KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 ― Rafizi Ramli asserted that he is on par with incumbent Datuk Seri Azmin Ali in the race to be PKR deputy president based on a survey conducted by his Invoke data analytics firm.

The founder of Invoke said it has polled between 7,000 and 8,000 PKR members so far this week and aimed to call between 40,000 and 50,000 members.

“It’s almost split 50-50, right in the middle,” Rafizi claimed to Malay Mail in an exclusive interview here at Invoke’s office.

Invoke was the only pollster that accurately predicted that Pakatan Harapan (PH) would win the May 9 general election, while other organisations had expected either another Barisan Nasional (BN) victory or a hung Parliament at the worst.

Rafizi said his support base in the PKR internal election generally comprised party grassroots leaders.

“I think they relate to me in the sense that we have to fight tooth-and-nail without having anything. I’m one of those grassroots leaders.

“Through Invoke, people see how we helped each other. Invoke candidates networked with all these leaders,” said Rafizi, referring to candidates in the 14th general election that Invoke had worked with and formed the majority of PKR MPs.

He also said he typically has support from PKR members below 30 who got to know the party through his campaigns, either through social media or issues he raised.

On the 300,000 members who joined PKR after the May 9 poll, Rafizi said about 60 per cent of these joined individually, while the rest were registered via batches of hundreds by party leaders.

“We don’t know how these 300,000 people will vote,” he said. 

Most of the individual recruits were below 30, according to Rafizi.

“I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they are people who have the political awakening or excitement or euphoria. They would have been our supporters anyway; maybe they never wanted to affiliate to any party.”

Rafizi said online registration to join the party required a valid phone number and sign-ups would be called or sent an SMS to verify their registration.

The other 40 per cent of new members registered en masse were brought in by “warlords” or grassroots campaigners, he said.

“It's quite difficult to say in terms of what’s their intention, but obviously they will have allegiance to whoever are the warlords or grassroots campaigners who brought them in.”

According to Rafizi, PKR currently has about 860,000 members, including the 300,000 new members. Some 270,000 members are from Selangor, a state where Azmin was mentri besar from 2014 to 2018.

Rafizi said it was difficult to predict PKR’s 2018 race, noting that the voter turnout rate was unknown as this was the first party election after PKR won federal power.

The voter turnout rate in PKR’s 2014 election, he said, was only 12.5 per cent with 50,000 out of 400,000 members then casting their ballots.