My commiseration with Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan.
He is feeling so lonely and forlorn after he thought he has clambered up the mountain to deserve a special place next to the “The Chosen One”.
What a disappointment for him to find that he had been replaced or overtaken by others, even by a “political junior” from his home state, who have gone ahead to become the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, a position which is more important and higher on the political protocol than his recent sinecure as the Barisan Nasional Director of Strategic Communications (whatever that means).
I stand by what I said about him on July 24, 2015:
“Minister for Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan will be guilty of the greatest national disservice if the sole agenda of his appointment as Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director is to distract attention from Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) July 2 report that Malaysian government investigators have found US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) deposited into the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal accounts in AmBank in 2013 just before the 13th General Election instead of helping to establish the facts of the Prime Minister’s alleged RM2.6 billion personal accounts.
“Since his sudden appearance as BN Strategic Communications Director the previous Wednesday, Rahman had got so much eggs on his face, and on a daily basis, that it is virtually impossible to find a centimeter on his face which is not egg-splattered – whether because of Rahman’s “God-send” Lester Melyani; Lester’s utterly discredited video confession even before all the parts had been aired publicly; the crazy and counter-productive notion for Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block access to Sarawak Report (forcing Malaysians to undergo an instant education of how to circumvent official Internet blocks) or the hyping of patriotic and valiant efforts to pry open the RM42 billion 1MDB financial scandal whether by journalists in the Edge or by MPs like Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli as offences like ‘activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy’, sabotage, ‘toppling the elected government’ or even treason!”
It is really pathetic that the Urban Well-Being, Housing and Local Government is so far from feeling any “well-being” that he had to seek solace browsing the Internet to fire off missiles to ease his sense of misery, when he should be diligently working on his three portfolios of “urban well-being, housing and local government” for the welfare of Malaysians.
Hence the Malaysiakini report of “3 portals, 3 DAP articles, 3 tweets from Rahman Dahlan”, as if such “missile-firing” into the Internet can give him some relief as well as a sense of importance in the UMNO./BN hierarchy.
Except Rahman has chosen the wrong targets.
He first objected to an article in The Malaysian Insider by Penang DAP assistant publicity secretary Syerleena Abdul Rashid entitled which appeared on my blog.
Syerleena was addressing one of the issues plaguing Malaysian nation-building, the growing propensity of national leaders to spread hate and lies and to inseminate the seeds of suspicion to protect their political turfs.
Syerleena spoke of the need for Malaysians to break away from the politics of hate and find a middle ground that can appreciate discussions and debates in a more respectful, constructive and intelligent manner.
She wrote: “There is no denying that there is a dire need to respond to religious, cultural and ethnic pluralism in line with modern democratic practices, one that endorses assurances to civility, decency and tolerance…
“Our responsibility now is to encourage the politics of mutual respect. We need to find a way to make politics interesting, insightful and worthwhile to the next generation of leaders and not let the haters get the best of us when they spew bigoted views.”
Does Rahman understand what Syerleena is saying and proposing?
Apparently not, as all Rahman could do is the stupid one-liner tweet:
“Can we start with your red beans first?”
I still remember that I led a troupe of DAP MPs to raid the Concorde Hotel in Kuala Lumpur in July 2013, as UMNO cybertroopers were alleging that DAP funded a “Red Bean Army” of 3,000 cybertroopers with a budget of RM100 million to RM1 billion in previous six years operating, of all places, from Concorde Hotel.
We did not find a single “Red Bean” in Concorde Hotel but we found it crawling with UMNO leaders.
Yet more than two years after the DAP’s fruitless raid of Concorde Hotel, there are UMNO Ministers like Rahman who still believe that the DAP had infiltrated into the very heart of UMNO Communications Headquarters with “Red Bean” cybertroopers.
Have Rahman succeeded in cleansing the UMNO/BN psy-war communications centre of DAP “infiltrators”, whether Red Bean or Green Bean?
Rahman’s second cyber foray was an article published in FMT, titled ‘Kit Siang: So long as Najib is PM, he won’t be found guilty’ – my response to Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem’s statement that the state BN will reconsider its loyalty to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak if he is found guilty of any wrongdoing in relation to 1MDB.
To counter this, Abdul Rahman tweeted: “Going by his twisted logic, his son in Penang will never be exposed.”
This is no compliment to Rahman’s intellectual prowess – whether political or just common sense.
This is because any ordinary person could tell Rahman that he was talking rubbish, as the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, or any DAP or Pakatan Harapan politician is most likely to be the first to be prosecuted and persecuted for any wrongdoing by the UMNO/BN apparatus – and in fact, they are being selectively prosecuted and persecuted even for no wrongdoing!
Rahman’s third foray was in regard to Malaysiakini’s report “Kit Siang queries Adenan’s wavering support for Najib” and my comment that Adenan is no more giving unqualified endorsement to Najib but wavering in his support.
Countering it, Rahman touched on the upcoming Sarawak state election and claimed that Adenan would score a huge win, tweeting: “Expected quivering response to inevitable BN victory in Sarawak”.
Political leaders who should now be “quivering” are the UMNO leaders, who are living on borrowed time and face the prospect of being rejected not only by Malay voters but even by UMNO members in the 14th General Election.
This is why UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Razak had been intensifying his courtship of the Pas President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang.
Yesterday, we saw the explosion of two political bombshells with far reaching consequences on Malaysians politics: one in faraway United States where the Wall Street Journal published another 1MDB shocker, claiming that 1MDB sent at least US$850 million (RM3.7 billion) last year to an offshore entity formed to appear as if it was owned by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.
The second political bombshell was the advanced courtship of the PAS leadership, especially the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang, by Najib in Kuala Lumpur, especially as Hadi has become Najib’s foremost champion in the face of the Prime Minister’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.
What has Rahman got to say or contribute in these two developments which will have seismic effects on the Malaysian political scene in the weeks and months to come.
It would appear none at all, which is why he is reduced to playing with tweets and firing off blanks into the cyberspace.