Sarawak passes bill to lower minimum age for elected reps

KUCHING – The Sarawak state assembly today passed a bill to amend Article 16 of the state constitution to lower the minimum age required for a person to become an elected representative from 21 to 18 years old.

The Constitution of the State of Sarawak (Amendment) Bill, 2020, tabled by the state Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, was passed with more than a two-thirds majority as only nine assembly members were against it.

He tabled a similar bill last Tuesday, but Speaker Datuk Amar Mohd Asfia Awang Nassar decided to defer it as there were “obviously anomalies in definitions” in the bill that had to be addressed.

Announcing the withdrawal of the original bill today to make way for the new one, Abdul Karim said it was done to avoid the people of Sarawak from being confused by the opposition as to the real intent and objective of the amendment.

“The bill I am now introducing will remove all interpretative ambiguities or uncertainties as to the real intent and objective of the proposed amendments,” he said when tabling the bill.

Abdul Karim said the amendment would align the state constitution with the amended Article 47(b) and Article 119(1)(a) of the federal constitution which had reduced the qualifying age for the election to the Dewan Rakyat and to be an elector or voter, from 21 years old to 18 years old.

“Article 16 of the state constitution complies with the mandatory provision in Section 5 of the Eighth Schedule of the federal constitution which sets out the qualification of members of a state legislative assembly,” he said. 

For the second part of the Article 16 of the state constitution, which had been the focus of the debate for the bill, the amendment would see only two categories of people qualified to be defined as “resident of the state”.

They are citizens born in the state whose parents or either of them were also born in the state and normally reside in the state; or citizens, though not born in the state, whose parents or either of them were born in the State and normally reside in the State.

“People with no Sarawakian connection either by birth or the birth of their parents and who do not normally reside in Sarawak will be disqualified,” he added. – Bernama, November 12, 2020