If Mdm Halimah runs for the Malay President, SDP will be ready to give the people of Marsiling and Yew Tee another chance to consider us to be in Parliament to voice the people’s concern now having seen the outcome of their vote 2 years on.
The PAP must play it fair, the minority representation by an MP must be replaced in a GRC by-election.
Lets do it people!!!
Source: Damanhuri Abas
As a resident and voter of Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC and residing under the Marsiling Constituency helm by Mdm Halimah Yacob, I hope that she can be forthcoming and inform her residents of her intention on the upcoming Presidential Election.
If she intents to run for the Presidency, a By-Election should be called considering that a GRC should consist of a minority MP. Currently, all her other colleagues in the GRC are all Chinese.
Aside from that, it is only right that residents and voters of Marsiling Constituency should have their own MP and representative in Parliament, an MP they can called their own, and not MPs loan from other wards.
The next General Election will only be held 3 years down the road and it is not right for Marsiling Constituency to be left without their own MP.
Furthermore, the Government had already stated that the GRC scheme was implemented to enshrined minority representation in Parliament and at least one of the MPs in the GRC must be from the minority race.
As can be seen from the current Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, Mdm Halimah is the only minority MP in the GRC while the other 3 are of the Chinese race. If she intents to run for the Presidency, the GRC will be left without a minority MP.
So, Chan Chun Sing is totally wrong when he says that there’s not a need for any By-Election in regards of his “Mdm President” if she were to leave the GRC.
I hope Mdm Speaker will not leave her residents hanging and a By-Election should be called if she really leaves the GRC to contest the Presidential Election.
Source: Abdul Salim Harun
1.PAP says Singapore is a sworn Meritocracy. We are not like Malaysia with its affirmative action policy of helping the indigenous people of the land. Malays in Singapore are not like that! Malays in Singapore do not need handouts or any help. They can self-help!
2. Lee Kuan Yew determines that the national reserves of Singapore must be secured with two keys: The Parliament and an Elected President (not a lame duck President like Sheares) even when GIC for which he heads which handles the biggest Sovereign fund of Singapore is absolutely controlled by him and is not required to publish any accounts. What is the dollar worth of our wealth? Only he and God knows. So such a move is really to shore up his absolute control over the Nation’s reserves. He thinks that an elected President from his own ranks will co-operate with that.
3. Enter the Elected President who does not play ball, Mr. Ong Teng Cheong. First thing he did was to ask for a full audit of the National Wealth – He wants to know what is in the safe for which he is holding one key. The stone-walling and delay was legendary. Lee Kuan Yew does not want Ong Teng Cheong to know what is in that vault.
4. The next elected President played ball to a tee and reap a million dollar salary without any incidents in a period when GIC made all sorts of investment blunders including investing in CitiBank which later got into trouble. But Nathan cannot live forever…
5. And then there are others who dare to challenge and try out for the Presidential elections. One or two of these are mavericks that PAP cannot control. For as a Chinese elitist political party, no one can threaten the Chinese PAP but other Chinese. The Malay “leadership” have been unashamedly castrated and are little more than house-niggers to the Chinese PAP masters.
6. So something needs to be done. Enter Lee Hsien Loong the proverbial son to hatch a “brilliant” plan. Confine the Presidential elections only to Malays. If you are Chinese or Indian or anything else you are automatically disqualified. Never mind Meritocracy. Never mind Non-Communal politics. Never mind the fact that this is what Malaysia’s affirmative action looks like. But not any Mat, Dollah or Minah can qualify! Set a criteria that only well to do Malays within or those close to the establishment can ever qualify and PAP will be secured. No such Malay will pull an Ong Teng Cheong move!
7. Enter the foolish Malay who finds pride in all of these scheming political shenanigans. We are going to have a Malay president! How GREAT this is! What an achievement of the Malays of Xing Chia Poh!
