Rashid Hasnon was born in Muar, Johor Bahru to Hasnon and Tek. He was educated in Muar High School and later went to Royal Military College, Sungai Besi. He completed his A-Levels in Southampton Technical College, United Kingdom. He obtained a degree in BSc. Control Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK. He studied his Master in Business Administration at National University of Malaysia. Rashid began his first job at Pernas NEC in 1984. He held the position as the head of planning department in Motorola in 1987. He became the chairman of Personal Managers Group which manages all company that is governed under Free Industrial Zone at Bayan Lepas in 2006. He married Datin Hajjah Nor Azizah bt Haron in 1982 and has 5 children.
Political career
Rashid became the chairman of GERAK Penang in 1999. In 2001, he held the position as PKR State Treasurer. He was one of the founding members of PKR in Penang and has been serving as vice-chairman of Penang State PKR, the opposition party then in Malaysia. He was elected as Penang State Legislative Assemblyman for Pantai Jerejak in 2013 election with a bigger majority vote than his predecessor and was appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister 1 of Penang. He was sworn into the position which was assigned to PKR since Pakatan Rakyat took over Penang on 9 May 2013 to succeed Dato' Mansor Othman. Rashid was also the Penang State Executive Council Member in the portfolio of Industrial Development & International Trade, Entrepreneurial Development, Cooperative and Community Relation. He was also the deputy-chairman of Perbadanan Bekalan Air Pulau Pinangboard of directors. He was also the Deputy Chairman of Penang Development Corporation. In May 2018 election, he went back to his home state Johor and contested the parliamentary seat of Batu Pahat. He successfully defeated his opponents from BN and PAS with majority of 17,894.
International assistance mission
Rashid had joined the team of volunteers to Aceh and Meulaboh to help victims of tsunami in 2004. In 2009, he led a mission to help Muslims in Cambodia and Southeast Asian countries. In addition, as the chairman of International JIM national, he did not miss out on a relief mission in Gaza with a Malaysian non-governmental organization, Islamic Organisations Consultative Council, among the earliest mission to bring aid to Gaza after the Mavi Marmara incident.
Controversies
On 22 January 2019, Rashid had purportedly asked to deliver a speech text by the organisers in the event of the launch of the Enhanced Malaysia International Internet GatewayHigh-Speed Broadband project in Shah Alam which wrongly implicated him and he was mistakenly thought to be representing Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail who could not attend it. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said in a statement later that Dr Wan Azizah had never approved the speech text that was delivered and had also not delegated anyone to read out the text of the speech at the event. It also denied that the government would extend its full cooperation to the implementation of the EM-IIG project. Rashid had denied that he represented the Deputy Prime Minister at the event. He demanded the organisers to act immediately to correct the situation and clear his name of any confusion or he would consider legal action against them.
