KUALA LUMPUR: Former Bersih chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan took PKR to task for the recent events at the party’s elections and cautioned that the party could risk losing its credibility as reformists.
“At the very least they need to believe in clean and fair elections to be reformists. They did. Some years ago when they helped start the Bersih movement,” she posted on her Twitter page.
She said PKR should not assume the majority of Malaysians could not see what was happening in the party’s elections.
Ambiga said they were about to “lose the moral high ground to call themselves reformists” if the unsavoury situation at the party polls continued.
She also questioned the veracity of 13,000 new registered voters in the party in Julau, Sarawak within just one day in June, ahead of the cutoff date for new members to be eligible to vote.
“After all, they saw through the shenanigans of the last government and threw them out. Thirteen thousand increase in members in one day? Really?” she added.
Ambiga, who is also the Institutional Reforms Committee (IRC) member, chaired Bersih from 2011 to 2013.
PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, however, have since clarified the 13,000 new memberships came from Julau MP Larry Sng, who joined the party on May 11 after having contested in the 14th general election as an independent.
Earlier last week, several police reports had been lodged by the new “party members” for the Julau division who claimed they were registered without consent.
Eventually, the Julau elections was suspended following an alleged malware attack on the tablets and computers that were used for the e-voting process in Sarawak.
Party election commission also did not rule out a possible re-election for Julau, but to date no decision has been made.
On top of the Julau controversy, the PKR election in several states also witnessed violent scuffles and alleged buying and selling of party members’ votes.