War of words starts for PKR Petra Jaya branch chief post
MIRI: An aspiring candidate for PKR Petra Jaya branch chief, Iswandy Morni, yesterday slammed the incumbent chief of the branch, Baharudin Moksin, for his statement against Rafizi Ramli for contesting the PKR deputy president post in the party’s upcoming election, which he described as ‘shallow-minded’.
He was commenting on Baharudin’s statement highlighted in the newspaper that historical facts showed that incumbent deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali is one of the earliest people to be involved in ‘Reformasi’ and he has shown his loyalty to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the Reformasi agenda.
“If the issue is considered as an election argument, then it should be remembered that Rafizi was in the free-Anwar campaign when the movement was started in 1998 after Datuk Seri Anwar was fired,” he argued.
Baharudin had also claimed that senior leaders in Sarawak were disturbed by the campaign method deployed by the ‘ team RafiziRamli’ in the contest for the party’s deputy president post.
According to Iswandy, Baharudin did not mention the promise of Rafizi to bring the ‘Invoke’ formula to Sarawak in the coming election.
He said Rafizi also mentioned setting cooperatives for PKR members who had been marginalised and lost their means of living for their involvement with the party. He said in his campaign trail, Rafizi stated that he would highlight the real concern for Sarawak as a territory to restore the state’s rights that were eroded after 1976 as a result of the constitutional amendment.
All these comments, Iswandy claimed, were not highlighted by Baharudin who merely commented negatively on Rafizi who is campaigning for votes from Sarawak for him to secure the deputy president post.
“This election is to restore the struggle to the party’s original struggle – reforms on government institutions and community thinking.
This is still a long way off and if the party does not go back to this objective, it is not impossible that someday the party will be abandoned by the rakyat,” he argued.
Meanwhile, he said it should be emphasised that PKR is a party that practises democracy and during the party election democracy must be nourished.
“What should be offered by the opponent is an alternative vision and mission to what is given by Rafizi rather than merely using an autocratic or old person argument,” Iswandy added.