KUCHING: Political analyst Professor James Chin has alleged a recent Keluar Sekejap podcast misrepresented the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), backing Senator Robert Lau Hui Yew’s criticism that the discussion contained historical inaccuracies.
The criticism followed Episode 207 of the podcast, released on Jul 28, hosted by former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin and former Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan, which featured Multimedia University law lecturer Muhammad Hafiz Hassan discussing federalism, MA63 and the constitutional position of Sarawak and Sabah.
Questioning Hafiz’s expertise on the subject, Chin claimed the podcast had deliberately invited someone unfamiliar with MA63 to present a distorted narrative.
“The host deliberately invited someone unfamiliar with MA63 to distort historical facts and advance a Malaya-centric narrative,” he said on a facebook post on Thursday (Jul 30).
Chin also claimed Hafiz had made “elementary mistakes” during the discussion and said the law lecturer’s publicly available academic profile did not indicate any research or publications on MA63 or Borneo constitutional issues.
Chin also voiced support for Lau’s criticism of the podcast, saying he stood with the senator over the issue.
“I stand with my friend Senator Robert Lau!” he said.
He further claimed there was a broader campaign to undermine the constitutional rights of Sabah and Sarawak under MA63.
“Like I said, Malaya is mounting a huge campaign to stop Sabah and Sarawak from getting their founding rights under MA63,” he said.
Chin also claimed he had been unable to get his views on MA63 published by media organisations in Malaya.
Lau had earlier disputed several claims made during the podcast, including assertions that Sarawak and Sabah joined Malaysia through a referendum and the constitutional position of the two Borneo states under MA63.
