PKR's deputy president hopefuls showed a rare united front at a joint press conference called by the party's de facto leader today on the elections fraught with allegations of irregularities.

Azmin Ali, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Abdul Khalid Ibrahim have been embroiled in a hotly-contested three-way battle for the deputy president's post.

Anwar Ibrahim said the top leadership is together in condemning the violence and ruckuses that caused the suspension of voting in several Selangor PKR divisions last week.

"This is a competition among friends, we are not fighting Umno here. We are still together," he said at the PKR headquarters today.

He also said the leadership, including the three candidates, have agreed that any individual flouting party rules on the elections should be sacked.

Anwar admitted discrepancies in the PKR polls and even went on to state that the party might need to revise its direct election (one person, one vote) concept in light of how the elections have turned out in the past three weeks.

“My personal opinion is that this needs to be reviewed. For example, like in Pensiangan, Kuala Selangor, and Gombak, we have almost 10,000 members in the branches. It is not feasible to do direct elections there,” Anwar said.

Anwar, however, vehemently rejected suggestions that the party’s election committee (JPP)  resembled the failure of the Election Commission (EC) in handling the 13th general election.

“Don’t equate us to the EC. We admit our weaknesses and we are looking to improve on it. We are not covering up our weaknesses and nor are we protecting any fraud,” he said.

The press conference comes amidst high tension as Abdul Khalid closed in on Azmin in the deputy president race last week.

The party’s political bureau had met on Wednesday and there was another meeting between Anwar and Azmin, reportedly yesterday.