You must be a very big and stupid moron. Why do you want Singapore citizenship? This is a very small island with no natural resources and limited space. Maybe you have been influenced by the good publicity the government has projected. Do you enjoy living like sardines in a tin can?
The cost of living is very high. A simple Japanese car costs S$130,000, the most expensive in the world and you only own it for ten years. It is very stressful living on this tiny island. Why let your children and grandchildren suffer and curse you in future?
Be realistic, ask yourself how long can Singapore sustain its economic achievement? We are at the mercy of big nations like China, USA and Europe. Anytime, we may sink.
If China decides to build the Kra Canal in Thailand or a highway across the Kra region, we are finished. Even if they open the sea route in the Northern Hemisphere around the North Pole, we are finished.
If the US and other European countries decide to move their MNCs back home or to other cheaper countries which are catching up fast, we are also finished.
We cannot compete with India or China or even Indonesia or Philippines in terms of labour for manufacturing. Technologically, we are just poor copycats with no real inventions of our own. The only thing we can boast of right now is building oil rigs but once the Chinese or South Koreans decide to undercut us, we are finished.
And to add to that we have no freedom to express ourselves. We cannot protest in public. Some Singaporeans have been jailed for 32 years without any trial at all for disagreeing with the government, longer than Nelson Mandela in prison.
Actually most of us locals realise our weaknesses and hope to have a chance to migrate to larger countries where the cost of living is lower overall and there is plenty of living space.
I think you have been conned by the PAP Ministers who draw salaries which are higher than President Obama’s and who can easily relocate to larger countries like the US, Britain or Australia when the time comes.
You have indeed made the biggest mistake in your life by becoming a Singapore citizen.
Editor’s note: Mothership.sg called for young Singaporeans to step up and provide their voice in written form for GE2015. The aim of such an endeavour is to provide our readers a means to view GE2015 through the lens of young Singaporeans, warts, sparkles and all.
The election results have been shocking, to say the least, in the Workers’ Party (WP) not gaining more seats and even losing an incumbent MP in Lee Li Lian of Punggol East SMC. And it happened in what many claimed to to be a watershed election, a turning point and change of the status quo after 2011.
Here are some possible reasons why the WP didn’t do as well as expected.
1. Their performance in Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and how it was harped upon by everyone and their mothers.
Photo by Pandora Wong for Mothership.sg
The WP probably felt besieged as People’s Action Party (PAP) politicians went on the offensive with the WP’s management of AHPETC. Sylvia Lim, chairwoman of WP and sitter of a self-proclaimed “hot seat”, hit the nail on the head when she said:
“Voters everywhere by now should be convinced that any Opposition town council will be well-scrutinised to ensure proper management.”
Low Thia Khiang, secretary-general of WP, was forced to (in a very showy manner), show that Punggol East SMC’s accounts were in a deficit before it was passed over to the WP after the 2013 by-election.
This was then rebutted by PAP candidate for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC Zainal Sapari, when he said Punggol East SMC was in “good financial health when the whole set of accounts handed over to AHPETC is read together”. According to him, although there was a deficit in the accumulated routine fund of $282,009, the same set of accounts also showed an amount of $303,372 claimable as reimbursement from the CIPC fund, which PRPGTC had already secured for Punggol East SMC, which would result in a actual net surplus of $21,363.
Even the most benign or indifferent voters would have second thoughts on WP’s ability to manage town councils with that major back and forth on AHPETC between the WP and PAP, as well as AHPETC’s ongoing case against the Ministry of National Development (MND). The MND had brought an application to court to appoint independent accountants to AHPETC. Although their application was rejected by the High Court, MND has appealed before the Court of Appeal and the judgement has been reserved (ie. the result is yet unknown).
2. The (largely) false perception of WP’s lacklustre performance in Parliament debates.
The late Lee Kuan Yew said of Chen Show Mao in his book:
“Chen, however, has not turned out to be so brilliant. In Parliament, he makes good prepared speeches, with a written script, but in the follow-up, he is all over the place. It simply does not gel for him. The weight of public expectation of the man, given his rather impressive résumé, has probably added to the disappointment.”
Criticism of that level, from Singapore’s founding Prime Minister (PM) would eat at any self-respecting man’s self-esteem.
