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Tag: GE

  • Damanhuri Abas: Singaporeans Must Remember This Walkover When Next GE Comes, Don’t Be Cheated By PAP Again

    Damanhuri Abas: Singaporeans Must Remember This Walkover When Next GE Comes, Don’t Be Cheated By PAP Again

    Singaporeans woke up today unhappy and in sadness. The country rightly felt betrayed by the ruling party for denying our right to vote. The wound is real and the scar is permanent.

    Any doubt that this Reserved PE was a political ploy to deny Singaporeans to choose a popular President who clearly was a threat to the ruling party is now put to rest.

    This battle is lost not on fairplay, so the people should hold our heads high as the PAP Government cheated us again. Power has corrupted them.

    Let this be their last high fix before the fall. Do not allow anyone to forget our own 911 that intends to bring down our democracy.

    Singaporeans must remember this day when the next GE comes. The stakes are our children and our children’s children.

    We are not a racist nation they paint us to be. They are the one stoking racial sentiments again and again for their vested political interest. Let us unite as a nation to right this wrong.

    For after every hardship there will be ease. Again, after every hardship there will be ease.

    God bless you all.

     

    Source: Damanhuri Bin Abas

  • Issues That Need To Be Addressed Fast Before The Formal PE 2017 Process Begins

    Issues That Need To Be Addressed Fast Before The Formal PE 2017 Process Begins

    PE 2017 by Former MP Inderjit Singh

    In less than 2 months, Singaporeans will get a new elected President. Unlike the past Presidential Elections (PE), the run up to this year’s PE has not been a smooth sailing one. Parliament passed a new ruling allowing for a Reserved Election. While many have questioned the wisdom of a reserved PE, Parliament has passed the law and this is our current system of how we will select our future Presidents.
    As the Head of State, the President must have the respect of all Singaporeans once he or she is elected (or appointed as in the past). After the new President has been elected in the reserved PE in September this year, I hope all Singaporeans will give that elected person the respect the office of the President of Singapore deserves.
    Many of us are saddened with the recent developments and comments from different quarters of society but I hope that we can put all these differences behind us. Once the new President is elected, we should all unite behind that person and focus on uniting the nation so that the respect accrued to the office of the President remains intact.
    To help that process, I feel that the following issues need to be addressed fast before we go into the formal PE 2017 process:

    1. For the purposes of effecting a reserved election, it is important to establish who our first elected president was Some feel that it is Mr Ong Teng Cheong. He was the first person who was formally elected to the office of President. Before him though, Mr Wee Kim Wee had exercised the powers of the elected president during his term, which was when the constitutional changes were made to allow for Singapore to have an elected President. The court will be deciding on this very soon, but I feel the policy makers could have avoided this question all together by paying more attention to this issue – the constitution could have said that the 5th election should be a reserved election and not the 6th. Nevertheless, once the courts decide, we have to move on.

    2. The concept of “Malayness” has also become a debatable issue. Questions about how Mendaki and SINDA classify who is a Malay and who is an Indian do not seem to be aligned with how a Malay or an Indian is defined for the purposes of a GE or a PE. For now, it is critical that the leaders of the Malay community and the government come out and make this position clear and hopefully this position will apply to all aspects of life in Singapore. I hope this can be resolved before the formal process of PE 2017 starts.

    3. This being the 1st ever reserved PE, many hope to see qualified Malays step forward and give Singaporeans an opportunity to choose their President. It is also very important that Singaporeans and the rest of the world see that we have enough qualified Malays in Singapore who meet the very stringent requirements set in the constitution. It will be a pity if we don’t have enough qualified candidates to choose from for the first ever reserved PE. So, I hope all those who meet the criteria, come forward for this wider call.

    4. While the constitution is open about having a current sitting government politician standing for the PE, some Singaporeans have expressed concerns on the prospects of a current government MP, still in parliament, resigning as an MP and immediately standing for the PE. The spirit of the Elected President is independence of office as intended by Mr Lee Kuan Yew when the idea was mooted. While I have no question about how each person will do his or her duty to serve the office they are elected to serve, public perception is also important. While Mr Ong Teng Cheong also did the same in 1993, I sense people are increasingly uncomfortable with this.

