Reservation to Rashid's appointment as Press Secretary to DPM

Blogger Mohd Ashraf of Jejak Pujangga was first to break the news in his congratulatory words for Rashid Yusof, the new Press Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

To his fellow journalist, Rashid is seen as a true professional. Few that was refered to for comment acknowledge this trait about him.

But, politically he is tainted for his involvement in Khairy Jamaluddin's campaign. Rashid was involved in public relation for Khairy and undertaking the reimaging of Khairy.

Good public relation can do wonder in painting an untrue picture of a person.

In a coordinated move through the press, blogophere and public appearance, Khairy's deeds and reputation was cleverly hidden. With some influence applied on the media, Khairy was repeatedly described as open, smart, forward looking and the message was he was wrongly perceived.

The main problem with Khairy's campaign is the open use of money. Talk to any Permuda UMNO involved in the recent party election and they will openly acknowledge Khairy throwing money in his last minute carpet bombing to buy votes and his years of buying influence within the Pemuda grassroot ranks with contracts and outright money.

Repeating from an earlier posting, one source described the number of SPRM report on Khairy alone as 113. At one balai polis alone, reports on Khairy's money politics was already 15.

For someone having a key role in Khairy's campaign, Rashid can't plead innocence.

The party suffered due to such corrupt practise by Khairy and his accomplice. Now that the whole nation's eyesight is set on how UMNO deal with Khairy's case. It will ascertain the new PM's sincere commitment to fight corruption within the party and Government.

As someone closed to the pinnacle of power described Khairy, "He is so soiled that it would take seven generation to samak his bad reputation." Samak refers to the procedures to clean najis mughallazah involving seven portion of clean water and one postion earth.

Having a person with such association in Muhyiddin's team will not auger well for the image of UMNO.

How are we bloggers to defend and support Muhyiddin in his fight to reform the party and in particular to clean it of money politics, if such a person forms an important part of his team?

A bigger concern would be Rashid's own words that have been heard spreading within a certain circle. To quote from Bigdogdotcom, “I will do my level best to resuscitate KJ back into Najib’s favour, through Muhyiddin’s office”.

Muhyiddin should be concern as to whom his loyalty is to. He may feel time has changed. The UMNO lalangs will bend according to where the wind blows or in other words, kow tow to whom the power is with. He is after all an old hand in politics and capable at managing and monitoring his team.

However, one former senior cabinet member, when told of this appointment reacted, "What strategy?" He is implying it is not a safe and wise move.

The question here is, shouldn't staff of Ministers get security clearance before being appointed?

Khairy is not one chap with a good security record. By his association with Khairy, Rashid could be a potential security issue and not to mention, a potential source of information leak.

This reminder from a friendly suppporter maybe brushed aside as paranoid but it is not without its reasons. With the new Prime Minister openly calling on leaders to hear the rakyat, this is a concerned call from a rakyat.

More so, when Khairy openly declared to a group of 80 Ketua Pemuda in a gathering at the PM's official residence that if he goes down, he will bring others down, be it a true happening or a created one.

One should not have taken a chance with someone with association to someone that needs seven generation to samaq and a security threat.

Is Rashid's skill so indispensible to Muhyiddin's work to assist PM that he should take such risk? Is there not anyone else capable of doing the same work?