Election Commission: Shooting itself in the foot or revealing its true colour?

By admin-s On Jan 6, 2015

(The Ant Daily) – The integrity and impartiality of the Election Commission (EC) has long been suspect. But the admission by Tan Sri Rashid A Rahman, a former EC chairman and now a vice-president of right-wing organisation Perkasa, that he is a supporter of the ruling BN has indeed confirmed that suspicion.

Rashid seems to be quite bold and unashamed to make the admission in a speech made at the meeting of the pro-Umno grouping on Dec 14.

Interestingly enough, he also told Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to stop “lying” to the Malays.

Be that as it may, that was not the first time the head of the body – whose constitutional duties include the conduct of elections and preparing the electoral rolls – was seen leaning towards the ruling party. Not too long ago Rashid’s successor who is the existing chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Yusof, was found to have been in the Umno membership roll.

Given those two incidents I am not too surprised when one of the states’ EC chiefs has privately indicated that increase of seats needs to be seen in the light of “Malay-Muslim political interests”. He was also of the view that it is hard “for us” to win back Penang and Selangor; remarks that obviously underlines the biased attitude towards the ruling Umno-BN.

For the record Rashid was the EC secretary from 1979. After he retired from the civil service, he was made the EC chairman and served the electoral body between 2000 and 2008. During those years Rashid conducted six general elections and three delimitation exercises in 1984, 1994 and 2003.

Prior to the December admission Rashid has, on several occasions, openly declared that he knew how “to keep the Malays (read: Umno) in power”. He has also claimed that he sought “to champion Malay rights and ensure the Malays retain political power”.

Apparently, all these remarks are more than enough to explain why Rashid now sit at the top leadership of the right-wing organisation. Or perhaps, his true colours.