Vernon Kedit
KUCHING: A state Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PRK) leader has questioned the motive of Rafizi Ramli’s recent statement against his rival Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali over the party’s deputy president post.
PKR Betong Division chief Vernon Kedit asked “What is he trying to get at?”, referring to Rafizi’s assertion that Azmin Ali would win the election by a slim majority of two per cent.
“Two per cent may seem very slight but Rafizi, being an auditor, would know that when we translate two per cent into factual numbers, we are looking at thousands of votes. Not just two votes.
“Alas, does he take the public for fools? How can he dispute and question the legitimate right of thousands of party members who chose Datuk Seri Azmin Ali over him?” he said in a statement to The Borneo Post’s sister paper Utusan Borneo yesterday.
He was prompted for comments on Rafizi’s lengthy statement dated Nov 16, 2018, touching on unofficial results of the deputy presidency election.
An excerpt reads: “I was informed that, unofficially, the vote difference between me and Azmin Ali was 2,500 votes, which is less than two per cent of the total voting (about 141,000 party members). I think Azmin Ali will be announced as the deputy president with a popular vote of not more than 51 per cent, compared to mine of about 49 per cent.”
Vernon said he could also question the legitimacy of 13,000 new members “dubiously registered after the closing date of registration deciding the leadership of my party”.
“I am very amused that someone of Rafizi’s stature and seniority in the party would single me out from the thousands of supporters of Azmin Ali and cast aspersions on my character just because I made two reports to the MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission).
“He further suggests that I would not desist but bring the party to the Registrar of Societies and the courts,” he said.
He wondered if Rafizi remained the same person who exposed the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal, or “the one who went to town on the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd) issue”.
“Is this not the same Rafizi who fought corruption and abuse of power all these years? Then why is Rafizi singling me out for doing exactly the same?
“Just because it allegedly happened within certain quarters of the party does not mean we are to turn a blind eye. As the idiom goes, ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’,” pointed out Vernon.
He regretted that Rafizi chose to ignore the fact that people aligned to him had also made reports to the MACC.
And this, Vernon said, happened before he made his Statutory Declaration and first MACC report.
“It is equally regrettable that he chooses to ignore that a certain election coordinator of a certain state aligned to him was caught by the MACC for graft in this party election.
“Perhaps the famous idiom, ‘People who live in glass houses should not throw stones’, slipped Rafizi’s mind in his haste to concede defeat,” he added.
He said he chose not to engage in a public war of words and idioms with Rafizi “in the pursuit of gentlemanly, professional and mature politics”.
“This rejoinder seeks only to amplify certain facts which must not be distorted,” concluded Vernon.