PERAK leaders aligned to Mohamed Azmin Ali are blaming the incumbent for his shocking defeat to Rafizi Ramli in the state for the PKR deputy president’s post.

Azmin’s loyalists said state leaders failed to campaign aggressively for the incumbent deputy president and accusing them of failure to bring out Azmin supporters to vote.

The economic affairs minister is also partly to blame for failing to campaign in Perak. He did not visit the state to meet party members, they said.

In last Saturday’s party elections in Perak, the divisions in the state overwhelmingly voted in favour of Rafizi for the deputy president’s post.

PKR members in Perak gave Rafizi 6,700 (61%) votes, compared with Azmin’s 4,359 (39%).

Rafizi said he won 19 out of 24 divisions in Perak, calling it the biggest win in any state.

Perak with 60,883 members is the third biggest state in terms of membership after Selangor and Sabah.

On Sunday, Azmin won in Selangor while the Sabah elections are next week. He is now leading Rafizi by just more than 1,000 votes. Azmin was expected to win in Perak.

Vice-presidential candidate Tian Chua, from Azmin’s camp, said supporters were also dispirited after chaos in the party’s e-voting system, especially in Kedah.

“As such, the efforts to mobilise supporters to come and vote were ineffective.

“Apart from that, Perak leaders who supported Azmin were also not aggressive in the campaign,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

He added that state party chief Dr Mohamad Nur Manuty was an academic and “not the fighter type”.

The elections in Perak were postponed from an earlier because of problems in the voting process in other states.

“Our machinery was ready for the original date but when postponed, they became less urgent and dispirited,” said the former Batu MP.

When contacted, Manuty refused to comment on the matter.

However, several state leaders agreed that the campaign for Azmin could have been handled better.

“His political operators failed to get the support. Azmin himself did not come down to visit members here. Maybe he is busy being a minister,” said a former division leader. – October 29, 2018.