Nonetheless, even Chen Show Mao has spoken at 45 out 108 parliament sittings attended, with a 93.9% attendance rate. This is in comparison with the perennial absentee PAP MP Raymond Lim, who stepped down from being Transport Minister in 2011 and retired from politics in 2015. He spoke up for 0 out of 82 parliament sittings attended, with a 71.3% attendance rate.
Of course, in addition to attending Parliament sitting and speaking up, the WP MPs are not toothless in Parliament debates either, as seen from Low Thia Khiang’s fiery exchanges with PM Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament. Those who look forward to more opposition in Parliament would probably savour the tense dialogue between the 2 party leaders on May 28, 2014.
PM Lee: Madam Speaker, I am very grateful for the extremely reasonable explanation from the member. I hope he takes an equally reasonable approach when he comes to election rallies because the Workers’ Party approach has been to be extremely reasonable, indeed low-profile in Parliament, but come election time to turn into tigers and heroes.
Low: Madam Speaker, I thank the Prime Minister for praising the Workers’ Party’s ability to fight in the elections. We have no intention to hide ourselves in Parliament. We seek the mandate for people to come to Parliament to check against the Government and we have done it honestly and sincerely, we have not turned this place into a theatre — that shows we are responsible and we will behave continuously as a rational and responsible party and members should.
I believe members will agree that the Workers’ Party has been rational. We have not come here with some wild policies or wild suggestions. We debate the policies, we came out with some suggestions but these are not bankrupting the government coffers or suggesting to use the reserves.
Elections — I think we are also rational, we don’t accuse the PAP of something that we cannot substantiate or I know we will get sued. So I think we are fair. And elections (are) elections and I thank the Prime Minister for noting that we can fight elections. I am sure the PAP can too. You are the Government and you have been the governing party for 50 years and you have got more, much people, talented people than the Workers’ Party! How can you say that we are tigers and we are something else in Parliament? I am sure the PAP can equally be tigers or lions.
Those few rare instances of excitement in Singapore’s Parliament are a tempting glimpse into what may occur with more seats to the Opposition in Parliament.
In 2011, Low Thia Khiang created a buzz when he left his stronghold of Hougang to attack Aljunied GRC with an ‘A’ team along with chairwoman Sylvia Lim and then star catch Chen Show Mao. This gamble paid off as they won Aljunied with 54.72% of the vote.
In this election, despite Sylvia Lim teasing that she may run in Fengshan SMC with her orh luak photo, all the incumbent MPs stayed to compete in their seats. Even though star candidates such as National University of Singapore (NUS) sociology associate professor Daniel Goh and business consultancy CEO Leon Perera ran in East Coast GRC, perhaps voters were unconvinced by how party bigwigs like Low and Sylvia Lim did not venture out to unchartered territories.
There was perhaps a slight commotion around the poison pen letter attack on Daniel Goh, but other than that, the remaining WP candidates did not face a baptism of fire.
Instead, the focus went back to AHPETC, along with many analogies on ships- gambling ships, cruise ships, the Titanic, sampans.
4. Perceived arrogance as the leading opposition party in Singapore.
Here’s The Workers’ Party chairperson Sylvia Lim addressing the media on their absence from the opposition horse-trading meeting on Thursday night. #GE2015
The WP might have been perceived as arrogant when they skipped the second round of horse-trading talks between the opposition parties, intended to avoid 3-cornered fights.
Low Thia Khiang then poured metaphorical salt into the wounds of the other opposition parties by saying that the multi-cornered fights in Punggol East SMC in both the 2011 GE and a by-election in 2013 were a “waste of resources”. He added: “I suppose we can better use … resources to focus on giving a choice to the people.”
Screenshot from video
ESM Goh also weighed in on WP’s supposed arrogance when he said: “They (Workers’ Party) are stronger than the NSP (National Solidarity Party), there’s no doubt about that. There’s a certain arrogance in them… Will that same arrogance be able to replace me in Marine Parade? Let them try.”
This perception of arrogance may have swayed voters from voting for WP as they fear that if WP has more MPs in Parliament, they would become more confrontational towards the PAP, disrupting the smooth running of the nation.
5. Voters can’t relate as well to the new candidates.
The die-hard supporters of WP seem to mostly be heartland uncles and aunties. For them, they can relate better to the Teochew and Hokkien-speaking Low and Png Eng Huat, rather than the “Oxbridge-educated” candidates like He Ting Ru and Leon Perera. One could say that the WP’s fielding of candidates with PAP-like credentials was to boost its reputation as a “credible, responsible opposition”.
