Sipitang, Kundasang, Sook poll petitions struck out By Suraini Andokong
KOTA KINABALU: An election petition filed by a Parti Warisan Sabah candidate to challenge the victory of Tan Sri Musa Aman's son, Yamani Hafez, who won the Sipitang parliamentary seat in the 14th general election (GE14), was struck out with costs by the Election Court here yesterday.
In her reserved ruling, Justice Lee Heng Cheong struck out the election petition by Norhayaty Mustapha after allowing a preliminary objection raised by Yamani Hafez soon after the election petition was filed.
The court, who held the proceedings in chambers, ordered Norhayaty to pay RM20,000 costs to Yamani Hafez, while another RM5,000 global costs for both Sipitang returning officer (RO) and Election Commission (EC).
When met outside the court, counsel J. Marimuttu said basically, the main grounds in allowing the preliminary objection on the election petition was that the petitioner (Norhayaty) had substantially failed to comply with Section 38 (1) (a) of the Election Offences Act 1954 that the time when they filed the petition was out of time.
Marimuttu, who represented Yamani Hafez, also said another grounds was a non-compliance of Rule 4 (4)(1) of the Election Petition Rules 1954 which was the set out of the particulars of the offences on the election petition.
In her petition, which was filed on June 18, Norhayaty had named Yamani Hafez, RO and EC as the first, second and third respondents respectively, and questioned the results, claiming that the agents or appointees who were allegedly appointed by Yamani Hafez, whether through candidate representative or otherwise, and/or BN, had allegedly carried the tasks set out, including distributing and giving money to the registered voters on behalf of Yamani Hafez or BN during the said polling day in order to induce the said voters to vote for BN.
She also claimed that treating, intimidation, undue influence and bribery had so extensively prevailed and the said alleged acts may be reasonably supposed to have allegedly affected the results of the said election in that Hafez Yamani had won by a majority of 852 votes against her.
Apart from that, Norhayaty also claimed that the alleged noncompliance and misconducts by the RO and EC and/or its agent/ appointee had caused Norhayaty and her election agent or counting agent to rely on informal figures to draw up a comparison with the official results especially since Form 13 (Ballot Paper Statement) was not furnished at all the polling channels.
Meanwhile, the same court also struck out with costs Kundasang and Sook election petitions filed by Warisan candidates to question the GE14 results in the two State Assembly seats.
The judge also ordered Siriman@ Mohd Fazid Basir and Martin Tomy@ Tommy to pay the same costs to Kundasang and Sook assemblymen Dr Joachim Gunsalam and Datuk Ellron Angin respectively.
Siriman and Martin, who also filed their election petitions on June 18, named Joachim and Ellron as their first respondents while RO and EC as their second and third respondents respectively.
For Kundasang, the petitioner, Siriman, argued three issues in his election petition to challenge the victory of Joachim, which among others were bribery, illegality and undue influence.
The petitioner claimed that on bribery issue, several individuals were allegedly called up by the chairmen of the Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK), who were the alleged agents or appointees of Joachim, to go to their camps and were allegedly given some cash. The individuals had lodged police reports on the alleged corrupt actions between May 24 and 28.
On the illegality issue, the petitioner claimed that some civil servants, who were also early voters, were allegedly asked to vote for the BN candidate and if allegedly found not doing so, would be terminated from the department, and when casting their votes, they were allegedly supervised by a clerk of the department.
Then on the undue influence issue, the petitioner claimed that two staff of the same department had allegedly invited villagers to attend a briefing of the department which allegedly turned out to be a campaign for BN.
Then for Sook, the petitioner, Martin questioned in his petition on the alleged corrupt practice of the first respondent, Ellron or his agents by allegedly giving cash to villagers as an inducement to vote for BN.
The three petitioners also stated that all the respondents had allegedly committed offences under the Election Offences Act 1954 and sought declarations that the result was void, the three respondents were not duly elected or ought not to have been returned, costs and any other relief deemed fit by the court.
Counsels Fareez Salleh and Chung Jiun Dau represented Norhayaty, Siriman was represented by counsel Baldev Singh and Stella Simon while Martin was represented by counsels Nelson W. Angang and Jaikol Situn.
Tengku Fuad Tengku Ahmad also represented all the first respondents and counsels Japar Esteban, Muammar Julkarnain, Shahlan Jufri, Syahrulnizam Salleh, Abdul Fikry Jaafar Abdullah and Faizal Sardi represented the ROs and EC.