PAS president Tan Sri Hadi Awang will now be able to rev up Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) green wave advances at full throttle in the upcoming six state polls after the Kuala Terengganu High Court having dismissed an UMNO petition against him for bribing voters during the 15th General Election (GE15).
With his Marang parliamentary seat safe and secured – and hardly any major obstacles except perhaps for a couple of police reports lodged against him for inciting racial hatred – the path is now wide open for the controversial cleric to vent his spiritual influence by steering PN in its state election conquest against the Pakatan Harapan-Barisan Nasional (PH-BN) dominated ruling coalition.
For context, Terengganu High Court judge Datuk Hassan Abdul Ghani who sat as an Election Court judge ruled yesterday (June 27) that UMNO candidate Jasmira Othman had failed to raise reasonable doubt and dismissed the case. Jasmira was further ordered to pay Hadi RM50,000 in costs.
Recall that Terengganu UMNO had on Jan 3 filed a petition s per the Election Offences Act 1954 to annul the results for the Kuala Terengganu, Marang and Kemaman parliamentary seats in GE15.
Among the points raised by Terengganu UMNO chief Datuk Seri Ahmad Said in the petition were allegations that PAS had bribed voters by distributing financial aid from the state government through the i-Pension, i-Belia and i-Student initiatives from Nov 15 to 17, 2022 just a few days prior to the GE15 on Nov 19 last year.
In a four-corner contest during the national polls, incumbent Hadi retained his Marang seat with a 41,729-vote majority by defeating Jasmira, Azhar Ab Shukur (Pakatan Harapan) and Zarawi Sulong (Pejuang).
However, Hadi’s joy of having his GE15 victory upheld was ‘marred’ by the nullification of Datuk Ahmad Amzad Hashim’s win for the Kuala Terengganu parliamentary seat with the Election Court ruling in favour of the petition filed by BN’s candidate Datuk Mohd Zubir Embong.
Amzad’s lawyer, Yusfarizal Yusoff, confirmed the court’s decision when contacted. “For Kuala Terengganu, the victory is invalidated. We will file an appeal,” he told Malay Mail. Amzad has 14 days to file his appeal to the Federal Court, failing which a by-election will be called.
In delivering his decision, High Court judge Datuk Seri Mohd Firuz Jaffril who sat as an Election Court judge said the petitioner, Mohd Zubir, had successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was an element of bribery during the election campaign.
Even though the petitioner was not called as a witness, he said other evidence was sufficient to declare the Kuala Terengganu result null and void in accordance with Section 36 of the Election Offences Act.
In GE15, Ahmad won the seat with a majority of 40,907 votes by defeating three other challengers including Mohd Zubir.
Besides Marang and Kuala Terengganu, BN had also filed election petitions to challenge the GE15 results for Kemaman, Gua Musang, Putrajaya, Masjid Tanah and Segamat. Earlier, BN had failed in its bid to invalidate the GE15 election results for Putrajaya. – June 28, 2023