Photo by Mindy Tan
However, that may have come at the price of not attracting certain segments of the population, particularly voters who perceive these credentials as a mark of elitism, similar to the PAP. WP candidates like academics (Associate Professor Daniel Goh) and lawyers (Dennis Tan, Terence Tan, He Ting Ru) cannot really be differentiated from the usual PAP crop of lawyers and doctors as of now.
Photo by Sean Yeo for Mothership.sg
To their credit though, the WP has tried to assuage concerns that their new candidates may be elitist. Dennis Tan, candidate for Fengshan SMC and former Raffles Institution boy, in his rally speech, emphasised that WP MPs, along with the rank and file of the party, worked to stack chairs after community events. He said: “Being a product of a good school does not mean that one has to be an elitist. It all boils down to a person’s attitude towards other people.”
In a way, with the lack of differentiation between the similarly-credentialed WP and PAP candidates, some voters may just decide to go for “the real deal” in the PAP, who have the added advantage of mentors with experience in running town councils and the vast grassroots machinery of the PAP as support. Therefore, these swing voters may just choose to stick with the status quo in the PAP, rather than to take a risk with untested opposition MPs.
Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (or PMETs) may also have not been fully convinced by the new candidates fielded by WP. After all, they come in untested, without mentoring in running town councils or with the vast grassroots machinery of the PAP as support. Voters might think that credentials, after all, do not necessarily translate to competence.
The People’s Action Party’s (PAP) political narrative for Singapore has always insisted on our exceptionalism. For the longest time, I had suspected that this was just an excuse to impose an unnatural dominance on the populace. I had assumed and hoped that, given time, given information and given choice, Singapore would one day become a democratic society like any other – with more than one strong political party, all realistically vying for power, ensuring diversity and providing checks on each other.
But I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong.
In the Sept 11, 2015 General Election, voters gave the PAP 69.9 per cent of valid votes, an increase of 9.8 percentage points from 2011. They handed 83 of 89 seats to the PAP. This wasn’t just a national swing to the PAP. This wasn’t just a vote in favour of the ruling party’s policies over those offered by other parties. This wasn’t even about picking the group at municipal level that best proves itself at the hustings or on the ground thereafter.
Such analyses try to shoehorn the facts into the framework of a typical democracy. They miss the point entirely.
This was a vote confirming the type of system that Singaporeans want to live under.
Of course, the number of Parliamentary seats has not changed significantly from 2011 (when there were also six opposition seats). But, by giving the ruling party nearly 70 per cent of the popular vote, Singaporeans are essentially saying that they do not want to move towards a system where any other party has a realistic chance of taking over any time in the foreseeable future.
In fact, contrary to views at the time, 2011 was not a watershed or inflection point marking the start of an upward climb for the opposition. Rather, 2001 may have been a bottom inflection point and 2011 marked the top of the curve. If I am right, barring seismic events, the PAP’s share of the popular vote is destined to oscillate (by five to six points) around the fulcrum of 66.6 per cent attained in 2006.
Singaporeans want a monolithic government. They are comfortable with power consolidating in the hands of very few, presumably in the interests of effectiveness and efficiency. They do not believe that leaders necessarily govern better if they must answer, day to day, matter to matter, to critics. They do not generally require diversity of views for its own sake.
Singaporeans have freely chosen to be governed by an entrenched elite aristocracy. Singapore may well be the only country in the world that, offered a truly free and informed choice, has so chosen.
An aristocracy need not be of noble birth; according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an aristocracy is “government by the best individuals or by a small privileged class”. By this definition, the PAP and its ruling class constitute a political aristocracy.
And regardless of what critics might say, Singaporeans this time round definitely had access to the information necessary to choose.
Social media and technology levelled any communication advantage that the PAP might have had in the past. Education and voter maturity have reduced fear as a motivating factor.
Opposition parties gave us credible alternatives and made cogent arguments why they, rather than the PAP’s picks, should be given our mandate.
Singapore voters rejected these choices without coercion.
Does that mean Singaporeans don’t want democracy at all?
