By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Nov 11: Baharuddin Mokhsen successfully defended his PKR Petra Jaya Division chief post when he garnered 191 votes against challenger Iswardy Morni’s 159 votes in the party polls today.
As for current PKR deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, he won in this division with 153 votes against current vice-president Rafizi Ramli’s 127 votes in their tussle for the party’s deputy presidential position.
PKR Petra Jaya has 1,509 members, but only 497 or 32.95 per cent turned out to vote.
According to Baharuddin, there were many rejected votes, which he attributed to the voters’ omission in pressing “Send” after completing the e-voting process on tablets.
“The counting went smoothly, no hiccups. Even though there are quite a lot of rejected votes, there is nothing sinister. I think in the tablets, they (the voters) did not (click) ‘Send’. After you vote, you have to press ‘Hantar’.
“If you add 191 with 159, it means there is a lot of reject votes. It is the system. It is prevalent throughout the whole country. Yesterday, for example, I was told that in Saratok, 300 votes were lost, technically speaking,” Baharuddin told the media after the result was finalised.
Looking ahead, he said it was a big challenge as Petra Jaya is basically an urban area. The next task is to look at the next state election, which is due in 2021.
“After this, when everything settles down, we want to focus our attention on identifying the shortcomings of the GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak) government.
“We hope to address all outstanding issues, and I think we are in a better position this time to deliver and satisfy the requests of the people by virtue that we are the government at the federal level,” reckoned Baharuddin.
He said he was ready to work with Iswardy as long as the latter was willing to work with his team.
“As far as I am concerned, as a victor, I will open and welcome anybody, including saudara Iswardy, if he wants to work with us,” he said.
Despite yesterday’s episode of Iswardy lodging a police report against PKR Central Election Committee and CEC Sarawak for the last-minute change in polling date for the division, the voting process today was calm and smooth.
On the incident, Baharuddin commented that it had nothing to do with the Petra Jaya Division as the complaint was filed against the CEC.
Baharuddin described the whole election process today as “very good”, “interesting”, “no untoward incidents” and with “no argument”.
He said the whole election process in Petra Jaya showed that PKR members were a matured lot and that Sarawakians, in general, were matured in dealing with interpersonal relationships. — DayakDaily
