PKR delays congress for polls audit

PKR delays congress for polls audit

The party says it needs time to look into complaints raised following the party elections and for a forensic audit to be carried out on the results.

PKR delegates at a previous party congress. (PKR pic)
PETALING JAYA:
The PKR congress scheduled for June 24 to 26 at the IDCC Shah Alam has been postponed to July 15 to 17.

PKR central committee member Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid said this was decided by the election committee at a meeting yesterday, adding that it was unanimous.

“At the meeting, the election committee agreed to postpone the congress to July to give us time to look into the complaints (over the recent party polls) and also for a forensic audit to be carried out (on the results),” he told FMT.

FMT has reached out to the PKR election committee for more details.

On June 5, PKR election committee chairman Dr Zaliha Mustafa said the party was open to conducting a forensic audit after Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak, a former aide to PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, claimed that nearly 28,000 votes went “missing” during the party elections.

Farhash said while 147,000 PKR members had taken part in the polls, the total number of votes obtained by the two deputy presidential candidates – Rafizi Ramli and Saifuddin Nasution Ismail – only amounted to 119,030, a difference of 27,970.

Farhash, who asked the party to hold off the congress until a forensic audit was completed, also noted that the election committee had received more than 900 complaints and that the results of several of the 222 divisional contests were under protest.

Actor-director Afdlin Shauki, who was defeated in his bid to become the Setiawangsa division chief, also claimed that 222 ballot papers were missing when the votes for the division were counted.

After Afdlin lodged a police report, Zaliha said that based on past experience, the police would not get involved in internal party matters even after a report had been made.

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