If there is no cheating Azmin can win

Philip Golingai, The Star

THE Azmin vs Rafizi fight for the PKR deputy president post is this close.

About 1.8% or 1,659 votes separate Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, the two-term incumbent, and Rafizi Ramli, the challenger. So far with voting in all Peninsula Malaysia states except Melaka, Economic Affairs Minister Azmin has bagged 46,944 votes while PKR vice-president Rafizi got 45,285.

There are about 27% up for grab – Sarawak (7%) on Nov 10 and Melaka (3%) on Nov 11.

This weekend is Sabah PKR’s turn at the polls.

Sabah politicians with Team Azmin are confident that its leader can win in the state.

“If there is no cheating, Azmin can win 70% of the votes for deputy president. But if there is cheating, it will be 60%,” said a Sabah PKR leader, who did not want to be identified.

Cheating? PKR? Is it possible to put that two words in the same sentence?

Both Team Azmin and Team Rafizi have been complaining about cheating throughout the PKR polls.

A viral example is that of a video clip where Team Azmin scrutineers caught a phantom voter from Sabah trying to vote in Selayang PKR polls in Selangor.

When asked who arranged for him to vote, the man, holding a cai dan (candidate list) , named a Sabah PKR leader.

Former Rawang assemblyman Gan Pei Nei, who is with Team Azmin, has demanded a fresh election for the Selayang PKR division due to the alleged presence of phantom voters. She claimed that four or five buses of phantom voters were ferried in. Gan had failed to defeat William Leong who is with Team Rafizi for the Selayang PKR head. Leong said he was confident that an investigation would clear him of any wrongdoing.

I asked a Sabah PKR leader with Team Rafizi about the viral video. He said that it was a mistake. The Sabahan was a Pensiangan division member and he thought e-voting allowed him to vote in other PKR divisions.

A cunning way to cheat, according to the Sabah PKR leader from Team Azmin, is to deceive a voter into thinking that he was voting for a particular candidate but instead he was picking another candidate. This tactic was used in a remote division in Sabah during the PKR polls in 2014.

For example, a voter was given a cai dan which has a photograph and name of candidate A with the number 2. The voter ticked number 2 on the ballot paper thinking he was voting for candidate A. He had actually voted for candidate B whose number is 2.

Another way to cheat, according to the Sabah PKR leader with Team Rafizi, was to use money to entice a voter to tick a certain cai dan. He alleged that there are characters going house to house to distribute money.

Last week during a chat over Kopi Tenom in a coffee shop in Kota Kinabalu, the Sabah PKR leader aligned to Team Rafizi predicted that Rafizi would win about 45% of the votes in Sabah for deputy president post while Azmin will win 55%.

“I’ve told Rafizi that his team needs to work harder. They need to go to the ground,” he said. “If we work harder, we can beat Azmin in Sabah.”

He also said that the Sabah leaders with Rafizi were also disunited and were working in silos.

“A leader is not going on the ground to mobilise voters. She is a state leader but she only looks after her position in her division,” he said.

Team Rafizi was also hoping that PKR president-elect Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim would visit Sabah to boost Rafizi’s chances against Azmin. However, the Oct 31 and Nov 1 visit did not pan out.

The Sabah PKR leader aligned with Azmin is worried about the sudden spike in party members in divisions such as Kota Marudu and Pensiangan which are supporting Team Rafizi.

“The increase is like a rocket. These divisions have a spike of about 6,000 new members. The new members can affect our performance,” he said.

There’s also a sharp increase in Tawau PKR when Umno’s Balung assemblyman Datuk Osman Jamal (Balung) joined the party together with his supporters. The Tawau PKR division is with Team Azmin.

Team Azmin also believe that it has got the support 18 out of the 25 PKR divisions in Sabah.

While the Sabahan leaders with Team Azmin are solidly behind Azmin, some of them will not follow its cai dan fully.

The vice-president candidates for Team Azmin are: incumbents – Tian Chua and Deputy Primary Industries Minister Datuk Seri Shamsul Iskandar, Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin and Minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources Dr Xavier Jayakumar.

However, some of the Sabahans in Team Azmin will include incumbent Nurul Izzah Anwar in its cai dan and exclude Shamsul.

“Nurul Izzah is with Team Rafizi but I have a good relationship with her. And I also have to support the daughter of our president-elect,” said the Sabah PKR leader aligned to Azmin.

He is supporting Zuraida as she has been helpful when PKR was still in the Opposition, Tian Chua because he is a reformasi icon and has strong character.

This left him choosing between Shamsul and Xavier. And he picked Xavier as “we can’t have just Malays and Chinese in our top leadership post” and he is a full minister who is helpful.

Except for one or two divisions, the Sabah leaders aligned to Team Rafizi will follow its cai dan. It will support Nurul Izzah, Sungai Petani MP Datuk Johari Abdul, Selayang MP Leong and Sungai Siput MP S. Kesavan.

For the rebellious divisions aligned to Team Rafizi, they are going for Zuraida as she is “helpful”.

The voting pattern in Sabah reflects the result of the nationwide contest for the four vice-president posts. Nurul Izzah is leading with 52,283 votes, Zuraida (41,313), Xavier (36,739) and Tian Chua (32,909).

In fifth place is Shamsul with 31,760 votes followed by Johari (29,658), Leong (28,875) and Kasavan (28,143).

Some Sabah PKR leaders see the Azmin vs Rafizi fight as actually an Anwar vs Azmin fight. But for PKR members who don’t follow national politics, they will vote for whichever cai dan that is handed to them.

Who will win in Sabah might depend on which side has the “magic touch” in the state famous for phantom voters, electoral rigging and money politics.