The agreement between the federal government and Sabah and Sarawak needs to be reviewed to give the two East Malaysian states greater autonomy and development, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

The Pakatan Harapan prime ministerial candidate said this was because Sabah and Sarawak had entered into the Malaysia Agreement, made in July 1963, as partners and not as normal states.

"When we negotiated to establish Malaysia, we negotiated between Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak.

"But when we formed Malaysia, we did not regard Sabah and Sarawak as (partners) but as states merely on the same level as Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and so on.

"So we need to review our agreement with them and give them more power to ensure greater development," Mahathir said in a Facebook live talk this morning.

He was responding to a question from a viewer on his thoughts regarding poverty among the bumiputera in Sabah and Sarawak and the lack of development in those two states.

Mahathir said with power centralised in Kuala Lumpur, the federal government had not given adequate attention to East Malaysia.

This also needs to change, he said, to ensure equal development and equal socio-economic standings.

Nationalist sentiments have been on the rise in Sabah and Sarawak over the past few years, with isolated groups even going as far as mooting for secession from the federation.

Both BN and Harapan have been catering to the nationalist sentiments, especially in Sarawak, promising greater autonomy to the state governments.

Harapan, in the second part of it Sarawak manifesto unveiled last Saturday, promised to return 50 percent of Sarawak's tax revenue, as well as to increase oil and gas royalties to 20 percent.