PAS will file an election petition this week to challenge the result of the tightly fought Dec 6 Pengkalan Pasir by-election, according to a lawyer for the party.

"We will mostly likely file the petition tomorrow at the Kota Baru High Court," lawyer Hanipa Maidin, who heads a party's special committee on the petition, told malaysiakini today.

However, Hanipa refused to provide further details on the petition, but said it would be based on "various specific grounds" including the involvement of phantom voters and bribery.

Under the election laws, candidates have up to 21 days to challenge the polls results in court.

Since the Pengkalan Pasir by-election result was gazetted on Dec 15, PAS will have up to Thursday to take legal action.

The Dec 6 by-election saw victory for BN's Hanafi Mamat who defeated PAS candidate Hanifa Ahmad with a tissue-thin majority of 134 votes. This triggered an automatic recount of the votes given that the winning margin fell below two percent.

The recount was held the next day with the BN candidate officially being declared the winner.

Widespread poll irregularities

The by-election was called following the death of PAS incumbent Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar on Oct 31. He had defeated Hanafi at the 2004 general election by a mere 56 votes.

The lost of the seat means that PAS, which has been ruling Kelantan since 1990, has only 23 seats in the state assembly - only one more than BN's 22.

Following the election, independent election watchdog, the Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections, has alleged that both BN and PAS were guilty of more than 40 counts of irregularities and offences committed on polling day at all nine polling centres, and also throughout the 10-day election campaign.

Among the serious offences allegedly committed by the contesting parties were impersonation of voters, bribery involving cash and kind, and breach of campaign expenditure, which is capped at RM100,000 for a state constituency by the Election Commission.

The petition will go before the Election Court, which is heard by a justice of the High Court, and it will have six months to wrap up the case..

If the petition fails, an appeal can to be made to the Federal Court within 14 days of the election judge's judgment.

The Federal Court, which has also six months to complete the hearing and decide on the appeal, will be the final authority on the matter.

Under the Election Offences Act, an election petition can only be filed on "specific grounds" such as incidents involving of bribery, threats and procedural irregularities.