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ECONOMY Minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli said his recent leave from official duties was to address various issues arising from disputed results during PKR's divisional polls.
"Recognising that complaints and arising issues linked to the polls had to be managed harmoniously, as the deputy president, I decided to fully focus on addressing these matters.
"This included various meetings and listening directly to concerns raised by multiple candidates, regardless of their camp," he said.
He said these matters required time and he did not want them to be mixed with the duties and time of a minister.
"For me, separating the responsibilities of a political party leader from official ministerial duties is a new political culture that we should cultivate," he added.
During his leave, the Pandan MP said he held a series of meetings and presented key concerns to the party’s central leadership council.
“The council subsequently agreed to conduct an independent audit of PKR’s digital voting system to ensure it was free from interference and technical flaws.
“The findings of this audit, along with input from technical representatives appointed by candidates, provide important context to the issues that surfaced.”
Fixes to Digital Voting System Flaws
Separately, Rafizi urged the PKR Central Election Committee (JPP) to address technical flaws in the party’s digital voting system before the upcoming May 24 party election.
He stressed the committee must guarantee the legitimacy and performance of the system to avoid post-election disputes.
“Among the key issues are verifying the number of OTPs issued compared to eKYC verifications and final votes recorded on the blockchain, to assess how many votes were lost due to system flaws,” he said.
He also called for the preservation of source code versions used on cloud servers and a full audit trail of any uploads to maintain system integrity.
Rafizi’s statement follows recent media reports claiming he had informed his supporters of his intent to resign during a post-leadership council meeting on April 23. However, party sources later denied he had vacated his office.
Sinar Harian today cited Chinese-language daily Sin Chew Daily reporting that Rafizi was dissatisfied with the perceived lack of transparency in the digital voting system and had proposed an audit by an international firm.
He confirmed that during his leave from April 29 to May 5, he held meetings and raised issues related to the party election with the Central Leadership Council (MPP).
“On April 29, the MPP agreed to conduct an independent audit to ensure the system is free from external interference that could affect branch-level results,” he said.
According to Rafizi, the audit findings were presented to the MPP on May 4. Based on the report, the council accepted the President’s recommendation to validate branch-level results despite outstanding complaints to move forward with the central election.
Candidates who lodged complaints were allowed to appoint technical observers during the audit, and Rafizi has published both the audit report and observers’ findings.
“Regardless of the conclusions drawn, I call on all party members to rally together and focus on strengthening the party,” he said. - May 7, 2025