I don’t think so. But I am ready to admit that maybe it means Singaporeans do want our own brand of democracy, one that is compatible with entrenched aristocracy.
The problem then is that the models of democracy out there (including the one we currently have) may not meet our needs.
All these models rely on a realistic chance of displacing incumbents to generate certain conditions crucial to a functioning democracy.
There are at least two such conditions.
First, having a body of “professional oppositionists” whose “job” is to provide well-thought-through alternative views that challenge and thus help refine the status quo.
Second, the strong incentive for transparency and honesty that comes from knowing that internal workings will be thrown open to external scrutiny upon regime change. It would be dangerous for us to simply assume that these conditions will be generated by our Westminster parliamentary democracy, if we consistently signal that we do not intend to check our elected political aristocracy with a strong challenger in Parliament.
If voters consistently show they are willing to consolidate the political dominance of the PAP, where, apart from elected opposition, can we build pluralism? How else can we generate conditions of transparency?
I believe we must seriously explore how to generate these conditions in some other way. Either by strengthening existing institutions (such as civil society, the presidency, the media, the judiciary) or by creating new ones (such as an ombudsman or other mechanisms that don’t yet exist elsewhere).
Crucially, whatever means we choose, we must insist that these institutions be given legal and political teeth; they must be independent from the political aristocracy, be empowered to work openly, and have direct access to the public, such that we have the benefit of their guidance whenever we head to the polls. If we then choose, in our own unique way, to endorse our aristocracy, we do so on a free and informed basis.
We need to understand what GE2015 tells us. And then we need to be brave enough, Singaporeans, governed and governors together – to imagine a system, perhaps one quite different from any other in the world, that addresses what Singaporeans clearly want, but that also protects our democracy.
• The writer, Eleanor Wong, is a lawyer, playwright and an associate professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.
MS LEE Li Lian said something interesting yesterday about respecting the voters. Punggol East voters had rejected her, and it didn’t make sense for her to stay in Parliament as a Non-constituency MP (NCMP), she said. Some people applaud her for her principled decision, others wonder if this was just an excuse for her disenchantment with the election results.
She doesn’t want to be a voice in Parliament, never mind that she only lost by a whisker. If she takes up the seat, she would be the first rejected incumbent in Parliament, unless you count Mrs Lina Chiam as a proxy for her husband Mr Chiam See Tong in the last Parliament.
Actually, her position isn’t so different from how the Opposition viewed the NCMP scheme when it was first introduced in 1984. NCMPs can talk in the House but they don’t have the critical powers of voting over money Bills or constitutional amendments. The several loud objections to the scheme was considered a sop to the losers, and the resistance waned until it looked like a prize to be fought over within political parties. Remember how there was some talk that Mr Eric Tan wanted to be an NCMP but the Workers’ Party decided that the seat be given to Mr Gerald Giam? That seems to have resulted in some kind of rupture in the party.
In fact, the scheme appeared to have honed the political instincts of past NCMPs and given them a taste for the cut-and-thrust of debate. It is worth noting that the three NCMPs of the last Parliament have been extremely active in engaging the front bench. They took their jobs seriously, although it might be said that without a constituency to attend to, they have more time to bone up.
Never mind Ms Lee’s motive for rejecting the seat, the key phrase she used is: “respecting the voters”.
In this case, she behaved far better than Reform Party’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam who acted like a petulant child when he realised which way the wind was blowing on Polling Night.
“All this is, is a mandate for authoritarianism and brainwashing. It shows what you do when you control everybody’s housing, you control their savings, you control their jobs because you’re the major employer, you control all the media and there’s no independent elections department.
“So all I see is similar margins in North Korea and China, it’s just like the Chinese Communist Party and I guess Singaporeans get the government they deserve so I don’t want to hear any more complaints.”
That was highly disrespectful of the voter. Whether a person likes or dislikes the results, the fact that cannot change is that close to 70 per cent of voters voted for the PAP. This was not a split electorate. That’s the way the cookie crumbles in a democracy with a first-past-the-post electoral system. Live with it.
Most opposition politicians were, in fact, stinting in their remarks about bowing to the will of the people, preferring to attribute that collective will to the worry of a freak election result, the Electoral Boundary changes, the AHPETC and the propensity of the population for bribes. No one said that perhaps, their policies and programmes didn’t resonate with the people, that they had read them wrong, that they would have to recalibrate their positions to win them over. If they did, they didn’t say so in the fulsome way the PAP did after GE2011 – an expression of abject humility.
