I have just returned from a Roundtable on Foreign Relations in Federal Countries: The Case of Malaysia at the USM, Penang today.
The roundtable is sponsored by the Forum of Federations, Ottawa Canada and the Centre of International Studies, School of Social Sciences, USM.
The main theme is to explore the role of the constituent or state governments in international affairs constitutionally and politically.
I observed that under our Federalism, due to constitutional provisions and political control, State government has only minimum role not only in foreign affairs but also economic planning and other affairs of the State. While our Constitution provides for Federal legislations and regulatory mechanism, it is felt that the Federal government is found to be less sensitive to State problems.
A participant remarked that with so little power, we might as well do away with the State Government in our Federal system. More and more powers of the State Government have been taken away by Federal government. Opposition party will find it so untenable to convince the people that they are able to rule the State without the support of the Federal government.
State governments today are left with very few rights, in land matters and religious affairs. Even then, there are Federal legislations which grant substantial power to the Federal government, for example The Land Acquisition Act and the standardization of Islamic laws.
This is an important area in our political system and much more attention need to be given to ensure the people rights in State matters are not further eroded.
Another observation worthy of our concern is that Penang failed to emerge as the regional hub of global ICT industry because the State has so little power to do so. Almost everything comes under the purview of the Federal ministries.
