PETALING JAYA, Aug 21 — Azmin Ali has won the PKR deputy presidency in internal party elections this year, beating out Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, the election committee announced today.
PKR election committee chief Datuk Johari Abdul also said that Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail won the party presidency uncontested.
The party’s four newly-elected vice-presidents are Nurul Izzah Anwar, Chua Tian Chang, Shamsul Iskandar Akin and Rafizi Ramli.
Azmin, the Incumbent deputy president won 22,562 votes to Saifuddin’s 10,743, the official results showed.
Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, the Selangor MB, fell out of the race when he was expelled from the party but as at June 28 lagged Azmin but was ahead of Saifuddin.
Johari declined to reveal the number of votes that Khalid had received before the Selangor mentri besar was sacked from the party on August 10, saying it was “not relevant” now.
Zuraida Kamaruddin retained her PKR Wanita chief post and Haniza Mohamed Talha was elected deputy.
Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad won the PKR Youth chief post, while Afif Bahardin was elected deputy.
Johari defended the opposition party’s prolonged election exercise which took over four months and results which were announced on the eve of the party congress tomorrow.
“We’re very thorough; we don’t want to announce, then retract. It shows we’re transparent,” the PKR election committee chief told the press.
He also acknowledged the fractious nature of the party election that has reportedly seen vote fraud and fist fights.
“We’re not perfect; we’re human beings. We’ll recommend to the party on how to improve the election,” said Johari.
