KOTA KINABALU: Nominated assemblyman Datuk Roger Chin (
pic) criticised the Election Commission's (EC) remarks on electoral imbalance, describing the framing as troubling in a Facebook statement on Saturday.
Responding to comments by EC deputy chairman Azmi Sharom, Chin said that although Sabah and Sarawak were not explicitly labelled “over-represented”, treating the issue mainly as voters per constituency carried an unmistakable implication.
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“That framing is incomplete,” Chin said, arguing that Malaysia’s formation was not based on population arithmetic alone.
He said Sabah and Sarawak entered the federation through the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), which was a negotiated constitutional settlement founded on equal partnership, safeguards and balance rather than majoritarian logic.
While acknowledging that the Federal Constitution allows flexibility in drawing constituency boundaries, including geography and population density, Chin said such discretion must operate within the federation’s founding bargain and not apart from it.
“Parliamentary representation for Sabah and Sarawak was meant to secure voice and influence, not merely mirror population size,” he said, adding that this explained why the idea of roughly one-third representation mattered even if it was not explicitly stated in today’s constitutional text.
Chin warned that when senior election officials speak as if representation is only a numbers problem, they risk quietly recasting Malaysia as a population-weighted unitary state, stressing that MA63 remains unfinished constitutional business rather than history.
