Johor’s threatening to leave Malaysia again. Here’s how that might turn out.

To most Malaysians, Johor is known for two things: the Southern Tigers, and their audacity to come up with laksa Johor.

But more seriously though, Johor had always been known as that strong, independent brother character in Keluarga Malaysia, and recently this brother had yet again made a show of packing his bags and setting them at the door. A few days ago, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, the Sultan of Johor, had called for the Federal Government to give them more funds as he felt that Johor had been stepson’ed in that regard.

Following that, he suggested that Johor might be better off as their own country. Cue Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way‘.

“I feel as if Johor is treated like a stepchild, despite us being one of the main contributors to the nation’s economy… (If this trend continues,) Johoreans may push for secession from Malaysia. Perhaps Johor can be more developed if we stand on our own,” – Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, translated from Malaysia Gazette.

His Majesty then proceeded to list other ways that Johor had been sidelined, and if this all sounds familiar, you’re not wrong. They threatened leaving Malaysia several times before, and in fact, we’ve even written an article about this wayyyyyy back in 2015. This refresher is a more compact version of that, starting with the question you probably clicked on this article for…

So can Johor legit leave Malaysia if they want to?

Short answer: They probably can, but it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.

As far as we can tell, there’s currently no provision in Malaysian law for secession – the formal term for a state leaving a country and becoming independent. Back when the issue was raised in 2015, a member of the royal family had uploaded a screengrab of an article about a 1946 agreement that Johor had with Malaya. Basically, if any of the conditions that Johor set forth when they agreed to join – like keeping Islam as the state’s religion and preserving the state’s military force (yes, they have one) – are breached, Johor will leave Malaysia.

However, as some people have pointed out, the said agreement (as well as other colonial-era documents) should be considered null after Merdeka Day.

“The chapter for these things have closed, the powers of the Malay Rulers had been inserted in the Constitution.” – Prof Datuk Dr Ramlah Adam, director of UniMAP’s Research Center on Malaysia’s Royal Institutions (PKIRM), translated from a 2015 Astro Awani interview.

Perhaps the only mention of secession in Malaysian law that we know of comes from the original draft of the Sedition Act, because apparently inciting people to secede is seditious.

“A excites a person or a group of persons to demand for the secession of State B from Malaysia. Such act is seditious.” – Amendments list, p.2, Section 3(a).

So there’s not much clue about it in our law: it’s a pretty gray area. Some might say that Singapore is an example of a successful secession that we can refer to, but Singapore didn’t actually secede – they were kinda sorta expelled.

Talks about Sabah and Sarawak seceding had been popping up now and then, and if we can apply the same circumstances to Johor, there might be a jalan. According to the late Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing (former Deputy Chief Minister of Sarawak), secession may be possible through international law, through a referendum.

“Because of this misunderstanding and constant bickering, involving among others, the distribution of resources, some Sarawakians as well as Sabahans feel the only way out is divorce or in political terms, secession. There is, I am told, no provision in our Federal Constitution for secession. There is a recourse in international law which allows for a referendum. This is easier said than done,” – the late Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing, a quoted by Dayak Daily.

This is basically getting the International Court of Justice (IJC) involved, but secession may only be granted if Johor can strongly prove that the Federal Government had been oppressing them. So whether Johor can or is willing to jump through all these hoops just to stand on their own will remain to be seen, but just as Tan Sri Dr James said it…

Seceding is often easier said than done

As anyone who’d ever left some relationship can attest, breaking off is easy, but what happens next – being an independent person who needs no man/woman – is the hard part. If Johor secedes, they’ll probably have to become their own country, and there’s a lot of work that goes into that. This WikiHow article condensed everything you need to do to build your own nation into 15 seemingly easy steps, but some of the steps are more intimidating than others, like:

• establishing a government and/or constitution
• establishing a law system
• declaring your independence
• establishing an economy
• being recognized by the world community

Whether or not Johor is able to tick all these boxes will warrant a much more in-depth article, but it should be noted that successful secessions are quite rare, and history is rife with examples of unpleasant secessions. Perhaps the most familiar example to Malaysians would be the ongoing conflict between Taiwan and China, with China still maintaining that Taiwan is a part of them for the past half century. Pakistan and India are still at each other’s throats after Pakistan seceded in 1947. And Spain still won’t let Catalonia get away from them, using heavy force and laws to keep them bound.

We could go on and on, but the point here is that seceding is a lot of work, and even if it eventually happens, there will probably be a lot of pain in the future for everyone involved. Whether or not the recent statement is an actual threat to leave could be up for debate – it could just be an overly serious way to ask for more funding, we don’t know which. It would probably be worth the Federal Government’s time to look deeper into it though, because as some analysts have pointed out, this could be another sign of general discontent among Malaysians towards the situation we’re in.