Api-api independent not conceding defeat
KOTA KINABALU: The elections for N15 Api Api, N16 Luyang and P172 Kota Kinabalu seats are far from over until the court has ruled on the matter, said lawyer Marcel Jude.
Marcel who contested as an independent candidate in ApiApi and lost, said the chairman of the Election Commission ( EC) had said that there were 60,673 dubious entries in the electoral rolls of Sabah and these would include N15, N16 and P172.
Marcel filed a judicial review to dispute the electoral rolls and the application was fixed for hearing in the High Court on June 10, 2013 and had been pushed forward to May 15, 2013.
“I will not have locus standi to challenge all the electoral rolls in Sabah but certainly where I am the voter and the candidate I can make such a challenge since I would be adversely affected because of the dubious entries.
“When I first found out about the dubious entries, I was in a quandary whether to challenge the electoral roll before or after the elections. If I challenged the electoral roll after the elections, I would only have the option to challenge by way of election petition. Judicial review may not be available because the elections were already held. People will accuse me of having sour grapes if I did not win.
“If I challenge the electoral rolls before the election, voters may interpret my actions as withdrawing from the elections and I could suffer a small amount of votes,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Marcel pointed out an electoral roll with dubious voters is not an electoral roll until it is corrected.
“The number of dubious votes revealed by the EC chairman is too large and the fact that the constituency where I was standing could be affected gave me no choice but to proceed with the judicial review as soon as I found out,” he added.