PKR experienced a surge of members after the 14th general election, recording a 70% or some 300,000 increase from 2014.

With a total membership that has gone up by 40%, these new recruits could well determine the team to lead the party under new president Anwar Ibrahim to the 15th general election.

PKR’s membership registration list for all 222 divisions, which was sighted by The Malaysian Insight, showed that five states experienced big gains in membership after 2014.

Three of those states are Johor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan – which are controlled by Pakatan Harapan – while the remaining two are Terengganu (PAS) and Perlis (Barisan Nasional).

PKR’s membership in Selangor and Sabah recorded large increases, making both states with the highest number of members nationwide.

There are more than 90,000 members in Selangor while Sabah’s total more than 52,000.

“The surge in membership is because Pakatan Harapan became the government,” said Perlis PKR chairman Mohammad Faisol Abd Rahman.

However, he raised concerns over the surge of new members just before the party elections in the next two months.

He has asked the PKR headquarters to clean up the party roll list to ensure that only those who are qualified are allowed to vote.

“I’ve suggested that PKR conducts a ‘cleaning’ before the elections. There are PKR members who are still members of other parties. There must be a clean-up,” Faisol told The Malaysian Insight.

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said recently with a surge in new members after the May 9 general election, the party’s members now number more than 800,000, all of whom are qualified to vote in the party polls.

Saifuddin also confirmed that the elections will use the membership roll as of June 26, 2018.

PKR Kelantan chairman Ab Aziz Ab Kadir said many of the new members have been silent supporters for a long time.

“They were afraid of the BN government, but when PH took over Putrajaya, they came out to show their support.”

Kelantan is one of the states with a big leap in members, from fewer than 22,000 in 2014, to more than 44,000.

“We don’t have specific campaigns to increase our membership. Most of these new members signed up after GE14,” said Aziz.

He did not dismiss the possibility that this surge in membership could be due to the upcoming party elections.

“That’s a possibility. In some places, there are four- or five-cornered fights. Candidates might be trying to increase the number of members to increase their chances,” he said.

However, supporters and campaign leaders for both deputy president candidates – Mohamed Azmin Ali and Rafizi Ramli – stressed that the increase in members has no link with the party polls. – August 9, 2018.