THERE are no attempts by anyone in the party leadership to cover up or illegally increase the number of members in the Julau division in Sarawak, said PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

He also said that a circular sent from his office on June 27 which showed that the Julau division only had 66 new members had mistakes in it, and a second circular stating the right membership numbers was emailed immediately to the party leaders.

“After the first circular was sent out, my staff realised that it contained errors and we had emailed a second circular to correctly state the 13,000 membership numbers in Julau division.

“My staff had forgotten to update the list of registered numbers, that’s why Julau was listed as only having 66 new members. The second circular corrected that mistake.

“The first circular is invalid but someone has decided to make it viral to show as if we are hiding something,” he told The Malaysian Insight today.

He was referring to a WhatsApp message which was being viraled today to show a copy of PKR’s circular to show the list of new members.

The circular dated June 27 showed Sarawak had 6,812 new members, of which 66 were from Julau.

The viral message was sent out as a result of PKR political bureau’s confirmation of Julau’s membership to be at 13,000. These new members will be eligible to vote in the party polls which will take place in Sarawak this Saturday.

The controversy over Julau membership is over the drastic hike from 603 on June 26 to 13,000 a day later.

Sarawak is the last state to vote in the PKR elections and is being watched closely because of the membership surge in Julau, where its MP, Larry Sng, is challenging incumbent Semana Sawang for the branch chief post.

Sng, formerly of the Barisan Nasional-friendly Sarawak Workers Party, is openly aligned with PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli, who is taking on Mohamed Azmin Ali for the deputy president’s post.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is investing the spike in Julau’s membership following a report lodged by Sarawak PKR information chief Vernon Kedit.

A MACC source told The Malaysian Insight that officers have gone to Julau and interviewed several witnesses.

Saifuddin, who is the Kulim MP, also said the second circular had included new members who had joined the party before the June 26 deadline.

He added that applications from new members in Sarawak were received by the party on June 12.

“Membership registration was not only done online but also through members filling up forms and sending them over to us,” he said.

“And such manual applications would take some time to be updated in the system, especially if they were sent at the last moment before the closing date,” he added. – November 8, 2018.