 PETALING JAYA, April 22 ― Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has withdrawn his candidacy for the PKR presidency, allowing his wife and incumbent Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to retain the post unchallenged. Party election committee chief Datuk Johari Abdul today announced that the opposition leader officially wrote in to pull out of the race last week, though no reason was given in his one page letter. “Finally we know, especially after what happened over the last few days, with Karpal Singh's death and the intensity of the court case he is going through, and on the advice of several legal teams to concentrate on his case,” Johari said at a press conference here. The Malay Mail Online reported this morning that Anwar would pull out from the contest, based on information from PKR sources. Anwar’s withdrawal aside, the list of candidates for the party’s top posts remains virtually unchanged. Now that it is clear there is no contest for the presidency, all eyes will focus on the four-way tussle for the deputy presidency which will see incumbent Azmin Ali competing against his rival and Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim and outgoing secretary-general Datuk Saifuddin Nasution Ismail. The list is rounded off with Hulu Selangor branch member Datuk K. Ramachandram, a virtual unknown. The contest for the four elected vice-president seats is a crowded one with 15 hopefuls, including Nurul Izzah Anwar, Fuziah Salleh and Chua Tian Chang who are defending their posts. They will face competition from the likes of outgoing appointed vice-president N Surendran, Sri Andalas state assemblyman Dr Xavier Jayakumar, outgoing party strategic director Rafizi Ramli, outgoing youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin and Lee Chin Cheh. Lee’s resignation as Kajang assemblyman earlier this year paved the way for the recently-concluded by-election. Johari, meanwhile, said that the complaints sub-committee will meet tomorrow morning to pore over several complaints filed against several candidates to determine whether or not they had violated rules and regulations laid out in this year’s party polls. He admitted that this included complaints against “some senior leaders”, but declined to reveal more details pending the completion of the sub-committee’s probe. “To be fair to them, I cannot say who they are or what the complaints are about, but we will reveal the findings to the media by Thursday at the latest,” Johari said. Though there is no official confirmation, it is widely believed that among the senior leaders whose cases will be hauled up before the sub-committee tomorrow are Saifuddin and Azmin over statements that they allegedly made to the media on their opponents. It is understood that a complaint had been filed against Azmin for allegedly criticising Khalid in a TV3 interview for making a unilateral decision in the handling of Selangor’s on-going water crisis. Saifuddin, on the other hand, faces a possible censure for allegedly describing Khalid as a “know-it-all” and Azmin as a person uneasy with dissenting views, in an interview with the New Straits Times. A total of 496,923 members are expected to vote starting April 25, with polling spread out over three weekends ending May 11. The full results will be announced on May 13. MMail
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