By Debra Chong
KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 – It's bad enough being the son-in-law of the prime minister who is being blamed for his party's and the entire national coalition's abject performance at the 12th General Elections.
It's worse when your very name incites normally placid people to gob out great balls of spit after each mention. But Khairy Jamaluddin's seat is going to get hotter than hot in the next 2 weeks.
Come April 19, the beleaguered Umno Youth deputy chief, already under fire from within his own ranks, will face a new threat to his tenuous position as MP for Rembau.
Why April 19?
Because that is the day his 30-year-old political rival for the parliamentary seat, Badrul Hisham Shaharin from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) will finally be able to file a petition in court to nullify the results of the general election.
Since polling night on March 8, Badrul Hisham, fondly known as Chegu Bard, has claimed that the counting of votes was not done according to procedure.
“There were irregularities in the vote counting procedure. The Election Commission (EC) did not issue the Form 14 to us when it was compulsory to do so,” he is reported to have said back then.
Form 14 lists out the number of total voters for a particular polling station and once the vote counting has been finalised, the form will be the official indicator of the number of votes designated for each candidate.
Without this form, the results cannot be considered official. It opens up the way for figure manipulation as votes may be added later to favour a particular candidate.
The initial results on the night showed a tight contest between the two, with Badrul Hisham edging Khairy by only 141 votes.
On the recount however, Khairy scored 26,525 votes against Badrul Hisham's 20,779 votes; a majority of over 5,000 votes.
There have been several counter allegations to the contrary from the EC officials on the isuance of Form 14 in Rembau. One official claimed that the form was issued, but the PKR candidate did not see it. Another claimed that they had run out of Forms 14 in Rembau that night.
As it stands, the court can only entertain such protests after the results have been gazetted by the Election Commission, said Faisal Mustaffa, 37, a PKR member since 2004.
Faisal is also the secretariat for the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), an independent human rights organisation that has been closely following the proceedings of the recently concluded general elections.
And word is that the results will be gazetted on April 19. Those who wish to contest can do so within 21 days of the results being gazetted, added Faisal.
Badrul Hisham's petition will be presented by William Leong, a practising lawyer who is also PKR's supreme treasurer.
The Rembau case is not the only one, said Faisal, but it is the one with the most clear-cut evidence. There are several that the PKR would like to take up, including at least one in Sabah, for the Pensiangan parliamentary seat. (Malaysian Insider)
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