Nurul Izzah Anwar has qualified to join the PKR deputy presidency race after intervention by the party political bureau last night.

NONE PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution ( right ) said that the political bureau had decided to accept nominations from the Sempoerna division, which arrived at the headquarters a day after the Oct 10 deadline.

He also confirmed that Sampoerna nominated Nurul Izzah for deputy president.

“If she chose to she can fill in the form and state what post she wants to run for this Saturday,” said Saifuddin during a press conference at the party headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

This Saturday, which is Oct 16, is the final day for nominations forms to be submitted by the 252 candidates who qualify to contest for central party leadership.

The Sampoerna nomination for the coveted party number two joins Nurul Izzah’s maiden nomination from Keningau, fulfilling the quota of two to allow her to contest.

According to Saifuddin, a total of six late nomination forms have been accepted. One hundred and sixty-two divisions had sent in their nominations on time, making the total nominations accepted to 168. Over 30 others are still outstanding.

“The bureau only accepted the six late submissions that were sent, the rest, those that did not send submissions, we cannot help them,” said Saifuddin.

No comment on conspiracy allegations

The Sempoerna and several other divisions had yesterday claimed that they were unaware of the deadline and raised questions of a possible conspiracy to stop Nurul from contesting for the position.

The Machang parliamentarian refused to answer the allegations nor address claims of a conspiracy.

azlan “I will not comment on the allegations and innuendos. However, I shall give you an explanation based on the facts of what happened.

According to him all the divisions were issued with an divisional AGM and nominations kit with detailed guidelines and documentation on how to hold AGMs and forms for them fill in and report the results to party headquarters.

Holding up an example of the kit to reporters, Saifuddin pointed to a checklist which clearly stated the dateline for submission of division  nominations which was Oct 10.

“How can they hold their AGM and not look at the stated instructions and dateline on nomination submissions.

NONE “There is also the secretary-general’s circular sent out to all state chiefs, division chiefs and supreme committee members.”

The circular, detailing the same rules and datelines, which was sent in July, was reinforced with briefing sessions held for all state and central level leaders.

“I have records of the briefings and attendance, those leaders who did not show up or did not read the circular, I can’t help them.”

Stating that the facts of the case are as he presented them, Saifuddin said he is leaving it to the interpretation of the press if any conspiracy took place.

“All of the divisions only need to fill in a single result form and send it to us. If they took that long a time to send one form, I don’t know what to do with them,” said the secretary general.

Should Nurul Izzah join the race, she is expected to face Zaid Ibrahim, outgoing vice-presidents Azmin Ali and Mustaffa Kamil Ayub.

Zaid had previously stated that he will bow out of the race to support Nurul Izzah, should she accept nomination.

However it is not apparent if Zaid will once again honour this pledge after veering away from his previous pledge not to contest for party number two if Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim were to run.

Zaid reasoned that he made the pledge thinking that Khalid would not want to run.