Abstract
The Federation of Malaya gained independence in 1957 after more than a century of British colonialism. In 1963, it expanded to become the Federation of Malaysia by including the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, and for a while (1963–1965), Singapore. Today, Malaysia comprises 11 states in peninsular Malaysia, the states of Sabah and Sarawak, and three federal territories (Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan).
Nominally, Malaysia practises a Westminster parliamentary democracy with an elected lower house and a nominated upper house. Each constituent state has an elected state legislative assembly. All parliamentary and state legislative assembly representatives are elected to single-member constituencies in a simple-majority electoral system.
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Notes
- 1.
The principle of subsidiarity asserts that taxing, spending and regulatory functions should be performed by the lowest level of authority that can perform the tasks competently, unless a convincing case can be made to assign these to higher orders of government.
- 2.
Francis Kok Wah Loh, “A New Sabah and the Spell of Development; Resolving Federal-state Relations in Malaysia,” South East Asia Research, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1996), 1976–85, pp. 63–84.
- 3.
Shankaran Nambiar, “The Practice of Fiscal Federalism in Malaysia,” in Anwar Shah (ed.), The Practice of Fiscal Federalism: Comparative Studies, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007, p. 186.
- 4.
The capitation grant is calculated based on a state’s population as recorded in the last census. In 2013, the formula used provided for: RM72.00 each for the first 100,000 residents; RM10.20 each for the next 500,000 residents; RM10.80 each for the following 500,000 residents and RM11.40 each for residents beyond that. The latest version of the formula was passed via Act of Parliament 622 in July 2002. The grants are given in January and June for each year. In 2007, Selangor, the state with the largest population received RM67,661,987; Perlis, with the smallest population, received RM8,389,573. Penang received RM22,417,694. Dewan Rakyat, 27 May 2008. See Chong Hui Wee, Regional Disparities and Federalism in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 2006, pp. 76–77 for capitation transfers during the early 1990s.
- 5.
Nambiar, “The Practice of Fiscal Federalism in Malaysia,” in Shah (ed.), The Practice of Fiscal Federalism, p. 190.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 187.
- 7.
Francis Kok Wah Loh, “Centralised Federalism in Malaysia: Is Change in the Offing?” in Meredith Weiss (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Malaysia, London and New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 72–82.
- 8.
Tricia Yeoh, States of Reform: Governing Selangor and Penang, Penang: Penang Institute, 2012, pp. 57–62.
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Loh, F.K.W. (2020). Malaysia (The Federation of Malaysia). In: Griffiths, A., Chattopadhyay, R., Light, J., Stieren, C. (eds) The Forum of Federations Handbook of Federal Countries 2020. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42088-8_15
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