Court thows out election petition by bankrupt

January 21, 2021

KOTA KINABALU: The Election Court here has struck out an election petition by Usno to challenge Warisan candidate Awang Ahmad Sah’s victory in the Petagas seat in last year’s state elections.

Judge Dean Wayne Daly dismissed the petition by Jivol @ Edmund Doudilim in an online hearing on grounds that the latter had no legal standing to file the case due to his status as a bankrupt.

The court found that Doudilim did not obtain consent from the Insolvency Department to file the petition.

Daly also ordered Doudilim to pay RM20,000 in cost each to Awang Ahmad and the Election Commission who were named as the first and third respondents in the petition.

The petitioner also named the returning officer as the second respondent.

Earlier, Senior Federal Counsel Azizan Md Arshad, representing the EC, told the court that the second respondent raised the objection against Doudilim’s petition, saying the latter had not obtained a sanction to file this action.

Azizan argued that the petitioner failed to get a sanction under Section 38 of the Insolvency Act and submitted that Doudilim is a continuous bankrupt until today.

Doudilim, representing Usno, was disqualified as a candidate for the Petagas seat during nomination day last September after he was found to be a bankrupt.

Subsequently, he lodged a police report and issued a media statement, saying he was not a bankrupt and that there was “highly suspicious” information on his financial status search certificate that led to his disqualification as a candidate by the EC.

Benjamin Chin, the lead counsel for the Warisan candidate, argued that the petition and affidavit of service were not filed by an advocate appointed under the election petition rules, but by a law firm.

Among their other grounds of argument was that Doudilim had named Awang Ahmad Sah bin Sahari as the first respondent in his petition, which is not the name of the candidate duly returned and elected in the polls.

The Warisan candidate contested under the name Awang Ahmad Sah in the Sabah elections.

Roland Ho Wah Cheng appeared for the petitioner while Awang Ahmad was also represented by Stella Simon and Marianne Ghani.

Awang Ahmad won the Petagas seat in a six-way fight with a 261-vote majority against the closest contender from Perikatan Nasional, Arsit Sedi @ Sidik.