Warisan filing election petitions on seats won by Musa Aman and his family

KOTA KINABALU: The Aman family’s victories in GE14 are set to be challenged by Parti Warisan Sabah.

The party’s losing candidates are filing election petitions against Sabah Barisan Nasional chairman Tan Sri Musa Aman’s (pic) victory in Sungai Sibuga.

They are also disputing other wins, that of his son Yamani Hafez Musa in Sipitang, and Musa’s younger brother Datuk Seri Anifah Aman in Kimanis.

Also being disputed are the wins of Sabah STAR president Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan in Tambunan and Keningau.

The petitions against the Amans and Dr Jeffrey are among a dozen expected to be filed by Warisan in the coming week.

The Election Commission (EC) allows any quarters dissatisfied with the GE14 results, which were gazetted on May 28, to submit an election petition within 21 days of the gazetting.

Warisan’s Sungai Sibuga candidate Asmara Abdul Rahman believes that doubts over the results arose with the delay in the signing of the Form 14 as he claimed that he was the winner after early counts.  

“According to early counts, Warisan won, but there was a long delay in the signing of Form 14 to confirm the winner, as the EC officer said to wait for orders from 'higher-ups'.

“This is why we suspect there was some element of cheating,” said Asmara, who is challenging the results on the grounds of electoral fraud and alleged money politics by Barisan.

Asmara, a retired cop, said several recounts were then carried out in the wee hours of the morning before the winner was finally announced at 3am.

It saw Warisan losing the seat to former chief minister Musa, who polled a majority of 2,184 votes against Asmara.

Asmara said he will be disputing the result because the party suspected some elements of cheating had taken place before the announcement of the winner.

“I’m confident of my basis to challenge the results as there were many eyewitnesses including polling and counting agents,” he said.

Meanwhile in Kimanis, Anifah, who is the former Foreign Affairs Minister, polled 11,942 votes against Karim’s 11,786, winning by a razor thin majority of 156 votes.

In Sipitang, first-timer Yamani Hafez, won by a narrow 852 majority after garnering 12,038 votes against Warisan’s Noor Hayaty Mustapha, who pulled 11,186 votes.

Warisan, which contested 45 state seats out of the 60 member Sabah state assembly, won 21 seats while its allies DAP won six and PKR won two.

Barisan snapped up 29 seats. Sabah STAR, which aligned with Barisan after GE14, got the remaining two.

For Sabah's 25 federal parliament constituencies, Warisan contested 16 and won eight seats.