“STAR supports extra seats for Sabah, Sarawak”

By Datuk Jeffrey Kitingan

“STAR Sabah supports additional state and parliamentary seats for Sabah and Sarawak and the need to observe the composition ratio of parliamentary seats agreed at the formation of Malaysia as well as ensure a fairer and more equitable distribution of funds for each constituency and the access to facilities and amenities by the people in both States” stated Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, Chairman of STAR Sabah in response to the opinion and suggestion of lawyer, Yunuf Maringking, on additional seats for Sabah.

Demands for seats increase not as rational as they sound

We have noticed that for a while now there has been a lot of proposal to increase the number of parliamentary and state seats, with most of the opposition as well as the ruling coalition members supporting the move. Only Datuk Lajim Ukin has so far expressed disagreement with his colleagues’ proposal. He said this doesn’t make sense because the number of voters in some seats are too small, e.g. his Beaufort parliamentary constituency is only about 28,000 while the Sipitang and Kimanis parliamentary constituencies have only about 22,000 each.