Objections all and sundry

They tried just about everything - a slew of objections were filed today against several candidates in the bid to disqualify them from running in the March 8 general elections.

Among them, PAS candidate Dr Lo’ Lo’ Mohd Ghazali (left) for Titiwangsa objected to the nomination of Barisan Nasional’s Aziz Jamaluddin Mohd Tahir on the "suspicion" that Aziz’ statutory declaration did not contain the required stamp duty payment.

According to Lo’ Lo’s team, he had also contravened election laws when he allegedly paid his deposit with a personal cheque.

While the PAS team conceded these were only suspicions, the dispute arose between them and Election Commission officers - led by returning officer Che Yahya Che Soh - when the latter refused to allow the PAS team to go through Aziz’s nomination papers to verify the claims.

Che Yahya argued that the details placed on the notice board of the candidates were sufficient as basis for any protests. He also said he received directions from his superiors to the effect neither candidate are allowed look through the other’s nomination papers.

He subsequently rejected Lo’ Lo’s protest and declared both Lo’ Lo’ and Aziz as candidates for the March 8 election.

Meanwhile, a protest was lodged by PKR at the Negeri Sembilan parliamentary seat of Rembau against the nomination of Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar. PKR contended that Khairy had not written ‘bin’ (son of) in his nomination papers.

The Election Commission official said the protest was rejected on the ground that Khairy’s identity card did not state ‘bin’ on it.

In Rantau, also in Negeri Sembilan, PAS’ Azhar Ibrahim filed a protest against BN incumbent candidate and acting Menteri Besar Mohamad Hasan for placing his position - Menteri Besar - in his forms.

The protest was rejected, though no reasons were given.

Perniagaan and berniaga

Negeri Sembilan state seats Kota and Chembong also saw protests filed by PAS against the nomination of BN candidates. At press time, Malaysiakini could not ascertain the reason for the objection filed at Kota.

In Chembong, it was due to the alleged failure of the BN candidate Zaiful Bahri Idris to state his occupation as ahli perniagaan (businessman). Instead, PAS contended, Zaiful Bahri had mistakenly written berniaga (conducts business). The protest was also rejected.

In Perak, two objections were filed against the nomination of Sungai Siput parliamentary incument S Samy Vellu on the ground that he had written ‘Minister’ as his occupation. Following the dissolution of Parliament on Feb 13, Samy Vellu belongs only to a ‘caretaker’ government and is not a proper minister, they contended.

The objections were filed by a DAP representative as well as a representative from the yet-to-be-registered PSM. They were rejected by the returning officer, who said Samy Vellu is ‘acting’ minister.

Also at Sungai Siput, an objection was filed against the 71-year old Samy Vellu due to the discrepancy between his birth date as written in his nomination papers - June 20 - and the date "generally known" to be his real date of birth as being March 8.

The returning officer rejected this, however, for the reason there was no discrepancy between the date of birth on his identity card and that written in his nomination papers.

In Batu Gajah, DAP filed an objection against BN candidate Cheah Yoke Can after discrepancies were found between the spelling of his seconder’s name as contained in his identity card and that written in some of Cheah’s nomination papers.

The objection was rejected.

In Kuala Kangsar, an objection was lodged against incumbent MP Rafidah Aziz after it was found that she had only signed on the original of her nomination papers, whereas the copies did not contain her signature.

The returning officer rejected this objection on grounds that her signature was on the original documents. PAS said it will be seeking legal advice on this matter.

For the Bukit Bintang parliamentary contest, it was a case of both BN and DAP protesting minor technicalities in the nomination papers filed by their respective candidates.

These included technical errors in writing down the candidates' occupation and addresses. They were, however, written off by returning officer Shaari Ahmad Junid due to their trivial nature.

"There were four protests from DAP and two from MCA but I found the errors to be trivial. The lack of a full-stop and the wrong postcode (478000 instead of 47800) were errors not grave enough for disqualification," said Shaari.

"MCA complained about Fong's (pix, left) occupation or the lack of one. But there is nothing to say that a candidate must have a job."

In Selangor’s Sekinchan state seat contest, an objection was filed against DAP candidate Ng Suee Lim after it was found he had written in excitement ‘March 8' instead of today's date below the signature of his witness.

Due to this, a rumour flew straight out of the nomination hall and around Ng's supporters and detractors that Ng had been disqualified from the race. The rumour then gently glided into the ears of a broadcast journalist from a local television station who duly reported it.

This was later dispelled by the EC returning officer who clarified that the technical error had not caused Ng to be disqualified from contesting. Needless to say, Ng was said to have been quite miffed at the pre-mature ‘announcement'.

In Penang, BN-MCA Bagan candidate Song Choy Leng’s nomination was challenged after one of her papers was not signed. Her appeal was later accepted by the Election Commission (EC).

Song is standing against DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Objection was also lodged on Song’s colleague, Ooi Chuan Aik, who is running for the Bagan Jermal state seat after the date on one of the latter’s nomination paper was found to have been inaccurate.

A similar problem also occurred for PKR’s Ong Khan Lee who is contesting for the Kebun Bunga state seat but the objection was overruled.

The nomination for BN-MCA’s Tan Yok Cheng, who is also contesting against DAP’s Guan Eng (pix, right) in the Air Putih state seat was challenged as his occupation was still stated as a ‘city councillor’ (a government post).

However, the EC overruled the objection on the ground that the complainant was not a voter from the constituency.

For the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat, a total of 23 objections were lodged against candidates for the parliamentary seats and the three state seats. All were rejected by the EC. The grounds of the objections were not revealed.