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KOTA KINABALU: The Electoral Court has rejected an electoral petition from Usno to challenge the victory of Warisan Awang Ahmad Sah’s candidate for the Petagas seat in last year’s state elections.
Judge Dean Wayne Daly dismissed Jivol @ Edmund Doudilim’s petition in an online hearing on the grounds that the latter had no legal capacity to present the case due to his bankruptcy status.
The court found that Doudilim did not obtain the consent of the Insolvency Department to file the petition.
Daly also ordered Doudilim to pay RM 20,000 each to Awang Ahmad and the Election Commission, who were named as the first and third respondents in the petition.
The petitioner also named the teller as the second respondent.
Earlier, senior federal attorney Azizan Md Arshad, representing the EC, told the court that the second defendant raised the objection against Doudilim’s petition, saying that the latter had not obtained a sanction to bring this action.
Azizan argued that the petitioner failed to obtain a sanction under article 38 of the Insolvency Law and claimed that Doudilim remains bankrupt to this day.
Doudilim, representing Usno, was disqualified as a candidate for the Petagas seat on nomination day last September after he was found to be bankrupt.
He subsequently filed a police report and issued a press release, saying he was not bankrupt and that there was “highly suspicious” information on his financial status search certificate that disqualified him as a candidate for the EC.
Benjamin Chin, the lead attorney for Warisan’s candidate, argued that the petition and notification affidavit were not filed by an attorney designated under the ballot petition rules, but by a law firm.
Among his other grounds for argument was that Doudilim had named Awang Ahmad Sah bin Sahari as the first respondent in his petition, which is not the name of the candidate duly returned and elected at the polls.
Warisan’s candidate ran under the name Awang Ahmad Sah in the Sabah elections.
Roland Ho Wah Cheng appeared before the petitioner, while Awang Ahmad was also represented by Stella Simon and Marianne Ghani.
Awang Ahmad won the Petagas seat in a six-way fight with a 261-vote majority against Perikatan Nasional’s closest contender, Arsit Sedi @ Sidik.
