KOTA BARU: Barisan Nasional’s defeated candidate for the Gua Musang parliamentary seat Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (pic) has filed an election petition to challenge the result.

The petition at the High Court here was filed by Mohd Azmi Mahmood on behalf of Tengku Razaleigh on Jan 3, naming Gua Musang MP Datuk Mohd Azizi Abu Naim of Perikatan Nasional, returning officer Ab Fatah Hasbullah and the Election Commission (EC) as the first, second and third respondents.

Lawyer Mohamed Baharudeen Mohamed Ariff, representing Mohd Azmi, said the petition sought, among others, to declare as invalid the election result for the Gua Musang seat and for the EC to order a by-election.

“The petition was filed to challenge the GE15 result for the Gua Musang parliamentary seat which allegedly involved money politics.

“Our client claims that the ballot boxes from certain polling district centres were unaccounted for and the ballot papers were not returned,” Mohamed Baharudeen said in a statement yesterday.

The court fixed Jan 25 for next case management.

Tengku Razaleigh failed to defend the Gua Musang seat when he lost to Mohd Azizi of Bersatu by a slim margin of 163 votes.

According to the official results, Mohd Azizi obtained 21,826 votes against Tengku Razaleigh’s 21,663 votes. – Bernama