Kota Kinabalu: Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament Datuk Chan Foong Hin has welcomed the Federal Government's agreement in principle to increase the number and proportion of parliamentary seats allocated to Sabah and Sarawak.
Chan, who is also Deputy Agriculture and Food Security Minister, said the move aligns with the spirit of restoring balance to the power-sharing framework established during the formation of Malaysia in 1963, when Malaya alone did not hold the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments.
He warned that with Malaysian politics increasingly polarised along racial, religious, and regional lines, a peninsula-dominant coalition could potentially secure a two-thirds majority in Parliament in the future.
According to Chan, restoring approximately one-third parliamentary representation for the Borneo states serves as a crucial constitutional safeguard to prevent any temporary political majority from unilaterally altering the Federation's fundamental character.
He urged the Federal Government, the Sabah and Sarawak Governments, the Election Commission (EC), and relevant stakeholders to initiate serious discussions to translate this principle into a fair and constitutionally sound arrangement.
