Mood to capture Putrajaya 'beginning to wane'

A PKR delegate said today the mood among some party members to fight and take over Putrajaya is waning.

"The people who were hoping to see and were confident in Anwar Ibrahim's rise have now begun to reject the politics of hope," said Perak delegate, Zulkifli Ibrahim.

He said this when debating the policy speech of party president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail when opening the Seventh National Congress of PKR in Petaling Jaya.

Zulkifli said there were now party members who were questioning the difference between the opposition pact government and the federal government under BN rule.

            

"The de facto leader (Anwar) and our state government speak about reforms... want to reform this and that, but in actual fact, the party itself had not been reformed," he said.

Zulkifli also demanded that party leaders responded to the questions raised by party members on the party election process which was handled by the Central Election Committee (CEC).

He wanted the leaders to answer whether the CEC was given full power to implement the election and whether it was clean, fair and transparent in discharging its responsibility.

"We criticise the weakness of the EC (Election Commission) for not being fair and transparent and we should instead be a model in carrying out a fair election," he said.

Zulkifli said for the survival of the party, the de facto leader and president must resolve the problems raised by him although they might be considered petty by some people.

The problems must be resolved by the new leaders and they were also reminded not to forget the grassroots who supported them because their term of three years was not long.

Meanwhile, PKR Puteri chief Siti Aishah Shaik Ismail, when debating the same motion, urged party members not to use the mass media to voice their dissatisfaction at party leaders.

Sarawak PKR not ready for polls

Melaka delegate Md Yusof Abdullah reminded party leadership to tighten the conditions in admitting new members to prevent resignations in the party later.

He said the matter should be looked at seriously by the PKR leadership as resignations by party members were becoming more rampant lately.

"We (PKR) had a youth leader leaving the party, former candidate for deputy president quitting the party, former PKR secretary-general resigning from the party and even our member of parliament hopping to another party. But all these have not dampened the party's fighting spirit.

"We also need to tighten the condition of our membership so that there will be no more resignations by party members," he said in his debate.

Sarawak delegate Ahmad Nazib Johari disclosed that the state PKR was still not prepared to face the state nor the general election.

"The PKR is not prepared yet to face the election in Sarawak. There is still no work programme from the state leadership," he said.

Ahmad Nazib said the PKR was short of time and financial resources to face the election in Sarawak.

"Past experience showed that during the election, we failed to bring out the voters. This was most critical," he said.

In the 2006 Sarawak state election, the PKR only won one out of the 71 state seats, namely Padungan in the Kuching constituency.

- Bernama