KUCHING: The winner of the election for the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) deputy president post cannot be announced yet because the overall outcome would have to wait for the decision of the party’s election committee on the Julau branch election.
Incumbent Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali garnered 1,162 more votes on the last day of voting yesterday, giving him a total of 4,010 votes in Sarawak – over the 1,184 secured by Rafizi, who garnered 377 yesterday.
Azmin won 145 votes versus Rafizi’s 101 in Sarikei, 53 to four in Stampin, 243 to six in Mambong, 323 to 89 in Sibu, 179 to two in Sri Aman, 153 to 127 in Petra Jaya, and 66 to 48 in Santubong – widening his lead over Rafizi.
Saturday’s unofficial tally in Sarawak saw Azmin securing 2,848 votes in Sarawak, whereas Rafizi managed to get 1,507 votes.
Chief co-ordinator of PKR Sarawak election committee, Desmond Kho, when contacted by The Borneo Post, stressed that the results do not include the votes from Julau – the outcome of which has been suspended due to complaint of irregularity.
“We are expecting the announcement very soon because JPP (central election committee) is in the meeting now. They have to decide fast because our congress is this coming weekend; all the election issues must be decided before that date.
“If they want to ratify the (Julau) result, if they want to cancel the whole thing, they have to do it within this week, and we are expecting an announcement soon,” he explained.
The Julau division has been mired in controversy after its membership rose from 603 to 13,549 in just one day in June.
To add insult to injury, a JPP staff was nabbed at Sibu Airport yesterday morning to assist in the probe over the compromise of tablets in e-voting for the Julau division election.
Sarawak head of Commercial Crime Investigation, Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah said the suspect, 44, who worked as an IT officer, was arrested at the airport around 9.45am following a police report lodged by Batu Tiga assemblywoman Rodziah Ismail, who is Selangor Exco.
“Investigation is carried out under Section 5(1) of Cyber Crime 1997 for unauthorised modification of computer contents. If convicted, it is punishable under Section 5 (4) of the same Act, which provides for fine not exceeding RM100,000 or imprisonment not more than seven years or both,” he said in a statement here yesterday.
Meanwhile, PKR JPP chairman Datuk Rashid Din said the JPP and IT unit noticed that the
e-voting at the Julau voting centre had failed to function normally at 2pm on Saturday.
During the investigation, it was found that 10 tablets for e-voting used at that time had been compromised by Prey Anti-Theft software.
Rashid said a report had been sent to obtain feedback of JPP’s cyber security team in Petaling Jaya.
“The information received stated that the software was used to erase the e-voting application in the tablet, steal data, and alter the password and control tablet using computer remotely.”
He said JPP and the IT unit had taken several immediate measures to address the problem by changing the voting mode to offline, deactivating the Device Administrator privilege and carrying out uninstalling of Prey Anti-Theft software application from application manager.
“In view of such situation, JPP has to delay the results for Julau division until the restoration of the tablet and completion of data integration.”
Rashid said early investigation found that such application had been installed physically on JPP official tablets allocated for Julau division on Nov 10 around 4pm.