New Year’s resolution: are all Malaysians ready to stand up for it?
Posted by Kit in Malaysian Dream on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 8:20 am
– J.D. Lovrenciear
The Malaysian Insider
22 December 2014
The year 2014 is soon going to be left behind as we gear up, joining the world for another year of hope. We will join billions around the globe come January 1, 2015, with hopeful hearts in prayer and as we celebrate with joy our determination to end pain and drown fears.
For Malaysians, 2014 was indeed a painful year punctured with fears as hopes and joys kept swaying and wilting in the rage of race and religion battles that hogged the media every other day.
2014 was also a year where political parties put their survival above happiness, peace, tolerance and acceptance. It was one of “it is our way or no way”. Read the rest of this entry »
Joseph Pairin should stop procrastinating but get cracking as RCIIIS Report Working Committee Chairman or declare he will decline appointment
More than five weeks have passed since the announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan will be Chairman of the Working Committee of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) to make recommendations on the RCIIIS Report, and some three weeks have passed since the public release of the RCIIIS Report in Kota Kinabalu on Dec. 3.
But there is no sign of urgency or even a sense of responsibility on the part of Joseph Pairin as nobody knows whether the full Working Committee had been formed or whether Joseph Pairin had chaired the first meeting of the Working Committee. In fact, nobody knows whether he is going to accept the appointment as there had been contrary noises from his party leadership.
One would have thought such developments would be important news in Sabah but there has been total silence on the Joseph Pairin front.
Under the circumstances, Joseph Pairin should stop procrastinating but get cracking as RCIIIS Report Working Commtitee Chairman or declare that he will decline appointment as the Working Committee Chairman.
The first thing Joseph Pairin should do as Working Committee Chairman is to express the Working Committee’s disappointment and even censure of the RCIIIS Report for failing in its duty to come to any concrete or conclusive finding or recommendation on the basic issues about the four-decade long illegal immigrant nightmare in Sabah, whether about the existence of the ‘Project IC’, the number of illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral roll or the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah.
In fact, the RCIIIS was so irresponsible, remiss and negligent in carry out its duties that it had absolutely nothing to say about its eighth term of reference, viz: “ (h) to enquire into the number of immigrants in Sabah who were issued blue identification cards or citizenship by taking into consideration their status as stateless persons”.
The RCIIIS has absolutely nothing to say about its eighth term of reference. How more irresponsible could the RCIIIS be? Or has the RCIIIS completely forgotten about this term of reference? Read the rest of this entry »
Call on Najib and Cabinet to endorse the Open Letter of 25 Eminents to send a clear message to the nation and the world that Malaysian government fully committed to moderation against intolerance, extremism and bigotry
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Malaysian Dream, Najib Razak, nation building on Monday, 22 December 2014, 2:36 pm
The Open Letter by 25 Malay former top civil servants and personalities on December 8 asking the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to show leadership against festering extremism and intolerance is undoubtedly the No. 1 News Event of the Year.
Never before has an Open Letter by the citizenry struck such a resounding chord in our multiracial, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation, as evidenced by the enthusiastic support from all groups of Malaysian society, not confined to Malays and Muslims, like ‘I am #26’ online petition with over 5,000 supporters; “KamiJuga25” (We, too, are 25),signed by over 1,600 supporters; 95 NGOs in Malaysia, 22 Muslim activists and a multitude of support demonstrated by diverse groups and strata of Malaysian society in the past fortnight.
But the reaction has started, and the assaults on the 25 Eminents will escalate in personal attacks, character-assassination and viciousness employing the full resources of the intolerant and extremist media and social as we witnessed in the past two days.
This is the time for all moderates, crossing race, religious, gender, age and even political party lines to take a stand for moderation and marginalize, isolate and defeat intolerance, extremism and bigotry which are the greatest threats and enemies of a plural society like Malaysia.
This is the time for the positive politics of inclusion to replace the negative politics of exclusion! Read the rest of this entry »
Dr M fear-mongering, playing race card to keep Umno in power, say analysts
by Eileen Ng
The Malaysian Insider
22 December 2014
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s warning that the Malays are losing political dominance and may end up being left behind was meant to strike fear into the community and ensure that Umno remained in power, analysts said.