***
Thinking Malay-Muslims should reflect properly and consider whether they should be proud of this or really be shameful of a Malay who is for all intents and purpose appointed by the PAP to be made a tool of. Maybe for the one who has sold his or her soul that million dollar salary is all worth it.
La hawla wa la quwatta illa biLlahil Aliy ul-Adzim!
Source: Abd’ Al-Halim
We all want a President who can be a unifying symbol for all Singaporeans. But we disagree about the best means to achieve that end.
In Parliament on 6 Feb 2017, DPM Teo suggested that in November 2016, I had supported measures to depoliticise Presidential Elections (PEs). In fact all the Workers’ Party MPs and NCMPs, including myself, had argued in Parliament for not having an elected President at all and reverting to appointed Presidents.
DPM Teo alluded to my comments about a PAP MP who suggested political safeguards in PE campaigns. In fact, I said that it was to her credit that she attempted to address the politicisation risk issue, not that I agree with her proposed solution. I had argued earlier that day that Presidential elections inevitably become politicised.
DPM Teo went on to say that because I am “not shy” to speak in debate and since I had not challenged his characterisation of what I said, that means I agree with it. It does not. Nowhere did I say that I supported an elected President with politicisation safeguards. I did not raise my hand a second time to challenge his characterisation of what I said because my colleagues and I had already made our views emphatically clear during the three days of debate – we support an appointed Presidency, not an elected one, safeguards or no.
I reiterated my views in Parliament on 6 Feb 2017. For those who are interested, please scroll down below to read the excerpts, watch the clips and judge for yourself.
—————————————————————————————-
What I had said in Parliament on 9 November 2016 referring to a PAP MP’s speech was:-
“My second question pertains to a question we have repeated a few times – what are the strategies that the Government has to mitigate the risks of politicising the unifying office of the Presidency? No doubt, that politicisation may not have fully materialised for the past EPs that we have, but there is good reason to believe in future Presidential elections, if let us say there are 10 candidates, and let us say the winner gets 5% of the votes or let us say the campaign ends up becoming bitterly partisan, the Office of the President could be politicised. I have not heard any strategy from any Member of the PAP on how this can be managed. I think Ms Rahayu Mahzam came closest to that. To her credit, she talked about tightening up the rules for partisanship during the Presidential election campaign. So, what would be the Government’s strategy to mitigate that? That is my second question.”
This was DPM Teo’s reply to me at the time:
“Turning to the risk of politicisation and the possible tightening of rules for the Presidential Elections. The risk of politicisation is there. I have addressed it explicitly just now in my answer. But I think what Mr Leon Perera suggests, and what the Commission suggests also, is to look at rules and the way that the Presidential Elections are conducted. I think there is merit and I agree with Mr Leon Perera there.”
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/topic.jsp…
In my earlier speech on the Bill delivered that very same day, I argued for reverting to appointed Presidents. Here is an extract from that speech:-
“Mdm Speaker, the Presidency, and I concur with Members who have talked about the importance of the Presidency, is the one precious unifying symbol of our national unity, above party politics. As a National Serviceman, I pledged my allegiance, as did many Members here, to the President and the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, proudly. When we elect this office, inevitably, it becomes a proxy General Election…The Constitutional Commission, the Menon Commission recognised this. They had the courage to do so, and suggested that we cast our eyes back to the time when Presidents were not elected.”
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/topic.jsp…
Here is the video clip of that speech. It makes clear that I am not calling for rule changes to Presidential Elections but for a reversion to appointed Presidents.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/…/leon-perera-s…/3275492.html
On 8 November 2016, in responding to PAP MP and MOS Dr Janil Puthucheary, I said:
“Firstly, and most importantly, we have argued that subjecting the office of the Presidency to an election runs the risk that that election will inevitably become a proxy General Election, will become politicised. As a result of that process, the Elected President that emerges from there with a mandate that is less than 50% will be seen in a political light and will, therefore, have his or her ability to unify the entire country severely curtailed…Can the President be a unifying figure, after being subject to an election that is vulnerable to the tinge of partisanship? …Our proposal actually saves the Presidency from the risk of this kind of politicisation.”
