EC to make decision on Rantau by-election tomorrow

PUTRAJAYA: Rantau voters will know around midday tomorrow when they will go to the ballot box again to pick their assemblyman.

The Election Commission (EC) will meet on that day to decide on the key dates for the by-election.

This will be the seventh by-election to be held in less than a year since the 14th General Election.

On Feb 18, the Federal Court upheld an Election Court ruling to nullify the results of Rantau, where Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan had won the state seat unopposed.

Election Court judge Azimah Omar allowed an election petition filed by Dr S. Streram, who was denied entry to submit his nomination form due to the absence of the tag or pass.

Dr Streram had sought for a by-election to be held for the seat on grounds that Mohamad’s election was not valid.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, when asked on PKR’s candidate for Rantau, said the party’s political bureau would meet to decide on this.

“The political bureau will meet and we will then discuss on who should stand in Rantau,” she said at the Women and Community Development Ministry’s excellence award presentation yesterday.

Dr Wan Azizah however declined to comment when asked whether Dr Streram would still be the PKR candidate for Rantau.

This question came after Pakatan Harapan by-election machinery task force rejected him as a candidate.

The EC meeting would also be the first time this year where the five new commissioners would also sit to decide on by-election dates.

The posts had been vacant since Jan 1 after six of the previous commissioners resigned. The EC had met without any commissioners aside from the chairman when they convened a meeting for the Semenyih by-election.

This led to a voter from Semenyih to sue the EC, where she sought a declaration that the commission does not exist, had become illegal or unconstitutional after Jan 1.

However, four days before the March 2 Semenyih by-election, the Shah Alam High Court decided that the commission’s calling for the polls was made in accordance with the law.

Last month, Chief Secretary to the Government Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Bakar announced the appointments of Universiti Malaya law lecturer Dr Azmi Shahrom, Dr Faisal S. Hazis from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, former Foreign Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Ramlan Ibrahim, former Labour Department director-general Datuk Chin Phaik Yoong and former Bersih 2.0 activist Zoe Randhawa as commissioners.