KOTA KINABALU: The Election Court here yesterday heard that the Ketua Tempat Mengundi (KTM) or polling station head of Saluran 1 Balai Raya Rampai for the Kota Marudu parliamentary seat, Rubert Salimun, did not give copies of Form 14 to the polling agents there because all of them were satisfied with the votes obtained by candidates.
Rubert, 43, who had been involved in three previous general elections, said all the polling agents, including the petitioner in the case, did not raise any objection on the vote counting process, as well as on the votes obtained by candidates, there.
“After preparing Form 14 and handing them to the agents to be signed, a copy of the form was put in a special envelope which had been provided for the purpose to be submitted to the Returning Officer, whereby the special envelope was pasted with a security sticker signed by me as the KTM,” he added.
Rubert was testifying on the sixth day of the hearing of a petition filed by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) candidate for the seat before judge Datuk Yew Jen Kee.
He said the vote counting process went well with none of the parties involved raising any objections whatsoever.
Meanwhile, another KTM, Jamarin@Jeffry Din Yusop, 55, for Saluran 2 Sekolah Kebangsaan Ranau, said he did not give copies of Form 14 to agents at the school because they were satisfied with the votes obtained by candidates.
“What more, with the petitioner getting the most votes at my channel. They also did not raise any objection then,” he added.
In the petition, Mahap, had named Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili, who won the seat for the Barisan Nasional (BN), as the first respondent and RO Lovita Koisun and the Election Commission (EC) as the second and third respondents, respectively.
On Aug 13, Yew ruled that allegations of corruption against Ongkili pertaining to the contest be dropped from the petition but maintained Ongkili as the first respondent by virtue of him being the winner.
In his petition, Mahap had claimed that copies of Form 14 were not given to PKR’s polling agents.
Ongkili won by a majority of 842 votes after garnering 15,168 votes in a four-cornered fight.
Mahap obtained 14,326 votes, Star candidate Majamis Timbong (2,228 votes) while Yuntau alias Kuntau Kolod (SAPP) only managed 444 votes.
A total of 911 votes were rejected. — Bernama