KUALA LUMPUR – Fresh from his official announcement as PKR deputy president, Rafizi Ramli has now trained his attention on party members whom he alleged to have been sabotaging the political outfit by consistently disputing its election results.
He said as the party’s freshly elected number two, he will now push for disciplinary action to be taken against these individuals who are found to intentionally delay the new leadership from assuming their duties.
This after certain quarters within PKR had supposedly called for a forensic audit to be conducted on the original poll, which resulted in a number of changes, the most prominent being the competition for the women’s chief position.
In a statement yesterday, the PKR election committee had overturned the original election result which saw Rodziah Ismail, who is aligned to Rafizi, clinching victory, with the forensics audit confirming Senator Fadhlina Sidek as the official winner by a mere 32 votes (0.09%).
Rafizi said in a statement today that the action of certain individuals calling for an audit of the polling results is nothing more than a political game being played by those who lost their election, naming Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak, who failed in his attempt at being vice-president, as an example.
He said these individuals are supposedly close allies of PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who believe they could influence the result to ensure he (Rafizi) and those aligned to him do not get elected.
“The fact is, they couldn’t accept that the sentiments on the ground are different from their own readings,” he said, noting that despite the audit, it was not able to alter the majority of the election results.
“Unfortunately, the losers couldn’t accept defeat. They continue to pressure Anwar to hold re-election, or at the very least, do a digital audit in order to achieve their goals.”
Rafizi said he sympathised with Rodziah after her election as women’s chief was overturned by the slimmest of margins, which he said has raised question marks.
He also claimed to have been contacted by several grassroots members nationwide who expressed shock at various result changes at the divisional level, with some physical votes also supposedly removed from the official count.
These inconsistencies, he said, have only tarnished the party’s recent election.
In view of this, Rafizi has urged all party members to move on and not be bogged down by the political games instigated by certain losing parties.
“It is my stand that the PKR Congress will not be postponed any further, considering the general election can be called anytime now. My priority as deputy president is to prepare the leadership and machinery to face the poll.
“While we continue our agenda of strengthening the party, we must keep all avenues open to allow issues that were raised from the party election result changes to continue to be reviewed.
“Among the main measures I will take is to scrutinise the whole digital auditing process, which resulted in confusions, in order to provide due justice to all quarters.”
Rafizi defeated PKR secretary-general Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail for the deputy president post.
PKR is set to meet for its annual national congress next weekend. – The Vibes, July 5, 2022
