Yes, there's a crack in PKR, admits Zuraida

KUALA LUMPUR: PKR vice president Zuraida Kamaruddin has admitted that there is a crack in the party following recent developments involving senior leaders.

The party vice president acknowledged the perception that there was a split in PKR and urged party members to unite.

"I think it's time for PKR to start consolidating and strengthening the party, so it's up to the president (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) to clean up our backyard.

"We should reject gutter politics and find the conspirators. The party has to unite, and this is the right time for Anwar to do so.

"The fact is that we have made the statement and he (Anwar) has accepted the criticism, so I hope something good will come out of it," she told reporters at the parliament lobby on Thursday (July 18).

Over 20 PKR leaders had jointly rebuked Anwar for suggesting that his deputy Datuk Seri Azmin Ali needed to resign as the Economic Affairs minister if he was positively identified as one of two men in a viral sex video.

The leaders said that Anwar's statement was "inappropriate" and also based on "speculative assertions".

They also said that Anwar, as party president, should have stood by his deputy in the interest of party unity.

Zuraida said the statement was made by the leaders coming from a different perspective or school of thought.

She said that it was "high time" to bring the differing schools of thought together, to sit down and chart the party's ways.

Asked if she and the leaders who issued the statement were willing to close ranks, she said that was up to Anwar.

"We made the statement. We will leave it to him on what he wants to do with it.

"In good faith, we are willing to come in, start talking and see what we can do to patch up and move together as a party," she said.

When asked if Anwar could be involved in the sex video as his political secretary Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak was among those remanded by the police, Zuraida said she did not know.

"You should ask him (Anwar). I don't know. However we were a bit puzzled why his political secretary was remanded over the video," she said.

"We have made our comments on the situation now, and we leave it up to him what he wants to do as the party president.

"We got him to take up the post unopposed, therefore he has to recognise the fact that we respect him," she added.