SEVERAL PKR leaders have expressed concerns that an increasing number of dubious votes have been recorded in the ongoing party elections, prompting some to alert the party’s election committee to closely monitor the polls.

Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari has called on the party leadership to launch an investigation as well as reveal the total number of dubious votes coming from those who are not registered as PKR members.

“There’s a difference because in the past, there weren’t so many, but this time I see many. So we need to investigate,” said the Sg Tua state assemblyman.

Amirudin was referring to the results of the party polls in Johor on September 30 when almost 1,100 votes out of the total 10,725 ballots cast were dubious votes.

Out of the 1,100, about 10% votes were accepted by the election committee as valid ballots.

Incumbent PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali won the Johor leg of the party elections, beating vice-president Rafizi Ramli with a margin of 527 votes.

Another PKR state assemblyman, who has been a party member since 1998, also expressed concerns that dubious votes could easily tip the scales in favour of certain candidates, especially if they number into the thousands.

“There are cases where these are actual members, but the system just hasn’t updated their details, so the election committee allows them. But it can’t be in the thousands. As far as I know, it’s more like about 10 people for each branch,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“In 2014, Rafizi won the post of branch head thanks to dubious votes, with just a majority of one or two (votes),” he said.

Adzman Hedra, deputy chair of the election committee, said he was also surprised that in Johor, only 10% of dubious votes had been cleared to be genuine members.

“We were surprised in Johor. Out of the 1,100, only 10% were accepted. The others weren’t members,” he said.

A candidate for the central leadership council, Abdullah Sani, said the high number of dubious votes could be simply a case of a system glitch.

“For example, someone has been a member for 10 years and this round, his name was dropped from the online system. Which is why the manual system is still used as a reference.

“I am also worried but since we’ve adopted the system, we just need to improve it,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

PKR Youth chief hopeful Akmal Nasir said it would be unfair to totally reject dubious votes as some were genuine cases of members whose names were removed in the system switchover.

“The most important thing is for us to ensure that the dubious votes come from actual members,” he said.

“To deny them their right to vote is unfair,” said the Johor Baru member of Parliament. – October 13, 2018.