Observers said the former prime minister was also looking at matters through a racial lens, which was ironic considering that he was a proponent of Bangsa Malaysia policy of an inclusive national identity.
Professor James Chin said it was impossible for the Malays to lose power to the minority races in the country as all the top positions, from the Malay rulers to the civil service, were dominated by that community.
Citing examples, the academic with Monash University Malaysia said the posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister, at least half the Cabinet postings as well as senior positions in the government service were held by Malays.
“He is stating that to play up the racial card and to scare the Malays to ensure Umno remains in power,” Chin told The Malaysian Insider. Read the rest of this entry »
The hardest word
Posted by Kit in Mariam Mokhtar on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 10:25 pm
– Mariam Mokhtar
Rakyat Times
21 December 2014
The day Malaysia makes history will be the day our leaders apologise for their shortcomings, say ‘sorry’ for the failures of their staff, and express regret for the abuses of power by their children. Malaysians have much to learn from South Korea, and our leaders should learn the lesson from the ‘Nut Rage’ scandal.
Cho Hyun-ah, daughter of the chairman of Korean Air, apologised for losing her temper with a First-Class air steward at New York’s John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport on Dec 5. Cho, who was a senior vice-president and head of cabin service for Korean Air, had been served nuts in a bag and not on a plate. The plane had been waiting to take off when she ordered the captain to return and drop off the offending cabin crew member.
The contrast in her behaviour, a few days later, could not have been more stark. Cho was brought back down to earth with a bump. Her arrogance, that of someone with the power to overrule the pilot, was gone. In a faint, trembling voice, Cho issued her grovelling public an apology. Dressed in black from head to toe, with her hair shielding her face from the cameras and onlookers, she avoided eye contact and bowed her head in shame.
Hours earlier, her father Cho Yang-ho, also the chairman of Korean Air, had apologised and bowed before journalists at the airline’s head office. He expressed regret for his daughter’s actions and said, “It’s my fault. As chairman and father, I ask for the public’s generous forgiveness.”
News agencies like Reuters and Associated Press had reported that the South Koreans had been outraged by the behaviour of the children and grandchildren of the founders of big business empires. Cho was dubbed a “princess” for shaming the nation. Read the rest of this entry »
A Christmas message to my nation
— Charles Ganaprakasam
The Malay Mail Online
December 21, 2014
DECEMBER 21 — On this stunning, life-giving harmonious day, I would like to convey my Christmas wishes to my fellow brothers and sisters who are rejoicing this holy day as a birth of Jesus on earth to redeem us from our sin which we committed by God given free will.
We should not celebrate Christmas without knowing the proper mode of celebrating it. Some celebrate this pure delightful day solely with their friends and family gathering with gleaming smiles and once it’s done, then Christmas is over and they are glad of it.
The most wonderful and meaningful way of celebrating Christmas is through serving the deprived people with pure heart and remembering them as one of our brothers and sisters. We should serve them notwithstanding by where they belong racially, culturally and religiously.
Whether the underprivileged person is in someone’s own neighbourhood or in a distant area, we must not neglect our duty to serve them. Man’s responsibility to help his fellow beings is the central essence of teaching by Jesus Christ.
The notion of serving others not only mentioned in Christianity by Jesus, but also in the teaching of Buddhism and Islam. In Islam it’s compulsory for every Muslim to pay a certain amount of money from their earning as “zakat” for the poor people. Additionally, the Hindu religion traditionally believes that act of serving the needy is for repentance for their sin in this or their previous lifetime to discharge them from cycle of death and rebirth. Read the rest of this entry »
Tunisia caught between fear and stability
Posted by Kit in Political Islam on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 9:16 pm
Noureddine Jebnoun
Aljazeera
19 Dec 2014
Tunisia might be making progress with elections, but internal political polarisation is reaching dangerous heights.
The Tunisian transition is perceived as exceptional in the light of the instability in the rest of the region: return of authoritarianism, spread of sectarian and ethnic violence, chaos and civil war. L Carl Brown recently praised the “Tunisian exception” for providing a “less hectic and less bloody revolutionary transition” in the Arab world.
