Rafizi knew about change in PKR polls vendor, says Fuziah

Free Malaysia Today

20-05-2025

PKR secretary-general Fuziah Salleh said Rafizi Ramli did not object to the decision to use the new vendor at a meeting of the party central leadership.
PETALING JAYA : PKR secretary-general Fuziah Salleh has rubbished a claim by the party's deputy president, Rafizi Ramli, that no discussion was held before the appointment of a vendor for its voting system.
Fuziah said Rafizi did not object to the decision to use the new vendor at a meeting of the PKR central leadership which he attended.
'The vendor issue never arose and he never made an issue about who the vendor was or what they were doing,' she told FMT.
Rafizi had claimed yesterday that the vendor managing PKR's electoral system had been 'secretly' appointed last December without it being discussed by the party's political bureau.
Fuziah said the party had decided not to continue using the previous vendor, who was based overseas, because of communication issues and other logistical challenges, and that it decided to upgrade and enhance the current ADIL app 'because creating a new one would take too much time'.
She said enhancements to the app included new security features, such as the integration of blockchain technology and facial recognition for added safety.
'And these improvements had been discussed,' she said.
She said the new vendor was brought in to handle system enhancement and manage the data transfer from the previous provider.
Fuziah said the decision to adopt e-voting was made on Nov 30 and that this was agreed to by the leadership council.
She said while there had been disagreement over the appointment of an auditor – which led to several rounds of discussions before consensus was reached – there was no such dispute over the vendor.
She also said the political bureau had agreed not to continue with the previous vendor because it was based overseas.
A well-placed source in PKR claimed that Rafizi had been familiar with the current vendor and had even reached out to them personally.
'However, the vendor declined to meet him at the time because Rafizi was a candidate in the party elections,' the source said.
According to the source, Rafizi had attempted to arrange a meeting with the vendor at his Invoke office, but the vendor refused in order to avoid any conflict of interest.
FMT has reached out to Rafizi for comment.
Rafizi's claim about the appointment of the vendor comes a month after the party's divisional elections, which saw several of his key allies losing. The same app will be used at the congress over the weekend.