PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali is someone who doesn’t respect the party leadership and the organisation itself, PKR Youth secretary Syukri Razab said today.

For this reason, the party youth wing withdrew its invitation to Azmin to officiate its annual congress next month, offering it to Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail instead.

“There is no need to hide it anymore, that the decision to cancel the invitation to Azmin is due to his own behaviour.

“We won’t use our annual congress as a platform for leaders who blatantly disrespect the leadership and the party,” Syukri said in a statement today.

He also told Sarawak PKR chairman Baru Bian not to interfere, with the decision already made at the wing’s leadership meeting on October 20.

Baru yesterday called off Sarawak PKR’s annual convention schedule for later this month until this latest party crisis was settled.

Syukri said some quarters within PKR were criticising the youth wing for its decision as disrespecting tradition, with the deputy president normally officiating its events, and similarly the women’s wing.

However, Syukri said they should firstly respect the party’s rules about attending leadership meetings.

“Before you talk about what is tradition and conventions, look at the written rules first, rules that have been broken by several people in PKR.”

He then cited the party constitution, stating any central leadership member who fails to attend three consecutive leadership meetings can be deemed as having resigned from the central leadership council.

The party constitution also empowers the council to enforce this rule.

Syukri said PKR Youth employs a similar policy for leaders who skip meetings up to six times in succession.

His remarks are aimed at Azmin and other leaders in his faction who have not been attending central leadership and political bureau meetings for about a year now.

“Those who disregard meetings and organisational discipline are those who are destroying democracy in PKR. Is this what they mean by tradition?

“Don’t say it’s tradition when it is actually for political self-interest,” Syukri said.

Withdrawing the invite has sparked counter statements from opposing factions within PKR.

Baru’s plan to cancel the Sarawak convention has been overruled by the national leadership, with Anwar saying it had to go on as most of the state branch chiefs did not agree to cancel the event. – November 16, 2019.