The WP’s Daniel Goh, however, was one person who took the humble route: “The people has spoken and the collective wisdom is always right. Analysts will fall over one another in the coming weeks to discern the hearts of voters. For me, the meaning of the results is clear. It is a ringing endorsement of the PAP’s programme of going back to its centre-left roots and PM Lee’s leadership”.
“It is also a nod to WP’s brand of rational and responsible politics, since the seats won in GE2011 were returned. But with caveats: work harder, and buck up, in both town management and Parliament; less egoism and opportunism, more depth, humility and courage, more listening and walking.” (PS. He got the bit about seats returned technically right; the one lost SMC was from a by-election).
Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was very polite when he said that “it was important that the opposition reflect on what happened – not just in terms of whether the electorate didn’t know better or the electorate made a mistake – but how they could have done better in their strategies”.
You wouldn’t expect the PAP to advise the Opposition on how they could have better strategised, but one sure thing is this: Don’t always believe social media. This GE2015, social media distorted the extent of Opposition support. TNP quoted an academic based in Australia who said: “Imagine if you read the Facebook comments whacking PAP. Many PAP supporters would think it better to keep their mouths shut before they are (verbally) abused.”
In other words, the silent majority kept silent.
Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) Chee Soon Juan was quick to think of the future. He suggested a closer working relationship with the WP in preparation for the next GE. This will probably depend on, among other things, whether the WP will forget his earlier proposal that they collaborate in contesting the Punggol East by-election two years ago by having the SDP in Parliament and the WP run the town council should their candidate win.
Let bygones be bygones?
This seems to be the rallying cry of the PAP leaders post GE2015. DPM Tharman noted that shorn of the rhetoric, the Opposition proposals aren’t too different from what the PAP is doing. (Maybe this is a backhanded compliment: that the Opposition can’t come up with anything too different). The PAP seems keen to embrace the diversity of viewpoints and the need for alternative voices, which it probably realises it shouldn’t dismiss despite its huge mandate. You can view this cynically: it wants to co-opt opposition voices into its fold. Or you can keep an open mind and see whether it holds to its promise to engage the people more fully and, more importantly, early.
You have the younger leaders such as Mr Heng Swee Keat and Mr Tan Chuan-Jin calling on all sides, including Opposition supporters, to find common ground.
Given the way the (not metaphorical) wind is blowing, there’s plenty. There’s the haze above ground, for starters. We can at least close ranks against that!
It reminds me of the day he turned 90. That morning, I spoke at a conference on Mr Lee’s defining policies. I shared about the quality that left the deepest impression on me when I worked for him – his unwavering dedication to Singapore. He had been in his 70s at the time, and he had been tireless. His every breath, his every waking moment, went towards the survival and success of Singapore.
After the conference, I planned to go to Parliament, where we hoped Mr Lee would join us. But while I was still at the conference, I heard that Mr Lee was not feeling well, and his doctors advised him against coming out. The MPs had ordered a birthday cake in the shape of the numbers “90”, but prepared to send it to Mr Lee’s home instead.
Then in the afternoon, we got news from Dr Lee Wei Ling, Mr Lee’s daughter, that her father insisted on coming to Parliament that day.
When Mr Lee was wheeled into Parliament that day, it was like history come alive. Here was a man who had been an MP for 58 years. We gave Mr Lee a 30-second standing ovation.
Later, in the members’ room, we brought out the cake for Mr Lee and sang him a birthday song. I was very happy to present Mr Lee with a series of Chinese books, “Singapore Chose Lee Kuan Yew”, that we launched earlier that day.
We asked Mr Lee what his birthday wish was, and what he said touched me deeply. He told us that his 90th birthday wish was for the Singapore Government to stay clean and honest, for all of us to uphold the highest moral standards.
No matter how old he was, no matter the occasion, Mr Lee never stopped thinking about Singapore. Even when he was asked to make an impromptu birthday speech, he had only one instinct, only one wish – that we keep politics clean. It is a wish that we keep Singapore an exceptional place where Singaporeans can thrive.
I hope Mr Lee will rest in peace knowing that we will take good care of Singapore and fellow Singaporeans in his absence. Happy birthday, Mr Lee.
