MEMBERS from Mohamed Azmin Ali’s camp in PKR will likely dominate the Youth wing when results are announced tonight at the opening of the wing’s annual congress.

Despite this, the wing’s new chief is expected to be an ally of Rafizi Ramli, who is challenging Azmin for the party deputy president’s post.

Akmal Nasir from camp Rafizi is now ahead of Dr Afif Bahardin by a thin majority of more than 200 votes, party sources told The Malaysian Insight.

This is after taking into account the balance of votes from Pensiangan in Sabah, where members who didn’t get to vote earlier finally cast their ballots last weekend, and from the problematic Julau branch in Sarawak.

The party’s central elections committee (JPP) has yet to announce the results for Julau on its website.

As of last Sunday when the party elections ended and before the Pensiangan and Julau results were included,Afif was in the lead with 16,672, while Akmal had 16,358 votes and  Najwan Halimi 3,309.

It put Afif, the Seberang Jaya assemblymen, in the running for victory with a lead of 314 votes, but Pensiangan and Julau have turned the tide against him.

“Akmal is now in the lead after votes from Pensiangan and Julau sided with him,” said a party source.

Political analyst Dr Awang Azman Awang Pawi said Afif’s narrow lead was due to Najwan splitting the votes.

“Najwan managed to split the vote. We know Najwan is an Azmin supporter and in the same camp as Dr Afif. If their camps had put up just one candidate, supporters would not have been split,” said the Universiti Malaya lecturer.

Akmal, the Johor Baru MP, will likely have Hilman Idham as his deputy youth chief. Hilman is Afif’s running mate and is ahead of his two contenders, Raymond Ahuar and Naqiudin Nazrin, by almost 8,000 votes.

It will be a repeat scenario of the last PKR Youth elections in 2014, when Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was elected the wing chief but is not aligned to Azmin. His committee, however, were members of Azmin’s camp.

Azmin will launch the Youth and Wanita PKR congress in Shah Alam tonight and both wings will hold a full-day meeting tomorrow.

The central congress will meet this weekend and confirm Anwar Ibrahim as president. – November 15, 2018.