PKR POLLS | PKR has turned its party polls in Sarawak this Saturday into a two-day event.

PKR elections committee director Rashid Din in a letter today said 21 divisions will vote on Saturday, while eight other divisions will vote on Sunday.

The divisions where polling has been postponed to Sunday are Petra Jaya, Santubong, Stampin, Mambong, Sarikei, Sibu, Sibuti, and Sri Aman.

Meanwhile, special arrangements have been made for two divisions - Julau and Hulu Rajang - which will have two polling centres each instead of one.

At the time of writing, the PKR elections website listed down three voting centres for Julau and two for Hulu Rajang.

Malaysiakini's check on the voting centre list for other states showed that all divisions that had voted needed only one such facility each.

When contacted, Rashid said although the website had listed three venues for Julau, only two will be used.

"For Julau division, we will only have two voting centres [...] the one at Rumah Panjang (Ama Anak Unan) has been cancelled.

"They have so many voters, 13,000 of them, so we want to split the crowd," he said when contacted this afternoon.

As for Hulu Rajang, Rashid explained that the terrain was difficult and hence a second voting centre was required.

He said one of the two voting centres for Hulu Rajang will also be used for the Kapit PKR divisional elections.

However, according to the PKR elections website, the voting centre for Kapit was not the same as either of the two listed for Hulu Rajang.

When asked why Julau PKR division had two voting centres although divisions with more members in Selangor only needed one, Rashid said Sarawak does not have the same level of transport links as Selangor.

"Have you been to Sarawak? What do you think? Here (in West Malaysia) we have the Plus Highway. Do they have it there?" asked Rashid (below).

When contacted, incumbent Julau PKR division chief Semana Sawang said all voting centres throughout the country were supposed to have been chosen by the incumbent division leader but this was not the case for his division.

"I proposed two possible venues. The JPP did not use them," he said.

He declined to elaborate on the situation, instead saying that the question should be directed to the JPP instead.

Dramatic increase

Julau PKR has been under the spotlight in recent weeks due to its massive membership numbers relative to the rest of the PKR divisions in the state.

On average, each Sarawak PKR division has 1,951 members. Julau has 13,549. It is the only division in the state with more than 3,000 members.

In August, Malaysiakini detailed that the number of PKR members for Julau had dramatically increased by 12,946, or 2,147 percent in a single
day in July.

Complaints by Sarawak PKR has resulted in investigations by the MACC which has visited the office of Julau MP Larry Sng and questioned a PKR headquarters staff member who was in charge of membership.

Some individuals who claimed that their personal details had made their way into the Julau PKR membership list without their consent have also lodged reports with the authorities.