KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 — MIC leader Datuk C. Sivarraajh insisted that he had not engaged in vote-buying in the 14th general election (GE14), and will appeal the Election Court’s decision today to defend his victory in the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat, a report has said.
Sivarraajh, who has been MP for Cameron Highlands for just over half a year now, confirmed he will be challenging the Election Court’s decision that invalidated the GE14 results for the federal seat in Pahang.
“I am going to appeal.
“(But) if there is a by-election, I leave it to the party leadership to decide who is the candidate,” the former MIC Youth chief was quoted as telling news portal Malaysiakini today.
Earlier today, an Election Court had declared the GE14 results for the Cameron Highlands federal seat as null and void, as Sivarraajh’s DAP election rival M. Manogaran had proven that there were corrupt practices in the form of money being given to induce voters there to vote for the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition that Sivarraajh was contesting under then.
The Election Court’s decision today will trigger a by-election if Sivarraajh does not appeal.
According to Malaysiakini, Sivarraajh insisted that he was not involved in dishing out money to Orang Asli voters, alleging that there were “agents” who actually did so.
“I didn’t give money to any tok batin (Orang Asli village chief). And even the evidence was proven in court that I didn’t give any money.
“According to the judgment, it says agents gave out the money, things like that [...] Which of course, you must know that there was another candidate also contesting together with me,” he was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini.
Previously during a hearing in September for the election petition, Sivarraajh was similarly reported by news portal Free Malaysia Today as denying that he had tried to bribe Orang Asli voters in Cameron Highlands when he was carrying out his election campaign, adding that vote-buying was legally wrong.
Sivarraajh had then reportedly said he would never have forced Orang Asli voters to support him, claiming that any money that he had handed out — if any — was in response to the Orang Asli village chiefs’ request for funds to help them.
On June 4, Manogaran filed an election petition to challenge Sivarraajh’s May 9 win due to the alleged buying of votes by the latter.
Manogaran had in his election petition reportedly claimed that Sivarraajh and the current Pahang mentri besar from Umno, Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail, had given money to several Orang Asli village heads to be distributed to Orang Asli voters at sums ranging from RM30 to RM1,000 each.
On May 9, Sivarraajh won with a relatively slim majority of 597 votes with his 10,307 vote-haul in a five-cornered race, with Manogaran then being the candidate with the second highest vote-haul at 9,710 votes.