But a closer look at Tunisian politics shows that the perceived exceptionalism of political developments in the country is somewhat overstated and necessitates a more nuanced analysis.
Political fatigue
Three years after Bouazizi’s immolation set off the Arab uprisings, Tunisia is living in the rhythm of elections. Most recently, parliamentary elections where held on October 26, followed by the first round of presidential elections. On December 21, Tunisia will have its presidential runoff between Beji Caid Essebsi of Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) and the incumbent interim President Moncef Marzouki. The outcome of these elections will provide the country with its first democratically elected permanent institutions.
But as much as the world is praising these elections, Tunisians do not seem as enthusiastic. While the number of registered voters surpassed 5 million out of more than 8.2 million Tunisians of voting age, barely 3.3 million turned up at the voting stations for the first round of the presidential elections. This indicates a low voter turnout particularly among youth, the most disenfranchised social group whose mobilisation was decisive in the fall of Ben Ali’s dictatorship. Read the rest of this entry »
The Conventional Wisdom On Oil Is Always Wrong
By Ben Casselman
Five Thirty-Eight
Dec 18, 2014
In 2008, I moved to Dallas to cover the oil industry for The Wall Street Journal. Like any reporter on a new beat, I spent months talking to as many experts as I could. They didn’t agree on much. Would oil prices — then over $100 a barrel for the first time — keep rising? Would post-Saddam Iraq ever return to the ranks of the world’s great oil producers? Would China overtake the U.S. as the world’s top consumer? A dozen experts gave me a dozen different answers.
But there was one thing pretty much everyone agreed on: U.S. oil production was in permanent, terminal decline. U.S. oil fields pumped 5 million barrels of crude a day in 2008, half as much as in 1970 and the lowest rate since the 1940s. Experts disagreed about how far and how fast production would decline, but pretty much no mainstream forecaster expected a change in direction.
That consensus turns out to have been totally, hilariously wrong. U.S. oil production has increased by more than 50 percent since 2008 and is now near a three-decade high. The U.S. is on track to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s top producer of crude oil; add in ethanol and other liquid fuels, and the U.S.is already on top. Read the rest of this entry »
China Revises Its GDP Calculations
Posted by Kit in Economics, International on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 7:11 pm
By Mark Magnier
Wall Street Journal
Dec 19, 2014
New Calculation Adds About 3.4% More to 2013 Data
BEIJING — With the stroke of a pen, China announced Friday that world’s second largest economy was 3.4% larger last year than previously thought — chiefly due to a more accurate counting of services and their impact on economic output.
China’s 2014 gross domestic product will be calculated using the new methodology when the full-year results are released next month.
The new calculation added 1.92 trillion yuan ($308.3 billion)—or about the equivalent of the economy of a Colorado or a Singapore—to the size of China’s economy in 2013, bringing it to a total of 58.80 trillion yuan.
While at one level the statistical change is fairly arcane, it should give investors and policy makers a more accurate picture of the economy as Beijing tries to pivot from investment-led growth in industry and infrastructure toward services and consumption.
“I think they’re genuinely trying to improve the quality of the numbers,” said Michael Pettis, professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. “When you have bad numbers, it’s hard to make policy, and this is especially important in China, where the single most important player is the government.”
Analysts said the recalculation likely moves forward the date approximately a decade from now when China’s economy is projected to surpass the U.S.’s as the world’s largest. The U.S. surpassed the U.K. as the world’s largest economy in 1872. China has been expected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy around 2024 or 2025. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia is the only country with a RCI which has a produced a report (RCIIIS Report) so replete with conflicts, contradictions, non-findings, omissions, including over 6,000 missing pages, that another high-level committee has to be set up to read it and to try to understand it
Is there a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) or its equivalent in the world which had spent 20 months to hold public hearings, calling 211 witnesses whose evidence covered more than 5,000 pages, public memoranda, “177 exhibits including charts, pictures, statistics, letters, official directives, commentaries and articles” which must have exceeded over 1,000 pages, but producing a 368-page report so replete with conflicts, contradictions, non-findings, omissions (including over 6,000 missing pages) that another high-level committee has to be set up to read it and try to understand it, as well as wondering what to do with it?
