About 100 pro- Mahasiswa (pro-M) student activists held a 19-hour demonstration, outside the Universiti Putra Malaysia administration building.

It started off as a demonstration against the university's decision to annul the victory of 11 pro-M candidates in Monday's campus poll at 10pm last night. 

The annulment was reversed after a meeting today, but the protestors remain unhappy that vice-chancellor Radin Umar Radin Sohaidi has refused to explain why this had even happened.

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A  pro-M spokesperson said that the students will not disperse until they get a satisfactory explanation.

“We will stay put. We demand that the vice-chancellor himself comes down and explains the annulment to us. We want to know why.

"If he does not, we will enter the building to ask him for an explanation."

A minor scuffle between activists and security guards took place at about 4pm today. This was followed by another round meeting with university authorities before the group finally decided to end their protests. 

Earlier today, another spokesperson, Ahmad Shukri Kamaruddin, said the 11 had been informed of the annulment by phone about 9pm yesterday. Later, they received an official letter confirming that the results had been annulled.

"The letter was signed by UPM student affairs department disciplinary unit head Noraihan Nordin," he said.

NONE According to the letter, the candidates broke electoral rules by campaigning in a group, instead of individually as required under the polls regulations.

The 11 were given until 10am today to appeal. A fee of RM100 would have been levied on each.

This morning, the protestors who ambushed Radin Umar as soon as he arrived at his office this morning.

By then, the pro-M students had contacted Deputy Higher Education Minister Saifuddin Abdullah on the matter.

"He expressed regret that this has happened and said he would contact the university to look into the matter," Ahmad Shukri claimed.

Minor scuffle

A meeting was held between Radin Umar, the deputy vice-chancellor in charge of student affairs Mohd Fauzi Ramlan, and five of the affected candidates later this morning.

NONE A minor scuffle broke out when a student, former pro-M chairperson Mohd Lokman Al-Hakim Low Abdullah ( right ), tried to leave the office with a file containing evidence of the annulment.

Mohd Fauzi shouted and got the attention of several guards who stopped Mohd Lokman and confiscated the file after a scuffle.

   

Contacted later, Mohd Lokman said he had wanted to take the file out as proof, since he found that all the grounds given for the annulment were based on “false complaints”.

“The file contained false signatures from a candidate who had allegedly lodged complaint against the pro-M candidates,” he said.

“I asked Mohd Fauzi for evidence. I asked to see it, then I tried to carry it out of the office, which prompted him to shout out (for the guards).”

   

The ‘anti-establishment’ pro-M won 32 of the 43 seats in the campus polls, defeating the ‘pro-establishment’ Aspirasi group.