PKR has denied the validity of a series of photographs posted on the Internet which purportedly depict election monitors' bias and irregularities during the recent party polls.

Secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that the people depicted in some of the photographs are not election monitors appointed by the secretariat as claimed by the detractors.

NONE "We have more than 200 election monitors and we know each and everyone of them. These gentlemen in some of these pictures are not election monitors.

“In fact one of them is a divisional candidate himself," he told reporters on the sidelines of the party's wings annual congress in Petaling Jaya this afternoon.

He was responding to this morning's Malaysiakini report on the series of photographs sent out by Muhammad Christopher Firdaus, an aide to former PKR Federal Territories chairperson Zaid Ibrahim, to the media.

According to Muhammad Christopher, the photographs were sent to him by disillusioned party members.

Attempts to contact the party officials for comments on the photographs yesterday proved futile. 

‘Teaching, not coaching’

Saifuddin said that the elections monitors depicted in the photographs were teaching voters on how to fill in the ballot forms, instead of the allegations that they are coaching them to vote for particular candidates.

NONE "Some of our voters are illiterate, and the ballot papers run into several pages long. It is only natural that the election monitors teach the voters how to fill in the forms.

"You are only jumping to conclusions and making the party look bad," an irate Saifuddin told reporters.

Saifuddin also rubbished statements that the complaints and pictures have been forwarded to the elections committee before it was circulated over the Internet and to the press.

"Until now, there have been no complaints from the Merbok, Bukit Katil and Kubang Pasu divisions (where the alleged irregularities were supposed to have occurred).

"So how am I going to investigate if the complaints are sent to the media and not the central elections committee (CEC)? I might as well appoint reporters as CEC members," he said.

No basis in most complaints

Defending the integrity of the recently-concluded party elections, Saifuddin said that most of the complaints are without basis.

Responding to the complaint letter sent to party president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail by Youth chief candidate Badrul Hisham Shaharin that was leaked to blogs, Saifuddin said that most of them were groundless. 

Badrul had said that (party de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim) himself had called up a division chief to instruct him to support a particular candidate.

"But Anwar said that he doesn't know who the candidate is," Saifuddin said.

NONE On vice-president Mustaffa Kamil Ayub's ( right ) memorandum to the CEC, he also maintained that it still lacked evidence.

"He said that the election monitors are biased but we need more information. The onus is actually on Mustaffa to furnish us with more evidence," he said.

Saifuddin claimed that only 12 complaints from the divisional elections remain unresolved, aside from the nine complaints on the central leadership elections.

Let the cops probe

Responding to the police report lodged by former secretary-general Salehuddin Hashim that his signature on the letter to sack former deputy secretary-general P Jenapala was forged, Saifuddin said that he welcomed police investigation on the matter.

NONE "For the record, Jenapala ( left ) was sacked on Feb 2, 2009. All we did was open our files and found the letter that Salehuddin signed... How am I supposed to know if his signature was forged.

"But since Salehuddin has lodged a police report, I, on behalf of PKR, welcome the police investigation. We will accord full cooperation to the police," said Saifuddin.

In a statement today, Salehuddin claimed that his forged signature appeared on the letter which was eventually adduced as evidence in court yesterday in a bid to throw out Jenapala’s suit against the party.

Yesterday, the Kuala Lumpur High Court struck out Jenapala’s suit to declare PKR’s recently-concluded elections for the central leadership null and void.