If there is such a RCI or its equivalent in another country, I will like to know about it.
Malaysia is probably the only country in the world with the dubious honour of having such a RCI – the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS).
It is a marvel that the Cabinet sat on the RCIIIS Report for some six months and did not know what to do about it – as UMNO/Barisan Nasional just want the status quo to continue undisturbed. Read the rest of this entry »
Challenge to Mahathir to a public debate on “Whether after 57 years of UMNO government and six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays have lost political power and become beggars in their own land”
Yesterday, former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir repeated ad nauseam his politics of fear, hate and lies that Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land.
Does Mahathir really believe such garbage, that after 57 years of UMNO Government and six UMNO Prime Ministers – with him ruling for 22 years or 39% of these 57 years as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia – that the Malays have lost political power and become beggars in their own land?
If so, then this is the most powerful reason why the Malays and even Malaysians must throw UMNO out of Putrajaya in the 14GE, for there can be no greater indictment of the failures of 57 years of UMNO rule under six UMNO Prime Ministers (including his 22 years as PM) than the fate Mahathir insists the Malays have been reduced to – stripped of political power to become beggars in their own land!
But does this fearsome scenario tally with reality?
Malaysia had not only been ruled by the UMNO Government under six UMNO Prime Ministers for 57 years, the DPMs, the heavy-weight Cabinet Ministers like Finance, Home and Education; the Attorney-General; heads of the civil service, judiciary, the police, the armed forces and the army, navy and air force; secretaries-general of all important and the overwhelming majority of ministries; heads of key government departments and statutory bodies, the Vice Chancellors of all public universities – they are all helmed by Malays.
The UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, recently quoted the Public Service Department (JPA) director of organizational development Datuk Norzam Mohd Nor as saying that a whopping 60 per cent of chief executives helming government statutory bodies appear to have little knowledge about their agencies.
Is this fault to be laid at the doors of the Chinese in Malaysia? Read the rest of this entry »
Why such uneasiness among Muslims over ‘Allah’?
Posted by Kit in Mahathir, Malaysian Dream on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 8:40 pm
By Stephen Ng
Malaysiakini
Oct 12, 2013
As the nation anxiously awaits the Court of Appeal’s decision on Monday regarding the use of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims, a short chapter on the controversial issue in former Tenaga Nasional Bhd chief’s latest book, ‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’, is both apt and timely.
Representing the “endangered species” of broadminded Malays who grew up in multicultural Malaysia, Ani asks, “Why there is so much uneasiness among Muslims to hear others using the word loosely?”
Ani is referring to the dispute on the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims in Malaysia, which has gone all the way up to the appellate court.
It has also created tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in the country, which led to a few churches being fire-bombed following the High Court decision to allow the Catholic weekly The Herald to use the word ‘Allah’ for God in Bahasa Malaysia, the language used by many Christians in Sabah and Sarawak.
Pig’s heads, wrapped in plastic, were also found in two mosques in Kuala Lumpur, but to date police have not arrested the culprits. Read the rest of this entry »
Ani Arope on how TNB got a raw deal from IPPs
Posted by Kit in Mahathir, Malaysian Dream on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 8:25 pm
By Stephen Ng
Malaysiakini
Oct 11, 2013
In his book published by the Fulbright Alumni Association of Malaysia, former Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) executive chairperson Ani Arope reveals how, after the landmark blackout in Peninsular Malaysia in 1992, TNB was forced to surrender the land it had acquired in Paka (Terengganu) and Pasir Gudang (Johor) to a third party for power plants.
This started the era of the independent power producers (IPPs) and the first was YTL Power Generation Sdn Bhd.
This was followed by a slew of other IPPs – Powertek Bhd, Genting Sanyan Power Sdn Bhd, Segeri Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd, Malakoff Bhd, Tanjung plc, EPE Power Sabah Energy Corp, Alpha Intercount’l Bhd, Sutera Bhd, Cergas Unggul Sdn Bhd and Ekran Corp.
