By Rebecca Chong

Sg Sibuga, Libaran election petitions struck out

SANDAKAN: The Election Court here yesterday struck out with costs of RM40,000 an election petition filed by Parti Warisan Sabah candidate for the Sungai Sibuga state seat, Asmara Abdul Rahman, to challenge the victory of incumbent Tan Sri Musa Aman in the 14th General Election.

In his reserved decision, judge Azhahari Kamal Ramli, among others, held that the petitioner had only filed two copies of the petition when three copies were required.

The judge also ruled that there was a non-compliance of Section 38(1)(a) of the Election Offences Act, in which the judge said that any act of receiving money must be acted upon within 28 days from the act of bribery.

Asmara, who filed the petition on June 18, had named Musa, the returning officer (RO) and the Election Commission (EC) as first, second and third respondents respectively.

Meanwhile, the same court also struck out an election petition filed by Warisan candidate for Libaran parliamentary seat, Irwanshah Mustapa, who challenged the victory of Datuk Zakaria Mohd Edris.

Irwanshah, who filed the petition also on June 18, named Zakaria as first respondent while the RO and EC as second and third respondents respectively.

The judge ordered both the petitioners to pay RM30,000 cost to the first respondents and another RM10,000 cost to the second and third respondents.

In their petitions, Asmara and Irwanshah claimed that there were alleged cheating and claimed deliberate delay over the signing of Form 14 after ballot counting at Dewan Sri Libaran, Mile 7 here.

They also claimed that several recounts were then carried out before the winner was finally announced at 3am.

Asmara had lost to Musa in a threecornered fight with a majority of 2,184 votes. Asmara garnered 12,319 votes against Musa’s 14,503 votes.

Irwanshah, who was also involved in a three-cornered fight, garnered 17,121 against Zakaria’s 17,799, with a slim majority of 678 votes.

Counsel Mohd Azhier Farhan Arisin, J. Marimuttu, Rizwandean Bukhari M. Borhan, Tengku Fuad Tengku Ahmad and Mohd Reduan Aklee represented both Musa and Zakaria, while Asmara and Irwanshah were represented by counsel Majnah Abdillah with Zaleha Yusuf Pan while RO and EC were represented by counsel Muammar Julkarnain, Japar Esteban, Abdul Fikry Jaafar Abdullah and Norlaily Anuar.

Asmara and Irwanshah did not comment on the judge’s verdict, but Irwanshah had posted a public post on his Facebook account to thank the witnesses, lawyers and supporters of Warisan who had supported and helped in the petition process.

About 50 Warisan supporters were present at the courthouse here to show support for the petitioners.