KUALA LUMPUR: The Julau PKR division never submitted any complaint or protest on its membership numbers, despite being given the opportunity to do so.
PKR strategic communications director, Fahmi Fadzil, said there has been no breach of process with regards to the new membership numbers. This, he said, was because all divisions were given time from June 27 to July 17 to submit any objections.
"In that period, no objections were submitted. So why is it only now that we are seeing protests? This process is wrong," said the Lembah Pantai member of parliament.
He was commenting on the ongoing controversy over the Julau PKR membership numbers, which allegedly swelled up from 603 people to 13,549 within the span of one day.
Media reports also said at least 11,399 of the members were registered to the same address.
The controversy drew the ire of numerous PKR members including its central leadership council member Latheefa Koya, who urged for the voting in Julau, set to take place on Saturday, to be postponed until the issue is resolved.
Meanwhile, PKR central election committee chief secretariat, Ismail Yusop, told NSTP that the Julau division was informed beforehand of the applications by new members, which he said is part of the party’s standard operating procedure (SOP).
“All applications for new members must go through the respective divisions, which is part of the SOP.
“Granted, the applications were sent directly to the PKR headquarters but they (the applications) were later given to the division after July 27, in order for them to be reviewed.
“The question is, why didn’t the division raise any objections or protests to the central headquarters during this period? After all, they have monthly meetings in which this issue would surely have been discussed,” he said.
Ismail noted that the central election committee manages the party election based on the membership data issued by the PKR secretary-general’s office.
“If there are any doubts over the details of these members, then that is something that the division has to resolve with those from the secretary-general’s office.