Although Ani, who is Malaysia’s first Fulbright scholar, had felt that the power purchase agreements with YTL for a period of 21 years – from 1994 to 2015 – were “too darn generous”, he was pressured to ink the deal, which had been drafted by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU).
Then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the man who “engineered” the rise of IPPs.
“There was no negotiation; absolutely none. Instead of talking directly with the IPPs, TNB was sitting down with the EPU. And we were harassed, humiliated and talked down every time we went there. Read the rest of this entry »
Ultra Malays out to polarise nation, warns Ani Arope
Posted by Kit in Mahathir, Malaysian Dream on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 8:01 pm
By Stephen Ng
Malaysiakini
Oct 10, 2013
To say that Ani Arope epitomises a true Malay statesman is an understatement.
In his recently launched ‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’, the former chairperson and chief executive of Tenaga Nasional Bhd (1990-96) portrays himself as a good communicator who speaks fluent Hokkien, passable Cantonese and Mandarin and reasonably good Tamil and French.
Yet, he did not at any point lose his identity as a Malay, a person well-respected by family and friends as ‘Pak Ani’ or Uncle Ani.
Lamenting that a lot of today’s woes are the result of gutter politics played by politicians bounded by arrogance, boastfulness, avarice, hate and jealousy, the octogenarian says his major concern is “to see a more stark polarisation of races in our schools and institutions of higher learning”.
Ani, the country’s first recipient of the Fulbright scholarship in 1964, said such polarisation opened the door to prejudice and bigotry among the various races. Read the rest of this entry »
Race riots could be costly, warns Ani Arope in memoirs
Posted by Kit in Mahathir, Malaysian Dream on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 7:51 pm
By Stephen Ng
Malaysiakini
Oct 9, 2013
Collateral damage resulting from a race riot or a civil strife is too great a cost of human sufferings, the former Tenaga Nasional Bhd executive chairperson Ani Arope has warned.
“It should never be our political option,” he says in his book, ‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’.
The 81-year-old outspoken Malay statesman said although the issue of special rights for Malays and other bumiputeras is and will always be a delicate issue, he hopes to see the loopholes of the New Economy Policy plugged.
If these rights will benefit Malays and other bumiputeras who truly deserve, then Malaysians will view the whole matter in a different light,” he notes.
“However, it appears that these rights have been skewered to benefit the privileged Malays. The rural folk and those who really need help are getting the smallest of crumbs, if at all.” Read the rest of this entry »
The politics of inequality
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Mahathir, Malaysian Dream, nation building on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 7:03 pm
COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
20 December 2014
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad does not mince his words. Not since he started in politics and definitely not now, more than a decade after stepping down as Malaysia’s fourth prime minister.
But there are days where you wonder where is he coming from. Today, he said the Malays’ grip on politics was weak due to disunity and them having to beg from other races for support to remain in power.
“Now Umno, PKR, and PAS have to beg for support from DAP Chinese to win the general election. When we become beggars, we no longer have power,” he said in his keynote address at a youth leadership programme in Kuala Lumpur.
He added that even if the country achieved developed-nation status, the Malays might be left behind. Read the rest of this entry »
We won’t forget how CM labelled a holy pig
By TK Chua
Malaysiakini
Dec 20, 2014
Only in this country could a small group of extremists label a chief minister of a state a holy pig and “kurang ajar” and get away with it. Only in this country would a chief minister making a statement based on his legal interpretation be considered as encroachment into the rights of others. When are these extremists going to grow up?
Whatever Lim Guan Eng had said or did not say, we should all debate decently and if possible allow the due process to determine whether he has infringed any law in the country.
But this is not the case. Everyone in the country knows that the extremists are bullying others with raw power and brutal force. They know non-Muslims and non-Malays are the minority and powerless to retaliate. In fact, have you seen non-Malays resorting to trigger-happy demonstrations like this group of extremists in Penang? Since Pakatan took over the helm of the state government, may I know how many demonstrations have been staged by them?
Don’t forget that the tactic used was most uncouth and depraved. We have not forgotten the cake in the shape of faeces that was presented to the chief minister. We have not forgotten the photograph of the chief minister put up as if it was for his funeral. We have not forgotten there was once a challenge to “fist fight” with the chief minister.