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/topic.jsp…
Here is the video clip of my exchange with DPM Teo in Parliament on 6 Feb 2017:
Source: Leon Perera
So much nonsense is being spouted about the Presidency that you have to wonder if Singaporeans have lost all of their critical faculties or are they just too busy virtue signalling.
There was widespread righteous indignation in our so-called “alternative” media over a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing’s alleged Freudian slip when he addressed Halimah Yaacob as “Madam President” rather than “Madam Speaker” in Parliament on Monday. I see that. Yes. It was a slip that gave away an early indication that our next President is going to be Madam Yaacob. Shock horror! But frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn and here’s why.
How many of these indignant scribblers are even minority race, obliged by law to carry an National Identity card identifying them as minority race? Whatever race you are, why bother getting worked up over the PAP’s moves to ensure that they have even more control over who gets elected President?
All checks and balances on executive power in Singapore disappeared a long time ago. How did they disappear? Historically through the usual power plays, deceit and conniving by Colonial rulers and vested outside interests. More recently because we the people, who still have the vote, did not resist. In fact most people welcomed the chance to give up their individual power to a draconian nanny state.
Get over yourselves. The PAP have unfettered power. Every branch of government and every institution has been brought firmly under the PAP’s control. There are no checks on that power and control. ( actually in recent years there was one. A man called M Ravi and he stopped the PM’s power over when to call a by-election- but he’s been fixed now)
Despite all the manufactured outrage by alternative media and keyboard warriors over the changes to the Elected Presidency, the EP was never an institution that was intended to keep Lee Kuan Yew and his son and later generations of the Lee family from power. The Elected Presidency was introduced solely to put a potential pebble in the machinery of government if an Opposition party was ever to take power in Singapore and produce a constitutional crisis to allow the PAP to take back power.
To understand what the Elected Presidency was about, everyone should watch this video of JBJ and Chiam See Tong debating with Lee Hsien Loong:
if you watch it and educate yourself as to how the role changed you will understand my view point. I simply cannot get excited over some of our brave so-called “civil society activists” slamming the recent changes to the Elected Presidency. These people are not prepared to agitate about any issues of real importance, merely where they feel the PAP have permitted them a safe space for a controlled and calibrated amount of dissent.
If Singaporeans want to see real democracy in action they can look no further than the huge protests have erupted all over the US against Trump and his executive orders. A judge, appointed by a Republican President, is prepared to stand up and place a temporary hold on Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration.
What does it matter who our President is? It is always going to be a PAP choice. Even before the new rules it was always pre -selection according to a PAP agenda and never was a free and open election.
I also cannot be bothered with the fools who get worked up about a not-so-much PAP candidate- i.e. retired long term PAP MP or civil servant. If one of these candidates were to be elected then again it would not matter. Why? The EP has no power because the EP must follow the advice of the Council of Presidential Advisors, which has recently been expanded and given more power. Should the EP ever go against that PAP group ‘s advice then he or she can be overruled by a 2/3 majority vote in parliament. The PAP always has, always had and probably always will have that 2/3 majority required to veto any President.
And why should I get excited over the EP when last election not one of the four campaigned on the actual unconstitutionality of the role? How it is a breach of parliamentary sovereignty. Did even one candidate ever say , “I’m just a ceremonial figurehead so long as the PAP have that 2/3 majority.”
How did all these virtuous bloggers and scribblers and activists follow up the wins of GE 2011?- by making sure the unified message to get 1/3 of opposition seats in Parliament was sabotaged. The result is a PAP majority and veto.
Get over it. You chose to put your lives and every aspect of life in Singapore into the hands of one political party. Ownself fury about ownself choice. Uniquely Singaporean!
Source: https://kenjeyaretnam.com