{"id":5748,"date":"2020-09-02T13:26:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T05:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=5748"},"modified":"2020-09-02T13:26:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T05:26:35","slug":"rais-yatim-elected-as-the-new-president-of-the-senate-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=5748","title":{"rendered":"Rais Yatim elected as the new president of the senate today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 &nbsp;&#8212; Former&nbsp;Information, Communications and Culture Minister&nbsp;Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim&nbsp;was today elected the new president of the Dewan Negara, the Upper House of Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He replaces&nbsp;Tan Sri S. A. Vigneswaran&nbsp;whose term of office ended&nbsp;on June 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rais, 78, was elected the 18th Dewan Negara president&nbsp;through&nbsp;a secret ballot.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&nbsp;was among the three candidates proposed for the post, namely&nbsp;Senator Mohd Yusmadi Mohd Yusoff&nbsp;and&nbsp;Senator Theodore Douglas Lind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Theodore withdrew&nbsp;at the last minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rais obtained 45 votes whereas&nbsp;Mohd Yusmadi&nbsp;secured 19 votes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result was announced by Dewan Negara deputy president\u00a0Senator Datuk Seri Abdul Halim Abd Samad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"rais\" class=\"wp-image-5749\" width=\"486\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-1024x640.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-768x480.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-160x100.jpg 160w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-350x219.jpg 350w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-800x500.jpg 800w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg 1110w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 486px) 100vw, 486px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier, the motion to elect Rais was tabled by Minister in the Prime Minister&#8217;s Department (Parliament and Law)&nbsp;Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan&nbsp;representing Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in accordance with Rule of Meeting&nbsp;4(1), the Standing Order of the Dewan Rakyat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The motion was seconded by Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister&#8217;s Department (Parliament and Law)&nbsp;Datuk Shabudin Yahya while&nbsp;Mohd Yusmadi was proposed for the post by&nbsp;Senator Dr Ahmad Azam Hamzah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a minor commotion when Rais&#8217;s candidature was questioned by&nbsp;Senator Nga Hock Cheh&nbsp;who claimed that it was&nbsp;against the&nbsp;Standing Orders&nbsp;of the Senate&nbsp;as Muhyiddin was not a Dewan Negara member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMuhyiddin is not a member of the&nbsp;Dewan Negara so he&nbsp;does not have the right to propose&nbsp;Tan Sri Rais Yatim as a&nbsp;candidate for this post. As such, the motion&nbsp;should be rejected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, it was&nbsp;rejected by Abdul Halim&nbsp;who said that&nbsp;Muhyiddin has the right to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI listen&nbsp;attentively and understand,&nbsp;although the prime minister is not a member of the Dewan Negara,&nbsp;he is the Head of the Council who&nbsp;determines the dates in which the&nbsp;Dewan Negara and Dewan Rakyat will sit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is not stated in any Rule of Meeting that only Members of the Senate can propose&nbsp;another member as a candidate for the&nbsp;Dewan Negara president post,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abdul Halim then ruled that&nbsp;a vote by secret ballot be&nbsp;held as more than one candidature has been submitted, in accordance with&nbsp;Rule of Meeting 2 (3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bernama.com\/en\/news.php?id=1875706\">BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 &nbsp;&#8212; Former&nbsp;Information, Communications and Culture Minister&nbsp;Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim&nbsp;was today&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",1110,694,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-300x188.jpg",300,188,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-768x480.jpg",640,400,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167-1024x640.jpg",640,400,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",1110,694,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",1110,694,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",1110,694,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",1024,640,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ac3176a712373ac0d99649bad931fa9c5f4f112e96167.jpg",720,450,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?cat=15\" rel=\"category\">Politics<\/a>","tag_info":"Politics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5750,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions\/5750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}