We have not forgotten the aggressive storming of the state government office building. We have not forgotten the intrusion into the state assembly building. Now, surely we will not forget how the chief minister of the state was labelled as a holy pig, a wild boar, et cetera. Read the rest of this entry »
The RCIIIS was a total cop-out on the fundamental question as to the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah in the electoral rolls
Sabahans and Malaysians have expected the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) to at least answer some of the fundamental questions which have haunted Sabahans for four decades, for instance on the Project IC, the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah and the number of illegal immigrants on the Sabah electoral rolls.
However, the RCIIIS Report was a total cop-out as it has virtually left all the basic issues about nightmare of four decades of illegal immigrants open-ended, providing no satisfactory answers and indulging in irresponsible evasion tactics.
Despite spending 20 months from the establishment of the RCIIIS on Sept. 6, 2012 until the completion of its report and presentation to the Yang di Pertuan Agong on May 14, 2014, with public hearings involving 211 witnesses producing 5,000 pages of testimonies, public memoranda and 177 exhibits, the five-man RCIIIS failed in its most important tasks – to provide answers to the many nagging and basic questions about the four-decade nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah.
I have already exposed the ongoing attempt to distort and further “white-wash” the RCIIIS Report on the issue Project IC.
Although the RCIIIS Report made it clear that “there is a possibility that such a Project did exist at all material times” (p. 300), both the Chief Secretary Tan Sri Hamsa Ali and the Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi tried to twist and distort its findings, with the former saying that the government was not involved in the Project IC (which was never the finding of the RCIIIS) and the latter going one step further denying that Project IC had ever existed
I will discuss the vexing subject of the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah tomorrow, focussing today on the basic question of the number of illegal immigrants in the Sabah electoral rolls Read the rest of this entry »
Islam needs heroes, not zeroes who kill in its name
COMMENTARY by Jahabar Sadiq, Editor
The Malaysian Insider
17 December 2014
Yesterday, 132 schoolchildren and nine adults were mowed down by gunfire in a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. A day earlier, two hostages died as Australian police ended a siege at a Sydney chocolate shop.
The link between both? It was done by people who professed to be Muslims. It was not a matter of what sect or school of thought they belonged to, they were simply Muslims like a majority of us here in Malaysia.
The Peshawar gunmen belonged to the Tehrik-E-Taliban or Pakistan Taliban out to seek revenge against the Pakistan army for an offensive that began last summer and resulted in some 1,000 deaths.
This was an insurgency’s pure revenge and hate against the government of the day. It was also the same group that shot Pakistani schoolgirl and now Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012, purportedly because women do not need education in an Islamic caliphate or state.
In Sydney, an Iranian asylum seeker named Man Hosni Monis with a criminal past invoked his Islamic credentials when he took over the Lindt chocolate cafe that ended up in tragedy.
It really does not matter if both incidents have nothing to do with Islam as we know it. Or linked to more than a billion peace-loving Muslims across the globe. For the world, it is all done and declared in the name of Islam. Read the rest of this entry »
How could a closet racist and extremist hide his true colours as to be the Election Commission Secretary/Chairman for 25 years, responsible for six general elections and three constituency delimitation exercises?
Yesterday, I said more and more lawyers and Malaysians are asking how an extremist with racial and religious prejudice like Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad could rise up to become Chief Justice, the top judicial officer of the land.
Similarly, more and more Malaysians are also asking how a closet racist and extremist like Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman could hide his true colours to dominate the Election Commission for a quarter of a century, as he was appointed Election Commission Secretary in 1979 and was Election Commission Chairman from 2,000 to 2,008, responsible for six general elections and three constituency delimitation exercises in 1984, 1994 and 2003.
When Rashid, who is now Perkasa Vice President, first joined the extremist and racist UMNO-funded NGO in November last year, he said his objective was to champion Malay rights and ensure Malays retain power.
He told the media at the time that as Election Commission Chairman, he knew how to keep the Malays in power.
He said three redelineation exercises of electoral boundaries which were done during his time with the Election Commission had ensured Malays remained in power. Read the rest of this entry »
