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Monday, 15 November 2010

Azmin all set to be the deputy, Nurul leading the veep race

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid - Free Malaysia Today

PETALING JAYA: With Zaid Ibrahim out of the picture, PKR may as well declare Azmin Ali as the new deputy president.

Based on official figures released by the party today, his only contender, vice-president Mustaffa Kamil Ayub, with only 3,401 votes, is unlikely to catch up with the 14,751 votes Azmin has garnered so far after three weeks of voting.

This means Azmin, also a vice-president, has a 11,350-vote lead after 165 of the party divisions completed polling, albeit concerns that the low voter turnout throughout the process have placed the legitimacy of PKR's direct elections debut under severe scrutiny.

The remaining 57 divisions will vote this weekend before PKR officially announce the final results during the party's Nov 26-28 congress.

Meanwhile, daughter to PKR supremo, Anwar Ibrahim, Nurrul Izzah is poised to be the party's youngest vice-president, leading the race with 11,042 votes.

Second in the race is party chief strategist Chua Tian Chang or Tian Chua with 9,524 votes while he is trailed by party elections director Fuziah Salleh and Penang Deputy Chief Minister 1 Mansor Othman with 7,878 and 7,448 votes respectively.

Victory for Nurul Izzah and Tian Chua, observers say, would lessen Azmin's influence, although only slightly, given that most of his men are poised to dominate the party's top posts.

Close race for Youth chief

Leading the Wanita chief race is incumbent and a known Azmin backer Zuraida Kamaruddin with 4,510 votes while her contender, Suraya Sudin, is some 2,000 votes behind with 1,181 votes gathered so far.

Third in the race is Animah Ferrer who has only managed to garner a fraction of support with only 967 votes.

The race for the Youth chief post, however, remains competitive with incumbent Shamsul Iskandar Akin leading with 3,981 votes and his challenger, popular grassroots leader Badrul Hisham Shaharin, trailing merely by some 700 votes after he managed to rake in 3,273 votes.

The battle for the youth chief post is also said to be a proxy battle between Azmin and his former rival for the No 2 post Zaid, with Shamsul said to be in the former's camp while Badrul, affectionately known as Chegu Bard, a known supporter of the latter.

90% of polls-related problems resolved

Meanwhile party secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said today "90 percent" from the total of 289 complaints lodged throughout the party's divisional elections have been addressed.

He added that only six complaints were lodged during the entire polling process for national posts.

Majority of the complaints were those pertaining to divisional nominations and polling process, and the results of eight divisional polls which have been postponed to another date.

He said that letters have been sent to complainants from the divisional polls while the election committee (JPP) is currently probing into the six complaints lodged pertaining to the national leadership polls.

Allegations of malpractices and fraud have triggered Zaid's withdrawal from the deputy presidential race. The former law minister has also announced his decision to quit the party.

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