    As the Head of State, the President of Singapore holds the highest office and he or she must get the full respect of all Singaporeans. I hope the above issues are addressed before PE 2017 kicks off formally. It is good that Singaporeans are debating the issue of the reserved PE. My hope is that we can largely come to an understanding of the above 4 issues before we kick off PE 2017. And once our President has been elected, let’s all show respect for the President of Singapore and stand united as Singaporeans.

     

    Source: Inderjit Singh

  • Insurance Agent Didn’t Tell Truth, Tried To Make Me Sign Consent Form Through Donation “Receipt”

    Insurance Agent Didn’t Tell Truth, Tried To Make Me Sign Consent Form Through Donation “Receipt”

    A GE Agent knocked on my door earlier this evening. He didn’t say he was an insurance advisor but introduced himself as someone raising money for orphans. The donation was for $10 . I went in and checked my wallet and found I only had only $2 note in it. I told him to take the $2 anyway. I didn’t want the plush toy gift.

    He told that he needed to take my particulars to issue a receipt. He asked for my birthdate, and I thought how odd for a receipt to require my birthdate. Finally he asked me to sign the form he filled-up. I took the form to read what I was signing and the first line stopped me in my track. It said, I agreed to let GE contact me in any form of mailer or communication medium…..I told him, I was not signing and he told me that it was okay!

    I repeated ‘I am not signing this. You’ve not been truthful. I’m signing away my rights under the pretext of issuing me a donation form.” I had felt bad earlier that I didn’t have the $10 moments earlier but felt irritated by then

    I don’t mind Insurance Agent soliciting for business but not telling me the truth was unacceptable.

    I asked him for his Agent No. which is a number issued by MAS. He refused. He said he has the rights to protect his identify as much as I have. He gave me back the money and walked off.

    If he had tried to conceal something from me on such matter, what’s the chances of him concealing more from others?

     

    Source: Effendi Baba

  • PAP Has Gotten Worse Since Last GE

    PAP Has Gotten Worse Since Last GE

    <Written by Joseph Tan Kheng Liang>

    The PAP has gotten worse since the last GE!

    One of the most recent landmarks in the Singaporean political calendar was the ‘watershed elections’ of 2011. The term watershed was used because it seemed highly probable at that point in time that the PAP would lose several GRCs. Lee Hsien Loong even apologised and cried in public.

    The key question is this: How has the PAP changed for the better since then? The clear and simple answer is that the PAP is back to their own arrogant ways and Singaporeans are not going to benefit from this! Let me give you some examples to illustrate.

    In 2011, they promised to work harder and apologised for their mistakes, mainly due to a liberal immigration policy and an infrastructure which did not keep up. 5 years later, they have come up with arrogant tactics and a completely befuddling “ownself-check-ownself” governing philosophy.

    We have seen numerous cases of lack of transparency in recent times, including the Hep C outbreak at SGH which was not made public until a later stage, we had the case where residents in Sengkang felt cheated after plans to build a columbarium was labelled as a ‘temple’ instead.

    When the trains have new problems such as mysterious ‘signalling fault’, there was no sound or trace of apology from their favourite fixer Khaw Boon Wan. Instead, he chose to pretend that everything was fine, celebrating openings and gatherings on his Facebook page.

    Looking at the by-election of 2016 (which was caused in part because of the actions of their own MP), ministers and even junior MPs took the liberty to ‘whack’ their opponent’s character. When another by-election took place 3 years before, they resorted to no such thing with Lee Li Lian.

    Their jokes even continued abroad! Mainstream media was so proud that Pinky got invited to a US State dinner but did not boast as much when he later ended up offending China by commenting on their territorial dispute and later prove their foreign policy lapses by offending Trump!

