PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has fixed June 19 to hear the appeals by Barisan Nasional over two election petitions filed in a bid to nullify the 15th General Election (GE15) results for the Putrajaya and Gua Musang parliamentary seats.
Lawyer Yusfarizal Yussoff, representing Bersatu vice-president Datuk Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin, confirmed the hearing date when contacted on Friday (June 2).
Putrajaya Umno division vice-chief Datuk Ahmad Faisal Abdul Karim had filed the election petition seeking to nullify the GE15 results for the seat, while Mohd Azmi Mahmood, a representative for Barisan candidate Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, filed the petition for Gua Musang.
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Mohd Radzi, who contested in Putrajaya on a Perikatan Nasional ticket in GE15, won the seat from four-term incumbent Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor of Barisan with a 2,310-vote majority in a six-way fight.
Meanwhile, Perikatan candidate Datuk Mohd Azizi Abu Naim won the Gua Musang seat, defeating Tengku Razaleigh.
Earlier, the courts had struck out the election petitions filed by Ahmad Faisal and Mohd Azmi after allowing preliminary objections raised by the winning candidates.
On March 10, the Kuala Lumpur High Court allowed Mohd Radzi’s preliminary objection to strike out the petition after ruling that Ahmad Faisal failed to prove that corrupt practices were committed by either the MP or his agent.
Meanwhile, on Feb 26, the Kota Baru High Court struck out Mohd Azmi’s petition after ruling that it was filed outside the permitted time frame of 28 days as set out under the Election Offences Act 1954.
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Ahmad Faisal and Mohd Azmi subsequently filed appeals to the Federal Court.
In the petition, Ahmad Faisal sought a court order to declare that Mohd Radzi should not have been declared the winner for the Putrajaya seat, alleging that he had given RM150 to voters as inducement for them to cast their ballots for him.
Meanwhile, Mohd Azmi, in his petition, sought to declare the election result for Gua Musang invalid and for the Election Commission to call for a by-election. – Bernama
