Would Malaysia ever see a Prime Minister from either Sarawak or Sabah?
In the lexicon of Malaysian politics, politics and who is governing or fighting to govern the country known as Malaysia is always all about political parties and politicians in Semenanjung Malaysia.
Talks and rumors of who will be the front runners that will be the Prime Minister are always confined to politicians and political parties based in Semenanjung Malaysia.
Never for one single instance that politicians and political parties in Sabah and Sarawak are ever mentioned as a potential or shooed in candidate as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
According to Britannica, Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia, lying just north of the Equator, that is composed of two noncontiguous regions: Peninsular Malaysia (Semenanjung Malaysia), also called West Malaysia (Malaysia Barat), which is on the Malay Peninsula, and East Malaysia (Malaysia Timur), which is on the island of Borneo.
The total population of Sabah is approximately 3.8 million, and Sarawak has about 2.5 million residents.
Together, these two East Malaysian states account for roughly 6.3 million people out of Malaysia's overall population of 34.4 million.
Sabah (25) and Sarawak (31) have a combined total of 56 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Dewan Rakyat,
In the last 15th GE, GPS, the political coalition in Sarawak secured 23 seats while PKR secured 29 Members of Parliament (MPs).
Overall, Pakatan Harapan comprising of PKR, DAP and Amanah collectively has 77 seats.
In the game of chess known as the Sheraton Move in Feb 2020, when Bersatu officially withdrew from the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, triggering the collapse of the federal government, it only has 26 Members of Parliament (MPs).
To maximize its strength and form the new Perikatan Nasional (PN) government, Bersatu immediately absorbed a large defection faction where 11 MPs from PKR crossed over to officially join Bersatu bringing their total MPs to 37.
On a whole, it is highly unlikely a single political party or a coalition will win an outright majority in Malaysia's future elections.
Sinnce 2018, the country has permanently shifted from a dominant one-party system to a multi-coalition reality.
The "First Past the Post" (FPTP) voting system—where the candidate with the most votes wins a specific district—combined with deep fragmentation in the Malay-majority vote means that seats are split across too many competing factions for one group to dominate.
Given their past history, PAS will not work with Bersatu going forward nor Pakatan will work with PAS and Bersatu.
With such animosity amongst them, a collaboration or marriage of convenience between them post the 16th GE seems far fetched at the present moment.
Thus, any political parties or coalition in Semenanjung Malaysia that wish to govern Malaysia needs the collaboration and support of all the MPs from Sabah & Sarawak.
If so, the political parties or coalition from Sabah & Sarawak deserves and should have the opportunity to be named the Prime Minister as with any other candidates from the parties in Semenanjung Malaysia.
There is always a first in every thing.
And there is nothing in the law or the constitution stating that the Prime Minister must be from Semenanjung Malaysia.
Malaysians should give an opportunity to a politician from Sarawak or Sabah to lead the country.
And politicians from Sarawak & Sabah should seize this opportunity and take up the cudgel and show Malaysians from Semenanjung Malaysia that they can lead and govern the country too, not just their respective states.
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