Court throws out poll petition, Khairy keeps Rembau
Malaysiakini.com
Jun 4, 2008
Syed Jaymal Zahiid 

The Seremban High Court today dismissed a poll petition challenging the Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin's victory in the Rembau parliamentary seat at the March 8 general election.
MCPX

Judge Mohtaruddin Baki delivered his decision this morning.

The petition was filed by Khairy's contender - PKR supreme council member Badrul Hisham Shaharin - on April 25.

Mohtaruddin dismissed the petition with cost, saying that there were too many defects in the petition.

He also said that Badrul Hisham had failed to prove that any alleged irregularity could have changed the outcome of the election.

"These twin requirements is a must," he said in his ruling.

burmese umno demo 011007 khairy jamaluddinKhairy won the seat with a 5,746-vote majority. 

Badrul's lawyer R Sheila when contacted said that the judge agreed with Khairy's preliminary objections filed by the latter's lawyer Shafee Abdullah.

Sheila said they were disappointed and thought the decision was "rather unfair".

"One of the preliminary objections filed by Khairy was that we did not specify the irregularities that we claimed had occurred under section 32B of the Elections Offences Act.

"We of course cannot specify the irregularities because the Form 14 that was supposed to tally the number of votes was not given to us by the Elections Commission," she said.

Sheila added that without the Form 14, they cannot specify the irregularities in their petition as only the form contained the details of the number of votes that was tendered on March 8.

"At least if we were given a proper hearing, it would be possible of proving the irregularities (by asking the EC to provide us with the form 14)," she said.

EC's form 14 missing

In his petition filed on April 24, Badrul claimed that the election results should be invalidated since Election Commission officers in charge of the Rembau constituency failed to produce ‘Form 14' after the counting process on election day.

‘Form 14' was to be produced by the EC at each polling station to show the vote tally in the room. It was compulsory for EC officials to release the form to contesting candidates.

protes klcc price hike 260108 badrul hishamBadrul, when asked for comment, said that the decision was expected.

The former teacher then reiterated that the main purpose of filing the petition was to draw people back to some of the "unsettled issues" in the contest for Rembau.

One of the issues, said Badrul, was regarding the ECM-Libra scandal that Khairy has failed to address until this day.

The ECM Libra-Avenue deal was approved by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi shortly after Khairy had bought a RM9.2 million worth of direct stake in it.

This led to wide criticisms of cronyism as Abdullah was overseeing government-linked companies (GLCs) in his capacity as finance minister. Khairy is also Abdullah's son-in-law.

Subsequently Khairy was forced by public pressure to sell off his shares in ECM Libra in August 2006.

Khairy could not be contacted for comments as he is attending a private function in Bali, Indonesia.

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