Rafizi: Legitimacy of new PKR leadership questionable if one wins with slim majority

The legitimacy of the new PKR leadership would be questionable if anyone were to win the problem-riddled election with a slim majority, said Rafizi Ramli.

The PKR deputy president hopeful, in a statement today, questioned the transparency and fairness of the party election if his opponent Azmin Ali was to claim victory without re-election for Sarawak's Julau division.

"If a re-election for Julau is not held, Azmin is expected to win with about 1,500 majority out of 140,000 total votes, which is a margin of only about one percent.

"Would it be fair and transparent to use data that had been hacked in Julau, when a re-election can clear up this issue?

"Anyone who wins with one percent advantage, given the numerous problems in the election process that had occurred so far, would invite many questions about the legitimacy of next term's PKR leadership," he said, adding that the party's political bureau needs to consider this among other matters in its meeting scheduled for tonight.

Rafizi was referring to the problem that occurred during the e-voting process in Julau on Saturday, which saw its results suspended by party elections committee (JPP) following allegations of hacking.

However, JPP announced this morning that it had decided to go through with the results after finding that no data or votes were found to be compromised, albeit confirming that six tablets from the voting centre had their electronic voting (e-voting) apps “wiped clean” by the Prey anti-theft app.

'Azmin's camp to blame for Julau issues, JPP failed to address membership controversy'

The Julau PKR division was among the local party chapters that saw a drastic increase in membership in June. In recent weeks, several individuals have lodged reports with the authorities alleging that their names appeared on the list without their consent.

The matter has since come under MACC's investigation after a Sarawak PKR leader lodged a report over the surge membership.

Saying that Julau controversy had tarnished PKR's image, Rafizi lashed out at JPP, particularly its deputy chairperson Adzman Hedra and secretary Ismail Yusof, for what he claimed as their failure to manage party election well and to address issues concerning the election.

This, he added, was despite the political bureau and JPP having repeatedly agreed on "facts" concerning the issues.

"The membership application for Julau division had been submitted to PKR headquarters since early June, but because of the system which was unable to handle massive entry of new members and lack of staff to key in every application, there was a backlog which ended up being entered at one time.

"This had made it look like all 13,000 new members from Julau division had joined the party in one day, when the reality is that the same thing happens to 43,000 applications from all over the country, including divisions which are close to Azmin, due to the massive number of applications sent since May 9," he said.

In his statement, Rafizi also claimed that PKR Women's chief candidate Zuraida Kamaruddin, who is aligned to Azmin, was the one who insisted that membership application using thumb drives be accepted without using the online registration system.

He said Azmin's camp was also responsible in bringing in Julau independent MP Larry Sng into PKR.

Sng, a former BN leader who contested as an independent candidate in 14th General Election before joining PKR, has been implicated in the Julau membership controversy.

"There are many more divisions that also did not submit membership forms, be it physically or online, and the new applications were only submitted using thumb drive. These include Batu and Kudat divisions brought by Tian Chua and Zuraida.

"The membership committee which conducted checks and approved all these applications including Julau's was led by Xavier Jeyakumar, who is Azmin's right-hand man. But they questioned about Julau membership when Julau members chose not to support them," said Rafizi.

He added that JPP had also checked membership forms that were submitted for Julau division and found that over 6,000 out of 13,000 new applications had legitimate forms.

JPP, said Rafizi, had also admitted that new members who had registered via thumb drives by Tian Chua and Zuraida had yet to submit in legitimate membership forms so far. - Mkini