezra Haganez

KOTA KINABALU: The recently-announced proposal to create seven more new state constituencies in Sabah to make it 67, will further reduce the Christian-majority seats in the already muslim-dominated State Assembly, claims a leader of a local political party.

Parti Kerjasama Rakyat Sabah (PAKAR) deputy president, Paulus Gani, said as such the exercise is not a noble and clean exercise let alone reflect the true spirit of partnership in the country.

The balance between the major communities is lost, he said, explaining that the last time an exercise by the Federal-controlled SPR to increase the seats from 48 to current 60, the 20-20-8 sharing formula between non-muslim bumiputeras, muslim bumiputras and chinese, was changed to 34-18-8.

"If the fresh proposal is approved, the equation would be worse, maybe 39 seats for muslim community, 20 for non-muslim natives with chinese remains at eight seats.

"Whatever sense of fairness is lost forever with this SPR proposal, but it is not too late for the State to work things out with the Federal for a better than this formula to cherish Sabah's way of genuine ethnic proposition," Paulus said in a statement here today.

The proposed seven new constituencies are Darau within the Sepanggar parliamentary seat, Mengkabong in Tuaran, Limbahau in Papar, Pandasan in Kota Belud, Sepagaya in Lahad Datu, Langkon in Kota Marudu and Bukit Garam in Kinabatangan.

Paulus said SPR should have consulted all stakeholders of Sabah and not just parties within the ruling Barisan Nasional.

He claimed that no matter how SPR and the ruling party try to defend their ill-conceived proposal, the thinking people could make their own conclusion of an evil scheme.

"They wont be able to fool all the people all the time. Certainly the ideologues and co-perpetrators of such heinous political scheme against multi-culturalism would not escape the scrutiny of God. We should reflect why so much problems have befallen Malaysia lately.

"It is interesting to note that the ruling party and SPR failed to see the need to create even a single new chinese majority seat in this review. It is obvious why they did this kind of proposal," Paulus said.

According to Paulus, even for the Kota Belud area for example, with the proposed Pandasan, the Dusuns who are the single largest ethnic group in the area could end up with only Kadamaian seat while the muslims could have three seats - Usukan, Tempasuk and Pandasan - depending on how SPR carve Pandasan out of the three state seats currently.

The Dusuns formed the largest single ethnic block in Kota Belud followed by a sizeable Bajaus and smaller number of Iranuns and a tiny Chinese community.

Paulus called for repentance from those in power not to play too much with the natural demographic of an already divided Sabah, saying the power that be should not harden their hearts like the Pharaoh in olden Egypt who in the end faced the wrath of God Himself.