PKR blames ‘human error’ for polls results mix-up
By Debra Chong, The Malaysian Insider
PKR has denied that its first direct election process had been compromised following discrepancies in online results of the leading candidates with the official figures.
PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail attributed the discrepancies to “human error”.
“Our pengawas [election officials] work round the clock,” Saifuddin told a news conference at the PKR headquarters here.
He had minutes ago announced that Azmin Ali was in the lead for the PKR deputy presidency with a current total of 3,051 votes, trailed by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim in second place with 2,529 votes and Mustafa Kamil Ayub in third place with 1,149 votes.
Earlier this morning, the party secretariat had broadcast on its official website and through Twitter that Zaid and strategic director Chua Tian Chang were ahead in their respective bids for the deputy presidency and a vice-president’s posts.
The results show that Zaid, chairman of the Federal Territory PKR, garnered 3,683 votes while vice-president Azmin received 3,051 votes.
Mustaffa, also a vice-president, received 1,241 votes.
As many as 68 party divisions by yesterday completed voting, which started last Friday.
Voting in other divisions will be held over the next seven days.
The Pasir Mas election, which was supposed to be held last Friday, has been postponed to November 6.
Saifuddin explained that the initial results were communicated to the party secretariat through its various channels, including phone calls and the mix-up likely happened then as the officials monitoring the voting process were tired from working round-the-clock.
Despite the fact that different tallies had been posted on its official website and Twitter account, Saifuddin insisted the mix-up had not affected the party’s integrity.
“Compared to other sources, the [results] we ‘pc-ed’ today is regarded as the supreme,” the Machang MP said.
“This is a very open system. Even if there is a dispute, we can check back our documents,” he said, referring to the tally sheets signed by the assigned party election officials.
Saifuddiun stressed that only the results uttered directly from his own lips should be taken as official, and advised the media not to refer to any other source.
