Pakatan loses bid to nullify Election 2013

(MM) – The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawsuit to quash all results from Election 2013 over discrepancies with the indelible ink, among others, was thrown out by the High Court here today for being “obviously unsustainable”.

In making her decision, High Court judge Rosnaini Saub said the proper venue to contest electoral disputes was the Election Court and that to annul the results of an entire general election would be iniquitous to candidates not party to the complaints.
“That (to nullify the results) to me is most unfair to them,” Rosnaini said in a report by The Star today.

She also rejected an application in the lawsuit seeking the removal of the commissioners of the Election Commission, including chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and his former deputy, Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, saying that such a decision would be unconstitutional.

In July last year, the three PR parties of PKR, PAS and DAP filed the civil suit to quash all results from the May 5 general election over alleged fraud that they say was evidenced by the failure of the indelible ink introduced by the EC to prevent repeat voting.

In the statement of claim, PR noted that Abdul Aziz had announced on December 19, 2011 that the indelible ink — which is meant to prevent double voting — would have four to seven per cent silver nitrate and would last for seven days.

But on May 4, 2013, Abdul Aziz said that the indelible ink contained just one per cent silver nitrate, according to the statement of claim.

The indelible ink was introduced in Election 2013 as one of the main safeguards against electoral fraud, but the scandal surrounding its easy removal transformed it into a symbol of the widespread electoral fraud that PR alleged was perpetrated to keep BN in power.

In the May 5 general election, voters flooded social media services with images and videos showing the easy removal of the semi-permanent ink with common household detergents and, in some cases, nothing more than water and some elbow grease.

Barisan Nasional (BN) maintained its grip on power in the May 5 polls by winning 133 federal seats to PR’s 89, 21 seats more than the required 112 seats to form a simple majority.