54,000 ‘dubious’ PKR members a ‘legacy’ issue, can still vote
Rafizi Ramli, who is going for the PKR deputy president’s post, claims that about 54,000 names in the membership rolls appear to be ‘dubious’. (Bernama pic)
GEORGE TOWN: PKR said today it would allow a section of its members deemed “dubious” by Rafizi Ramli to vote in the party elections but be subjected to an extra layer of scrutiny after they have cast their ballots.
Party election chief Dr Zaliha Mustafa said these members would be put in a special category of “dubious voters” and asked to fill a form before they were allowed to cast their ballots.
Recently, Rafizi, who is vying for the deputy president’s post, claimed that about 54,000 names in the membership rolls appeared to be “dubious” but were eligible to vote. He said 1,500 of them had identical phone numbers.
Zaliha said the claims of dubious voters stemmed from a legacy membership system that evolved from manual membership forms to one that was entirely online.
She said it was also plausible that wrong data was entered to evade a crackdown by authorities at the height of the 1998 reformasi era.
“We cannot deny them their voting rights. In a situation like this, we will put them in a ‘dubious voter’ category, and they will be allowed to vote. They must also fill up a Borang 11 beforehand at the in-person voting centres,” she told FMT.
She said if Rafizi’s claim of 54,000 dubious members was true, the margin of error was low, at 4.5% of the 1.2 million members eligible to vote.
“The margin of error is a reasonable number for any organisation that has a large number of members like PKR,” she said.
Zaliha said the party’s election committee was of the opinion that the membership rolls ought to be cleaned up and updated from time to time.
She said the “Adil” application – PKR’s official app – would help resolve matters related to claims of dubious membership.
“Rafizi, who had been secretary-general before, should know better about the legacy system concerning membership records since 1999.
“The membership records were previously manually updated from time to time until Adil was introduced of late. I am confident the future party elections would rely on records that are upgraded with tech such as AI (artificial intelligence).”
The party elections will be held from May 13.
GEORGE TOWN: PKR said today it would allow a section of its members deemed “dubious” by Rafizi Ramli to vote in the party elections but be subjected to an extra layer of scrutiny after they have cast their ballots.
Party election chief Dr Zaliha Mustafa said these members would be put in a special category of “dubious voters” and asked to fill a form before they were allowed to cast their ballots.
Recently, Rafizi, who is vying for the deputy president’s post, claimed that about 54,000 names in the membership rolls appeared to be “dubious” but were eligible to vote. He said 1,500 of them had identical phone numbers.
Zaliha said the claims of dubious voters stemmed from a legacy membership system that evolved from manual membership forms to one that was entirely online.
She said it was also plausible that wrong data was entered to evade a crackdown by authorities at the height of the 1998 reformasi era.
“We cannot deny them their voting rights. In a situation like this, we will put them in a ‘dubious voter’ category, and they will be allowed to vote. They must also fill up a Borang 11 beforehand at the in-person voting centres,” she told FMT.
She said if Rafizi’s claim of 54,000 dubious members was true, the margin of error was low, at 4.5% of the 1.2 million members eligible to vote.
“The margin of error is a reasonable number for any organisation that has a large number of members like PKR,” she said.
Zaliha said the party’s election committee was of the opinion that the membership rolls ought to be cleaned up and updated from time to time.
She said the “Adil” application – PKR’s official app – would help resolve matters related to claims of dubious membership.
“Rafizi, who had been secretary-general before, should know better about the legacy system concerning membership records since 1999.
“The membership records were previously manually updated from time to time until Adil was introduced of late. I am confident the future party elections would rely on records that are upgraded with tech such as AI (artificial intelligence).”
The party elections will be held from May 13.
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