Farhash repeats call for probe into possible manipulation of PKR polls

 

PKR vice-president candidate Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak today repeated his call for an audit into the party election process.

In a statement, he said many candidates have filed objections against the election's unofficial results and raised their suspicion of possible manipulation.

"Many objections have been made against the 2022 PKR Election results after the unofficial vote counts were released last Sunday.

"These objections did not only come from my side, but apparently many other candidates who took part in the election have raised their doubts about the results.

"This is not the issue of candidates who cannot accept their losses, but the question at hand here is that doubts have been raised that the party election mechanism and system may have been compromised and manipulated by certain quarters," he said.

Concerns about transparency

Farhash, who is a former aide to PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, was contesting for one of the four PKR vice-president posts and the Gombak division chief post.

Elaborating further, the politician claimed that there are concerns about the transparency in PKR’s online voting system.

According to him, online votes were counted by party election committee members without the presence of any representative from candidates or a third party to ensure check and balance.

Farhash also raised a red flag over the delay in announcing vote counts, which he said could have been done faster as the party uses an online voting system.

"The use of online voting should help to speed up the process, and delay in announcing the results up to several days has also opened the results to manipulation.

"In comparison, the country's general election involves millions of voters with votes being counted physically, but the results could come out in just several hours (after polling).

"We in PKR are among the most vocal in fighting for transparent and fair elections in this country. We even took to the street to protest injustices in elections through the Bersih rallies.

"Thus, all these things that we had been fighting for should have been done in our own party election, but it looks like the opposite is happening."

Forensic audit

Farhash urged the party to heed calls by candidates who want a forensic audit to be carried out on the election by an independent entity, including recounting of votes in the presence of candidates' representatives.

He also called for the party to use an election system that is free from any parties with a vested interest in its future elections.

"The applications used should not have links to any party members. It should be operated by an independent entity. So does the vote-counting process, which should be done more transparently with results being published live.

"I hope that the party election committee and the party take seriously the views aired by many candidates for improvement." - Mkini