Rashid Rahman: the reason for Bersih 2007

By MT Webmaster Last updated Sep 1, 2017

It is time the Chinese ask DAP what game they are trying to play. They blame Dr Mahathir for May 13 and they make him their Top Dog. They blame Anwar Ibrahim for messing with the Chinese schools and they make him their Prime Minister-in-waiting. They blame Rashid Rahman for election fraud and they make him the VP of PPBM. Is this a demonstration of how smart the DAP Chinese are?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

No one can deny that the 2008 general election was the turning point for Malaysian politics. But then one must not over-simplify the reason for what happened in 2008. It is like saying WWII was triggered because Germany invaded Poland. Historians will tell you that WWII was trigged by WWI and the Treaty of Versailles that followed the end of the war and which the Germans simpan dendam for so many years.

Hence when Hitler came along to ‘avenge’ the injustice done to Germany and to restore German pride the Germans rallied behind him, never mind how crazy he may have been. As they say, never kick a man when he is down because he might just stand up again. And they kicked Germany after WWI when it was down so Germany rose back up again to take revenge.

Anyway, that is not what we want to talk about today. What we want to discuss is what made 2008 possible.

Rashid Rahman’s PERKASA is opposed to Bahasa Malaysia Bibles

There are many factors to any scenario. One of the factors is Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad ran a successful hate-campaign from June 2006 until Polling Day of March 2008 to convince Malaysians that Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was incompetent (the ‘Fourth Floor Boys’ were actually the ones running the country), was literally sleeping on the job (sleeping during meetings, during dinner functions, and even while having his photograph taken during the APEC conference), corrupt (his son Kamal and son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin were doing crooked deals), was a Singapore agent (which is why he did not want to build the ‘Crooked Bridge’), and many more.

Mahathir mobilised all the bloggers from both sides of the political divide and launched his social media attack on the Prime Minister, Umno, and Barisan Nasional. Meanwhile, Zainuddin Maidin a.k.a. Zam told Umno that the social media was no threat to the government. The kids use the internet only to play games and to look for cheap airline tickets, Zam said. So they can ignore the social media. Later, of course, during the post mortem, they identified the internet as one of the biggest factors for the beating the government received in the 2008 general election.

Rashid Rahman of PERKASA upholds Malay supremacy and Malay political power

Another factor for the 2008 general election result was the November 2007 Bersih march to Istana Negara. A group of NGOs and political activists, also from both sides of the political divided, marched to Istana Negara to hand over a petition to His Majesty the Agong calling for electoral reforms.

The SPR or the Election Commission was running fraudulent elections where the ruling party needs to win only 45% of the popular votes to stay in power whereas the opposition needs to win at least 60% of the popular votes to get into power. Even when they win 55% of the votes the opposition still cannot get into power.

Well, ‘fraudulent elections’ is what the opposition calls it. The proper terminology is gerrymandering, and there is no crime in that. Even in the US and the UK this is being done and this is not illegal even in the west. Further to that, there is the disparity between seats where one seat could be 20,000 voters and another could be 120,000 voters. Ideally the variance should be around 20% plus-minus and in some countries this is the law. In Malaysia, the variances are very large and that is not illegal at all.

The third bone of contention, of course, is postal votes, which many feel is no longer required due to many reasons.

Rashid Rahman, the man DAP hated most, is now DAP’s partner in PPBM

Anyway, these and many more have been bones of contention for the opposition and they tried to have a dialogue with the SPR since 2000 but the SPR tak layan. And the man who was heading the SPR from 2000 to 2008 was Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman.

When asked what is the job of the SPR if not to conduct free and fair elections, they replied the job of the SPR is to ensure that the Malays do not lose political power. When asked why can’t they abolish the postal voting system, they replied if they do that then not a single Cabinet Minister can retain his or her seat.

Yes, this Rashid Rahman of SPR was one huge, arrogant, mother-fooker who the opposition hated like hell. If the DAP Chinese had it their way they would have taken a knife and cut Rashid Rahman’s throat. And the first Bersih march to His Majesty the Agong’s Palace in November 2007 was because Rashid Rahman was so fooking arrogant and refused to accept our petition calling for electoral reforms.

Since Rashid Rahman told us to fook off and refused to see us we had no choice but to bring this matter to His Majesty the Agong. Even then Rashid Rahman told us to fook off and said that His Majesty the Agong has no business interfering in administrative matters, especially those involving politics.

READ: PPBM VP Tan Sri Abdul Rashid: “A lot of damage has been done to the country”

Anyway, the elections were held in March 2008 and history was made. And in December 2008 Rashid Rahman retired from the SPR and everyone was so happy that finally that mother-fooker was gone and maybe now we can talk to the SPK and discuss electoral reforms.

And what happened to Rashid Rahman after he retired from the SPR?

Have you not heard? Rashid Rahman is now the Vice President of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM). He is now in the party that is DAP’s partner in Pakatan Harapan and his boss, Mahathir, is the ‘Top Dog’ of the opposition.

READ: Ex-EC head joins Perkasa to boost Malay power

Can you see how things have become very interesting? Rashid Rahman, one of the most hated persons in Malaysia, whose job was to rig the elections to make sure that Umno stays in power and that Malays will never lose political power, is now DAP’s partner. According to DAP, if not because of Rashid Rahman, Pakatan Rakyat would already have come to power back in 2008. But now they cannot ever come to power.