No court order on Anifah’s appeal
◦ EC sets Jan 18 for Kimanis by-election
PUTRAJAYA: The Election Commission (EC) has not received a court order on Datuk Seri Anifah Aman’s intention to apply for a rehearing of his appeal against the Federal Court’s decision on Dec 2 to uphold the election court’s ruling in nullifying his victory in the election for the Kimanis parliamentary seat.
EC chairman Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun said under the law and according to court ruling, a court order will be valid and must be upheld until it is set aside by the highest court or an order to suspend the ruling is received.
“At the moment, we do not have any order to suspend or set aside the ruling that was made, so we will continue the proceedings as per the law,” he told reporters after a press conference on the management of the Kimanis byelection yesterday.
“Under the Constitution, there are only 60 days from Dec 10, to fill the vacancy in Parliament. So we must have the election and resolve the matter within 60 days, before Feb 7,” he said.
The EC has set Jan 4 for nomination and Jan 18 for polling.
The Federal Court had, on Dec 2, upheld the election court’s decision to nullify Anifah’s victory in the 14th general election.
The former foreign minister won the seat with a narrow 156vote majority. He obtained 11,942 votes in a three-cornered fight against Datuk Karim Bujang (11,786 votes) of Parti Warisan Sabah and Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah’s Jaafar Ismail (1,300 votes).
Karim filed a petition to challenge Anifah’s victory on June 18, 2018.
The Kota Kinabalu General Election Court ruled the victory null and void after finding additional ballot papers, which could adversely affect the polling results.