Court to rule April 9 on EC’s move to annul Anwar’s suit

PETALING JAYA: The High Court in Alor Setar will deliver its ruling on April 9 whether to strike out the legal challenge posed by Anwar Ibrahim and a voter that their rights had been violated due to malapportionment of constituencies in its boundary-redrawing.

Lawyer Nurainie Hazique, who appeared for Anwar and Azman Nazaruddin, said Justice Hashim Hamzah would deliver his decision based on written submissions.

“There will likely be no oral submissions. We have submitted our written submissions and the Election Commission will file theirs soon,” she told FMT after case management before Hashim today.

Senior federal counsel Aliza Jamaluddin appeared for the EC.

Last month, EC chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah, in support of the motion to strike out Anwar and Azman’s action, said the suit was legally misconceived and it did not conduct any redelineation exercise in the second quarter of last year.

He said the 2013 general election for state and parliamentary seats was carried out based on the boundary redrawing exercise conducted in 2003.

“No exercise was carried out after that period,” he said in an affidavit to strike out the suit filed by Anwar, who is also a voter in Permatang Pauh.

Anwar, who is currently in jail on a sodomy conviction, and Azman, a voter in the Sungai Petani parliamentary seat, want the High Court to declare that there was a voter disparity when compared with other constituencies in the peninsula.

The opposition leader, in his affidavit in support of the action, said he was a registered voter in the Permatang Pauh seat.

He said there were 80,574 voters in the second quarter of this year compared with 71,699 voters when the 13th general election was conducted on May 5, 2013.

He said the number of voters in Lipis, Gerik, Lenggong, Padang Rengas, Kuala Kangsar, Parit, Bagan Datuk, Labis, Sembrong, Pengerang, Padang Terap and Sik was between 35,000 and 50,000 voters.

Similarly, Azman said there were 101,219 voters in his constituency in the second half of this year compared with 93,175 people on the electoral roll during the 13th general election.

Anwar and Azman said these were due to malapportionment, arising from unfair delineation of constituencies.

Both said they would provide the number of voters in other federal constituencies to support their claim. -FMT