DAP National Congress CEC election results and rectification

The DAP held its 16th National Congress at the Penang International Sports Arena (PISA) and the elections for the 20 Central Executive Committee (CEC) members on the 15th of December.

However, after the Congress, the Returning Officer, Pooi Weng Keong had discovered a tabulation mistake in the election results. As a result of an error in the Excel spreadsheet, the votes for Candidates number 61 to 68 were exactly the same as those of Candidates number 31 to 38.

Sdr Pooi had then notified the Secretary General, Lim Guan Eng who then instructed that the correct results be made public subject to an internal audit to be carried out by Dr Ong Kian Ming and verification by an independent an external auditor. Dr Ong is a party member who was an observer at the Congress but who did not vote and did not take part in the counting and tabulation process.

The internal audit team re-tabulated the election tally sheet results to arrive at the correct figures. Separately, the independent external auditor, TCMK Associated Chartered Accountants was appointed to verify the tally sheet results. Both the internal and external audit teams arrived at the same final results.

Hence, based on the updated post-audit results, Candidate number 63, Sdr Wu Him Ven (Vincent), should have received only 669 votes and not 1202 votes. This would place him in the 26th position.

At the same time, Sdr Zairil Khir Johari should have received 803 votes, instead of 305 votes, and this would place him in the 20th position. That means that Sdr Zairil should have been automatically elected into the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) by virtue of his top 20 position.

As a result of the above corrected results, the CEC held a meeting this evening with the 20 elected members including Sdr Zairil. 10 members were then co-opted into the CEC including Sdr Vincent Wu.

The office-bearers were elected and the composition of the CEC remains the same as before, per the list attached.