The Election Court in Ipoh today dismissed the election petitions for the Manong and Pasir Panjang state seats which were filed by PAS.

Election judge Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim dismissed the petitions on a technicality after allowing a preliminary objection by BN based on a technicality.

The court also ordered the petitioners to pay RM40,000 costs each.

Earlier, its was reported that another Election  judge, Abdul Rahman Sebli, dismissed the Lubok Merbau election petition.

Lawyer Fitri Asmuni, who was among those appearing for the petitioners, confirmed the decision by the court today.

Besides the three state seats, the opposition have also filed petitions for three other state seats namely Manjoi, Selama and Rungkup.

The decisions over preliminary objections will be made tomorrow for Manjoi, while for Rungkup, it will be on Thursday.

The Election Commission, the returning officer and the winning BN candidate were named as respondents.

Earlier, lawyers Chan Kok Keong and Fitri for the petitioners had complained that the respondents had objected to the presence of the petitioner’s lawyers as they claimed they did not have the legal standing to appear.

"It is a monstrous injustice not to allow petitioners the right to reply to the objection," Chan had told the judge.

“We were not allowed to say anything,” he added.

Manong , which is within the Kuala Kangsar parliamentary constituency was won by BN’s Mohamad Kamil Shafie who defeated PAS’ Jamil Dzulkarnain by a majority of 231 votes.

For the Pasir Panjang state seat, PAS’ Rohawati Abidin was defeated by BN’s Rashidi Ibrahim by a 304 vote majority.

Previously, it was reported that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, had complained over the dismissal of the election petitions on technicalities.

Sixty-nine election petitions have been filed by both the opposition and BN.