Azmin sweeps Sarawak, keeps lead over Rafizi in PKR No 2 race
(MMO) – Incumbent Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali maintained his lead over challenger Rafizi Ramli in the contest for the PKR deputy president post today, after nearly two-months long of party elections came to what is considered a partial close.
According to an unofficial tally by Malay Mail based on PKR’s elections website, its official Twitter account and news reports, Azmin has now garnered 66,054 votes (51.52 per cent) against Rafizi’s 62,167 (48.48 per cent) in the PKR polls nationwide, with a wide 3,887 overall vote gap between them.
Contributing to Azmin’s firm position was his sweep of 23 of the 29 divisions in Sarawak in the these two days of voting with 4,020 Sarawak PKR members backing him, while Rafizi only won five of the divisions there with a total 1,884 votes.
In Sarawak, only Julau has yet to have its votes tallied as seven out of 76 tablets used in the polling were taken away by police investigating allegations of hacking and tampering of the electronic system. Controversy over Julau’s sudden membership spike remains unresolved.
In the fierce battle for PKR number two post, the economic affairs minister kept his lead even when he won the majority in only six states. Rafizi’s support has been more widespread with overall wins in six states on top of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and his current lead in Sabah.
(This is without taking into account several divisions where no figures are available on the PKR elections website at the time of writing, such as the federal territory of Labuan; Keningau and Tawau, both in Sabah).
This could be in part due to Azmin’s strong backing in Selangor, where the 19,555 votes for him there formed 29.6 per cent or almost one-third of his entire haul nationwide. In fact, it delivered both his and the entire race’s biggest majority at a whopping 6,607 votes.
The former Selangor mentri besar took 16 of the 22 divisions in Selangor, including Gombak where he is MP with 823 votes against Rafizi’s 242 votes. Azmin also trounced Rafizi in Pandan where the latter was formerly an MP. Azmin got 774 votes against Rafizi’s 559 votes.
Based on the latest available numbers, Rafizi’s biggest win was in Perak at 2,271 vote-majority, followed by Kelantan (317), Terengganu (227), Melaka (174), Negri Sembilan (89), Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (83), Perlis (66). He is currently leading in Sabah (10,102 votes over Azmin’s 9,587).
On top of Selangor and Sarawak where he scored his biggest wins, Azmin also has strong following in Kedah (628 vote-majority), Johor (541), while he won by a narrower margin in Penang (211) and Pahang (52).
Malay Mail’s tally is based on the official figures for only Penang, Johor, Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang, Kuala Lumpur, as well as figures provided for by the PKR elections committee on the party’s official elections portal but that have yet to be finalised by taking into account votes that were challenged.
