Malaysiakini
The Election Court has fixed Aug 5 to decide Hulu Selangor MP P Kamalanathan’s application to strike out an election petition filed by PKR supreme council member Zaid Ibrahim.
Election judge Justice Azahar Mohamed scheduled the hearing for that date this morning after four days of submissions from counsel representing Zaid, Kamalanathan, returning officer Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan and the Election Commission.
Zaid’s lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar said the court was now presented with the opportunity to set a policy in rejecting the strike out application and let the matter proceed to full trial.
But history shows that almost 90 percent of such petitions end up being thrown out without being heard.
“Nobody can interfere with the election process which is a rightful democratic process, (throwing out the petition) frustrates the attempts of the general electorate who want to see justice,” Malik submitted.
Kamalanathan’s counsel Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin, mainly submitted on technical issues to demand that the petition be struck out.
Zaid had filed the petition on May 24 to invalidate the April 25 poll results on the grounds that there had been attempts to induce voters by the BN chairperson and that the coalition’s candidate Kamalanathan was aware of this.
Kamalanathan was present in court today, Zaid was not.
Earlier today, Kamalanathan’s other counsel Mohd Hafarizam Harun drew the court’s attention to several Twitter posts by lawyer Edmund Bon.
Bon, a Bar Council committee member, said there were grounds to recuse Justice Azahar as he was a DPP in Anwar Ibrahim’s 1998 corruption trial, when the prosecution was accused of fabricating evidence.
Bon argued that since Anwar was Zaid’s immediate superior in PKR, therefore Justice Azahar should not hear the trial.
In reply, Justice Azahar brushed it off, saying he was merely performing his duties then.