Malaysiakini report: Federal Court gives Sanglang seat to PAS

Report from Malaysiakini:

The Federal Court today declared PAS' Hashim Jasin as the rightful winner of the Sanglang state seat in Perlis, overturning a victory obtained by Barisan Nasional in the March 8 general election.

MCPX

Judges Alaudin Mohamed Sheriff, Arifin Zakaria and Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin unanimously agreed that Hashim should be declared as the winner and not BN's Abdullah Hassan.

The decision by the highest court in the land today means that there will NOT be a by-election for the state seat.

Earlier in June, an Election Court in Kangar had declared the seat vacant following a petition filed by Hashim.

However the court had disagreed to allow an application by Hashim - who had held the seat for two terms - to be automatically installed as the winner.

The court had then said that the court had no jurisdiction to declare Hashim as the assemblyperson for the seat.

Hashim then appealed to the Federal Court to be automatically declared as the winner.

Umno's candidate Abdullah won the seat with a majority of 149 votes, bagging 3,384 votes as opposed to Hashim's 3,235.

Hashim, who is Perlis PAS commissioner, claimed that he should have won Sanglang based on initial Election Commission records.

He said that he should be declared the winner as the vote tallied from all counting centres showed that he had polled 3,333 votes against Abdullah's 3,286 and had thus won by a 47-vote majority.

In the last polls, BN won 14 out of 15 state seats and all three parliamentary seats. It lost the neighbouring Simpang Empat state seat to PAS. The Federal Court result today means PAS has an additional seat in the state assembly.

The same Federal Court panel also confirmed the election of Harun Taib of Pas to the Manir state seat in Terengganu after dismissing with costs the election petition of the BN candidate Wan Sagar Wan Embong.

They held that the corrupt practice allegedly committed by the agents of Harun, as pleaded in Wan Sagar"s petition must be specific to succeed in his petition.

Harun won the seat with a 406-vote majority in the March 8 general election.

Barisan oh Barisan...

Resign gracefully, Abdullah Badawi