Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 2): PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli has claimed that the Election Commission official who stopped his party’s candidate for the Rantau state seat from entering the nomination centre to file his papers for the May 9 general election is an Umno Youth member.

Rafizi claimed that the official was also the former information chief of the Rembau Umno Youth division who had actively campaigned for caretaker Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin.

Mohamad, the Barisan Nasional candidate for Rantau, won the seat unopposed during nominations last Saturday after PKR’s Dr S Streram was barred from entering the nomination centre in time on the grounds that he did not have a candidate pass.

Rantau is a state seat within the Rembau Parliamentary constituency. Khairy is defending the Rembau seat for BN.

In a statement today, Rafizi confirmed that he had been served a writ of summons by Khairy's lawyers over his allegation that Khairy had conspired with Mohamad to influence the EC to prevent Streram from entering the nomination centre.

“I will leave this matter to my lawyers who will deal with the court,” he said. “I am ready to face the Umno Youth chief in court, just like how I had faced other Umno leaders before this.”

This, however, does not absolve Khairy of his moral responsibility to explain the involvement of the Umno Youth official in preventing Streram  from entering the nomination centre, added Radizi.

He said netizens had over the past few days confirmed the EC official’s identity through videos and photographs from Facebook.

Since his identity was exposed and following criticisms from netizens, the official had closed his Facebook account, said Rafizi.

The PKR leader said Khairy should come out and confirm whether he knew that an Umno Youth member had prevented the PKR candidate from submitting his nomination papers.

"Is he aware that an entry pass is not a requirement in election laws but falls under the discretion of EC's returning officer?" asked Rafizi.

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