It confirmed the victory of Bersatu’s Azizi Abu Naim in the Gua Musang parliamentary seat in the 15th general election (GE15).

Justice Roslan Abu Bakar ordered the petitioner, Azmi Mahmood, to pay costs of RM25,000.

In his judgment, Roslan said the court accepted the three issues in the preliminary objection raised by Azizi as the respondent in the election petition.

He said the petition was filed outside the permitted time frame of 28 days allowed under the Election Offences Act 1954, and the appointment of the petitioner’s lawyers was not in accordance with the provisions of the same law.

“The third issue is that the petitioner failed to provide details on his bribery allegation, including giving complete information on the agent of the bribe giver, causing the petition to be defective and invalid,” he said.

The petitioner was represented by lawyers Abu Bakar Isa Rahmat, Baharuddin Mohamed Ariff and Norhazira Abu Hayyan.

The respondent was represented by Wan Rohimi Wan Daud, Nik Bahrum Nik Abdulllah, Yusfarizal Yusoff and Faizi Che Abu.

In GE15, Tengku Razaleigh failed to retain the Gua Musang seat for a 12th time when he lost to Azizi by a majority of just 163 votes.

Azizi obtained 21,826 votes while Tengku Razaleigh garnered 21,663 votes.

On Jan 3, Azmi filed the petition to challenge the Gua Musang election result and Azizi then submitted his preliminary objection to cancel the election petition.