EC hands over papers for recount
All Tasek Gelugor election documents handed over to court
The Election Commission (EC) has handed over all documents related to voting for the Tasek Gelugor parliamentary constituency to the Election Court here.
A recount has been ordered by the Election Court following a successful appeal by Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Marzuki Yahya.
The seat was won by Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Shabudin Yahya by 81 votes during the 14th General Election.
The court on Dec 21 ordered the EC to bring all Form 14s for Tasek Gelugor and to allow the documents to be scrutinised by
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lawyers of both parties.
Form 14s are final tallied results from each polling district, a grand total of which is used to determine who has won.
Marzuki’s lead counsel Haniff Khatri Abdulla, who met newsmen outside the court, said all lawyers involved had taken a non-disclosure oath.
“I am not at liberty to reveal the number of Form 14s or any other details pertaining to the case until we meet again on Jan 14.
“All the documents were revealed before High Court senior assistant registrar Mohd Ridzwan Salleh and were photocopied for parties involved in the petition,” he said.
Haniff was assisted by Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali and Azlina Mehtab Mohd Ishak while Shabudin was represented by lawyer Simon Tan, and Sathya Kumardas appeared for the EC.
Marzuki’s petition was thrown out earlier in September and he appealed the decision in the Federal Court which ordered for a retrial as there was a high number of spoilt votes of 689 with another 297 unreturned postal votes.
Shabudin garnered 18,547 votes while Marzuki received 18,466 with PAS candidate Rizal Hafiz Ruslan receiving 14,891 votes.