PKR’s electoral process in question

KLANG: There are mounting doubts about PKR’s e-voting and membership registration procedures as various problems continue to plague the party polls.

One of the biggest problems is the emergence of “doubtful voters”, those whose names are not in the divisional electoral rolls despite them claiming to be members.

These “doubtful voters” are allowed to e-vote but their votes are not tabulated into the total score until their membership is investigated and verified.

Saying this yesterday, Lembah Jaya assemblyman Haniza Talha added that party members were also troubled with how membership registration was being conducted now.

“Currently, anyone can register to become a member and qualify to vote, and recently, even contest for divisional positions.

“The process must be redone for it to be more transparent and the party’s political bureau must vet membership applications,” said Haniza, who is also a Selangor state exco member.

She said the applications must then be reverted to the respective divisions and only approved after getting agreement from the divisions.

Haniza said another grouse from members was that the permission given to new members to contest in the party polls.

“According to the PKR constitution, new members can only contest for divisional positions after a year.

“But there is a clause that allows the party president the discretion to enable these new members to contest,” she added.

Haniza said this has resulted in new members contesting for divisional positions in Kelantan and Terengganu after they were given the green light to do so by the party’s top leadership.

“Many new members in the two states were on the opposing side during the last general election and some even contested against us.

“But they are now PKR members with some of them even contesting for divisional positions, which has made long-time members very upset,” Haniza claimed.

Meanwhile, Selangor PKR communication bureau chief Nor Hizwan Ahmad said the party has to admit that the electoral procedure was questionable.

“The PKR leadership must not continue to be in denial and defend an electoral system that has been proven to be weak,” he said in a statement.

Nor Hizwan said it was unacceptable that votes cast electronically could go missing – first in Melaka and recently in Kedah.

The votes and names of members disappeared from the voting app in Melaka, Negri Sembilan and Kedah, which was believed to be due to technical problems and weak Internet access.

“We must find a solution for it,” he added.

Separately, PKR deputy president candidate Rafizi Ramli claimed he was leading the race by 995 votes.

In a posting on his blog, Rafizi said he was surprised with the results of the Perak party polls yesterday, which placed him ahead of his opponent Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.

“I would like to thank the voters in Perak, who have given me 6,700 votes (61%) as compared to 4,359 votes (39%) to Azmin.

“I won in 19 out of 24 branches in Perak – the biggest results in any state so far,” he wrote on rafiziramli.com.

The former Pandan MP expressed hope that his strong performance would carry on in the final six branches in Selangor, as well as the polls in Sabah and Sarawak.

“With this momentum, as well as the support in Sabah and Sarawak, the internal reformasi (reformation) agenda carried through #Reformasi20Tahun can be carried out,” he said.

Rafizi claims to have 47,542 votes (50.5%) against Azmin’s 46,547 votes (49.5%).

In Kedah, unofficial results at press time showed that Azmin garnered 3,754 votes while Rafizi secured 3,111 votes in the election involving 15 divisions in the state yesterday.