    If the average man thinks that these issues do not affect him, look at the price increases: parking charges and waste collection charges (which Leong Sze Hian dug and found an increased surplus)! Even though there is a drop in transport charges, it is not as much as the drop in oil prices!

    Ask yourselves: has the PAP given you a better life since the last General Elections? If the answer is no, the PAP must be very thick-skinned to tell us that they wish to check themselves! Is this even right given their recent track record?

    I can only conclude that they have gotten worse and need someone like the SDP to keep them in check!

     

    Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

  • PAP Looking For Suitable Candidates In Preparation For Next Elections

    PAP Looking For Suitable Candidates In Preparation For Next Elections

    The People’s Action Party has started preparing for the next general election, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

    Mr Lee told past and present PAP MPs at a dinner in Parliament House on Tuesday night that he has asked Health Minister Gan Kim Yong to take charge of the process of identifying new candidates.

    And Mr Gan, who takes over the task from Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, has already started work to prepare for GE2021.

    He told reporters that the first tea session with potential candidates is likely to take place by the end of this month.

    PM Lee and Mr Gan were at a dinner to thank retired PAP MPs for their contributions to the party over the years.

    Mr Lee said he was glad the PAP secured a clear mandate from Singaporeans across the board at the Sept 11 general election.

    And while national factors like the SG50 celebrations and Government policies like the Pioneer Generation Package played a part, the hard work MPs had put in was crucial to the strong result, he added.

    The PAP won 83 out of 89 seats and nearly 70 per cent of the popular vote at GE2015.

    Mr Lee also said a key contribution retiring MPs had made was to help their successors settle in on the ground.

    And the PAP was helped by the fact that after GE2011, it identified and deployed potential new candidates early.

    “This gave them time to learn and settle in, and gave the public time to size them up and warm to them,” Mr Lee said.

    “It’s certainly something we want to do again next time,” he added.

    The PAP has also improved the process of candidate selection, and included seasoned activists, senior backbenchers as well as members with private sector experience who were practised in assessing candidates for posts.

    This gave the party a diversity of perspectives, and helped it make sharper and more reliable assessments of potential candidates, Mr Lee added.

    Mr Lee also thanked the 15 retired MPs, who collectively served almost 250 years in Parliament, for improving community life in their wards and speaking up on a wide range of national issues.

    They include former Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng, who entered politics with PM Lee in 1984, and former minister Mah Bow Tan, who first stood in 1984 and was elected in 1988.

    Others who retired include four who were elected in 1997: Mr Hawazi Daipi, Mr Inderjit Singh, Mr Seng Han Thong and Mr Yeo Guat Kwang.

    “Some spoke forcefully and vigorously in Parliament, while others made your points firmly but in your own quiet and equally effective way,” he said.

    For example, Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, a four-term MP who was redeployed to Aljunied GRC at the last election, raised a rare private member’s bill to improve laws related to animal welfare last year, which Mr Lee called a “considerable undertaking”.

    He also highlighted the five former officeholders who retired from politics at the GE – Mr Hawazi Daipi, Mr Mah Bow Tan, Mr Raymond Lim, Mr Lui Tuck Yew and Mr Wong Kan Seng – for their valuable contributions in their portfolios.

    He singled out former Cabinet ministers Mr Mah, Mr Lim and Mr Wong, for staying on another term as backbenchers and “taking good care of their ground while nurturing able successors”.

    Culture, Community and Youth Minister Grace Fu, who is Leader of the House, also paid tribute to the retired MPs, especially former Deputy Prime Minister Mr Wong Kan Seng and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Mr Hawazi Daipi, for coaching the new candidates selflessly and generously.

    She also thanked the spouses of the newly retired MPs by quoting recently-retired MP Hri Kumar Nair who had said: “When an MP is elected, his entire family serves.”

    “When an MP is out serving the residents, a father or mother, a husband or wife, a son or daughter is out there serving. The spouse, parents or older children have had to step in to look after the home front,” she added.

     

    Source: http://news.asiaone.com