KUALA LUMPUR: The Barisan Nasional (BN) is fielding Ramli Mohd Nor (pix), a retired senior police officer from the local orang asli community, as its candidate for the Cameron Highlands parliamentary by-election scheduled for Jan 26.
This was announced yesterday by BN deputy chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, who said BN was confident that Ramli, a former assistant commissioner of police, would garner the support of the voters in Cameron Highlands.
He also said in selecting Ramli, BN took the approach of fielding a candidate who had the trust of the people and not just that of the party.
“He is a BN candidate and not a candidate from any BN component party. We are confident that he can secure the support of voters. We are also thankful to the MIC for having ‘loaned’ the Cameron Highlands seat to BN,” he added.
Pakatan Harapan had announced earlier that DAP Pahang chairman M. Manogaran would contest the seat, as he did in the 14th General Election (GE14) in May last year. MyPPP president Tan Sri M. Kayveas is also contesting.
Manogaran had garnered 9,710 votes in GE14 and lost by 597 votes to MIC’s Datuk C. Sivarraajh who secured 10,307 vote. Wan Mahadir Wan Mahmud of PAS had 3,587 votes; B. Suresh Kumar of PSM (680 votes) and Mohd Tahir Kassim of Berjasa (81 votes).
The Election Commission (EC), in response to a petition filed by Manogaran, annulled the election of Sivarraajh after establishing there was vote-buying during the election campaign.
Nomination for the by-election is on Saturday, early voting on Jan 22 and polling is on Jan 26.
The High Court here dismissed an application by Sivarraajh to quash the EC’s decision to prohibit him from contesting in the by-election or voting in any election for five years.
Judge Datuk Nordin Hassan held that the EC’s decision in a letter dated Dec 28, 2018 was in accordance with the law and there was no illegality or irrationality with it.
“Therefore, the application for a judicial review by the applicant (Sivarraajh) is dismissed with cost of RM5,000,” he said. – Bernama
