PKR polls: Rivals upset with candidate's tactics

By FMT Staff
UPDATED KOTA KINABALU: As PKR members vote for national leadership for the second weekend today, supporters of deputy presidential candidates Zaid Ibrahim and Mustaffa Kamil Ayub are crying foul over the manner their rival Azmin Ali is conducting his campaigns.

“We are quite concerned with what's happening in Sabah today. We will see how things turn out before deciding what to do next,” said Firdaus Christopher, Zaid's special assistant.
The same sentiments were expressed by Mustaffa's men.

“We want the party to ensure that the election process is conducted in a just and fair manner. Right now that is not happening,” said an aide to Mustaffa.

The race for the deputy's post is fiercely contested among the three candidates. Vice-president Azmin, who has the backing of party supremo Anwar Ibrahim, is leading by about 500 votes over his closest challenger Zaid.


The election process which started last week was riddled with allegations of collusion among Azmin's camp, the party's independent election committee and party secretariat to ensure a smooth victory for Azmin.

Both Zaid and Mustaffa have also separately called for the election process to be postponed until all outstanding grouses are resolved.

The party has denied all allegations of election discrepancies and insisted that the elections will proceed.

The latest complaints have come from Sabah where members from 11 divisions will be voting today. Another nine divisions will hold their elections tomorrow.

In the next two weekends, another 130 divisions in the peninsula and Sarawak will conduct their polls.
Among the discrepancies alleged by both Zaid and Mustaffa's camps are:

• Last-minute campaigning by Azmin where he is alleged to have used his position as vice-president to canvass for votes for the deputy's post. Azmin is claimed to have conducted a ceramah at Beaufort last night.

• Azmin is also alleged to be visiting all party divisions as they go for voting. His detractors say this is also a form of campainging to “pressure” the members to vote for him.

• Certain divisions are also alleged to have put up posters of Azmin while the voting process in underway. His critics claim this is also a form of campaigning.

• The availability of ballot papers even before balloting has started.

“If the party's election commission finds that these are not election breaches, then all other candidates should also be allowed to do last-minute campaigns,” added Mustaffa's aide.

Several divisional leaders from Sabah also claimed that money politics was also rampant, with division leaders being given financial inducement for votes.

“We know that Azmin lacks support in Sabah, but his team is involved in various activities to ensure that he gets the votes from the Sabah party members,” added another observer.

Ballot papers leaked?
There are also claims that ballot papers for the elections to be held tomorrow and next weekend have been in circulation since Friday, making a mockery of the party's election process.

FMT saw a set of ballot papers meant for elections in Selangor to be held next week. The ballot papers for the deputy president's post had the party's official stamp and serial numbers (see photo). However, the papers for the vice-presidential and supreme council posts did not have any serial numbers.

It is learnt that such papers were also found in Sabah.
“This is shocking. How can the ballot papers be available even before the elections? Is someone trying to manipulate the results by having extra paper ready?” asked a supreme council contender from Selangor.

He added that it was important the party cleared the air over these ballot papers, and do the necessary so that the integrity of the party's election process is not further damaged.

Popular blogger Haris Ibrahim, a keen observer of PKR polls, first wrote about the existence of these ballot papers.

Quoting a source, he said these papers will be used to boost the votes of certain candidates where voter turnout is low, and done “with the collusion of the central election committee appointee mandated to oversee the elections”.

“My question, though, is if this is true, will the PKR leadership continue to turn a blind eye?” asked Haris in his blog.

When contacted, party's election committee secretary Radin Shamsul Kamar rubbished claims of the existence of these ballot papers.

“This is impossible. Such claims are ridiculous. There are no such papers available,” he told FMT.
He added that all ballot papers have certain security features, such as serial numbers, and could not be manipulated.

Unofficial results: Azmin leads in Sabah
Meanwhile the unofficial results from eight divisions in Sabah showed that Azmin was leading Zaid by 236 votes.

Azmin obtained 1,060 votes while Zaid got 824 votes in total. The third candidate Mustaffa lagged behind with only 40 votes.

According to the unofficial tally provided to FMT, Zaid managed to obtain the votes in Kota Belud (137 votes), Kudat (138 votes), Kota Kinabalu (162 votes) and Keningau (169 votes).

However Azmin managed to eat into Zaid's gains by winning big in Sandakan with 417 votes, Beaufort (223 votes) and Papar (124 votes). Zaid managed only 25 votes in Sandakan, 58 in Beaufort and 28 in Papar.

In Ranau, Azmin garnered 153 votes, defeating Zaid who gained 107 votes and Mustaffa's 10 votes.

At press time, results from Libaran was unavailable but FMT learnt that this division is aligned to Azmin. Silam and Penampang divisions have postponed their elections to another date.

Zaid's team is however claiming irregularities in both Sandakan and Libaran.

“We are waiting for the official reports from the divisions,” said Firdaus.

Zaid did well in the single division which went to polls in the peninsula, where he won the Pasir Mas division in Kelantan.

Overall results after two weeks of polling indicated that Azmin is leading comfortably with 4,146 votes over Zaid's 3,406 votes, creating a 740-vote majority.

Mustaffa has only managed to gain 1,219 votes.