This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on December 3, 2019

PUTRAJAYA: There will be another by-election in Sabah as former foreign minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman lost his appeal in the Federal Court over the Kota Kinabalu Election Court’s decision to nullify his Kimanis parliamentary seat result during last year’s general election.

The decision was made by a five-member bench led by Chief Justice Tan Sri Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat that also included Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk David Wong Dak Wah.

“There were numerous discrepancies in the conduct and widespread non-compliance with the election laws,” Justice Tengku Maimun said about the unanimous ruling, according to a Free Malaysia Today report.

She said this had affected the outcome of the polls.

The other members of the bench were Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed and Federal Court Judges Datuk Rohana Yusuf and Datuk P Nallini.

With the decision yesterday, a by-election has to be called within 60 days as stipulated in the Constitution.

It was reported last Aug 16, Election Court Judge Datuk Lee Heng Cheong, who heard the election petition, declared the May 9, 2018 election results as null and void on the grounds of manipulation of votes and existence of inconsistencies between Form 13 and Form 14, where the total number of votes did not tally.

The election petition was filed by Parti Warisan Sabah candidate Datuk Karim Bujang. Another candidate for the Kimanis seat in the contest on May 9 last year was the Pakatan Harapan coalition’s Jaafar Ismail. Anifah won the seat last year with a razor-thin 156 votes when he garnered 11,942 votes against Karim’s 11,786 and Jaafar’s 1,300 votes.