THE High Court in Kota Bharu today quashed an election petition filed by a representative of Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, thus confirming the victory of Bersatu’s Mohd Azizi Abu Naim in the Gua Musang parliamentary seat in the recent general election (GE).

Judge Roslan Abu Bakar ordered the petitioner, Mohd Azmi Mahmood, to pay costs of RM25,000.

In his judgment, Justice Roslan said the court accepted the three issues stated in the preliminary objection raised by Azizi as the respondent to the election petition.

He said the date the petition was filed was outside the permitted time-frame of 28 days according to the Election Offences Act 1954, and the appointment of the petitioner’s lawyers was not in accordance with the provisions of the same law.

“This third issue is that the petitioner failed to provide details on his bribery allegation like complete information on the agent of the bribe giver, causing the petition to be defective and invalid,” he said.

At the proceedings, the petitioner was represented by lawyers Abu Bakar Isa Rahmat, Mohamed Baharuddin Mohamed Ariff and Norhazira Abu Hayyan while the respondent was represented by Wan Rohimi Wan Daud, Nik Bahrum Nik Abdulllah, Yusfarizal Yusoff and Mohd Faizi Che Abu.

In the GE, Tengku Razaleigh failed to retain the Gua Musang seat for a 12th time when he lost to Azizi by a majority of just 163 votes.

Azizi (Bersatu) obtained 21,826 votes while Tengku Razaleigh (BN-Umno) garnered 21,663 votes.

On January 3, Azmi filed the petition to challenge the Gua Musang election result and Azizi then submitted his preliminary objection to cancel the election petition. – Bernama, February 26, 2023.