'Letter to RoS not to request cancellation of election results' - Saifuddin

PUTRAJAYA - Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has denied Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin's statement on the alleged annulment of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) election results last year.

According to him, the party received a show-cause letter from the Registrar of Societies (RoS), and it was related to party members' complaints, not to cancel the party's election results.

He stressed that RoS gave PKR two weeks to respond to the letter so that the party would not be cancelled.

He added that, as the secretary general at the time, if he wanted the party to be cancelled, there was no need for him to reply to the letter, and the party would be cancelled automatically.

"If the letter was not answered, the party would be cancelled. There is no need to see the minister. That's the story. When the secretary general replied to the letter, it was to give reasons why the party should not be banned.

"We listed one by one of the things that RoS said to the party.

"If you want to say that I lost to Rafizi and then asked for the party to be cancelled, I didn't have to answer the letter; I would have been silent.

"It means that the party has been given the responsibility. RoS gave us two weeks. The fact is, I have replied to the letter from RoS," he said.

He further said that Hamzah's claim that he had appealed to cancel the PKR election results after losing to Rafizi Ramli was just a political statement.

Saifuddin was speaking after the 2023 Immigration Day Celebration in Putrajaya on Friday.

Saifuddin also revealed that he often met with Hamzah because he was also the Inter-Government and Opposition Committee co-chairman, and the meeting was nothing unusual.

The Perikatan Nasional (PN) secretary general previously revealed that Saifuddin once appealed to him to cancel the results of the PKR election in 2022 after losing to Rafizi.

Hamzah said that Saifuddin had met him a week after losing the race for the party's number two position during the election.

At that time, he said that he was the Home Minister, and Saifuddin sent a letter to request that the election results be cancelled. - Awani