As expected, Zaid quits No. 2 race after failing to get support from Sabah divisions

Unable to catch up with Azmin, Zaid quits

Malaysia Chronicle

As expected FT PKR chief Zaid Ibrahim has announced he would drop out of the PKR deputy presidential race, in a move seen as trying to save 'face' after his greatest hope - the Sabah divisions - voted overwhelmingly for his main rival Azmin Ali.

But while Zaid took care to condemn PKR in the press statement announcing his decision, he left himself a loophole.

He did not make it clear if he would quit the party, or just the posts he holds although some stalwarts say that to err on the side of caution, it should be taken that he had also surrendered his PKR membership.

“I wish to announce my withdrawal as a candidate from the contest of deputy president of Parti Keadilan Rakyat and my resignation from all posts held in the party," said Zaid.

“I was offered to join this party under the belief that I could promote enlightened and progressive politics; nurture and develop principled political values and culture that I consider indispensable to the development of democracy and good governance in this country. I was mistaken."

Lost like 'shit'

According to Malaysiakini, unofficial results shows Azmin leading by a thumping 2,529 votes over Zaid. Some of its sources said Azmin had netted 6,502 votes versus Zaid's 3,973 and Mustaffa Kamli Ayub's 1,208. However, the official results will only be announced later on Monday.

Jeffrey's Keningau polled only 169 votes for Zaid

Zaid had pinned his hopes on buddy and Sabah chief Jeffrey Kitingan to pull in the votes for him. The Land Below the Wind has one of the highest PKR memberships among the states. But the Zaid-Kitingan plan flopped, and in the end, Sabah divisions gave long-time vice president Azmin a huge lead.

Therefore, it came as no surprise when pro-Zaid bloggers started ratcheting up false claims of cheating in the PKR ballot papers. The immediate response of many in the party was that Zaid himself knew he had reached the end of the road.

But rather than exit honorably, Zaid appears to have chosen to inflict as much damage as possible to PKR
before he leaves. Party stalwarts expressed the hope that the PKR top leadership would stand firm and let Zaid go.

"This has been typical of the Zaid camp since the No. 2 contest began. Now that it is clear, he will lose like shit, his supporters want to save his face by leaving before the whole world sees the truth. They have come out to accuse PKR of selling ballot papers and so forth. Yet Zaid's own polling agents signed off on all the necessary tally sheets. PKR members can judge for themselves what sort of low mentality is really behind all the false packaging," Eddie Wong, a PKR veteran told Malaysia Chronicle last night (see End of the PKR road for Zaid: Inflicting maximum damage before he goes).

Grandiose ambitions


But despite having his moves easily seen through by political veterans at most steps of the way, Zaid has refused to acknowledge his troubles were mainly of his own making and exacerbated by his choice of bad advisers.

Konsensus Bebas - future plans if they get re-elected!

“Over the course of the party elections, events have shown that the leadership actively condones malpractices and electoral fraud to achieve its designed objectives. I am certain that any political party with such hypocritical and false values will not be able to offer meaningful reforms to the people of this country," said Zaid.

“I have made this decision because there is no attempt on the part of the party leadership to address the various issues of manipulation and unfair electoral practices, although these issues were raised repeatedly."

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution had a day ago given a detailed response to Zaid's complaints, pointing out that tally sheets at polling centres were signed by Zaid's own agents (scroll below for full statement).

Party members also slammed Zaid for his alleged treachery towards the party. They pointed out that his supporters had months ago been preparing for a pull-out and forming a third bloc. But because of the bad publicity surrounding the Konsensus Bebas team of independent lawmakers led by Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Hashim, Zaid's camp is unlikely to immediately join forces with this bloc especially since he has no state assembly or parliamentary standing of his own.

However, it is widely speculated that a form of merger or alliance sponsored by former premier Mahathir Mohamad will take place in the not too distant future.

Indeed, even in his 'farewell' statement, Zaid hinted as much as to his grand ambitions.

“It is of utmost disappointment that I am unable to continue in this flawed election process. I remain committed to the Opposition’s cause and will continue to speak about the issues of the common people. Together, we will continue our unabated struggle towards a better government for the people,” said Zaid.

KEADILAN ELECTIONS: SECURITY FEATURES AND ELECTORAL PROCEDURES

KEADILAN views with gravity allegations that PKR election ballots are for sale and as many as 1000 ballots can be purchased from last week’s elections and reused this week. An online news site claim that next weeks ballot papers are already available and circulating.

KEADILAN will like to inform all KEADILAN members and candidates that the ballot papers for the past week cannot be used this week or the next two weeks. All ballot papers have the following security features:

1. Ballot papers for the following contested positions have serial numbers:

Deputy President, Vice President, Women Chief, Deputy Women Chief, Vice Women Chief, Youth Chief, Deputy Youth Chief &Vice Youth Chief. The 20 positions in each of the three Excos have up to 132 candidates and are in a booklet format.

2. All ballot papers need to be stamped by Election Officers at the division level just prior to giving them out to eligible voters. Any ballot paper without that stamp will not be valid.

3. Each week’s ballot papers will be printed on different colored papers. This coloured code will not be known to any of the Election Officers until the day of the election. Therefore the impression created that that ballot papers can be reused or recycled is completely untrue.

4. During the election process, candidates for the Deputy President, Women Chief and Youth Chief positions can register their representatives to observe the entire process with the Chief Election Officer – this totals a minimum of 8 representatives from the 8 candidates as election monitors. ALL candidates can register their representatives as counting agents for the positions they are contesting who are allowed to be present to observe the counting of the ballot paper. These electoral procedures can be downloaded from the KEADILAN website.

5. Each Election officers will fill up a tallying sheet which must be signed by him and also the candidates representatives. The said tallying sheet contains the results, the number ballot papers issued, number of votes casted and number of spoilt votes. Many of the candidates in particular those running for the deputy president’s position had appointed their representatives both to observe as well as counting agents practically at all divisions. Such agents were actually present through out the whole process and signed the said tallying sheets.

Issued by,

SAIFUDDIN NASUTION ISMAIL
Secretary General