Tag: parliament

Calvin Cheng: The Best Government Is The One That Works

The People’s Action Party (PAP) has often said that it believes multi-party democracy would be bad for Singapore.

This is an untenable position.

In the past 150 years, several societies, primarily in the West, have flourished and developed under systems of multi-party democracy. To argue categorically that Singaporeans should not vote in an alternative party because it will hurt us, is an argument that would hold no water with many.

ST ILLUSTRATION: MIEL

Conversely, the opposition has argued that single-party dominance would be bad for the future of Singapore, and diverse voices are needed to bring us forward. This argument, being the mirror image of the PAP’s, is just as faulty. First, Singapore made the greatest leaps in development and quality of life during PAP’s complete political dominance under Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Second, in the global arena, one-party China beats multi-party democracy India on mostINDICATORS of human and economic development.

The fact of the matter is that the truth lies somewhere in between. There are multi-party democracies that work, and there are those that are paralysed by competitive politics. There are single-partyGOVERNMENTS that are ridden by corruption and who cause misery to their people, and there are competent ones that are able to implement visionary long-term policies without being blocked at every juncture.

The bestFORM of government is, at the end of the day, the one that works.

As Singaporeans go to the polls on Friday, dogma and ideology should not hinder us from making the right decision.

The overarching issue in the campaigning hitherto – which encompasses all others such as immigration, cost of living, healthcare, education and so forth – is whether the electorate should vote in more opposition into Parliament as alternative voices, and as a check on the PAP.

And, bearing in mind the preceding arguments, the answer is clear: we should do so, only if the Opposition is good. Having Opposition for the sake of opposing voices would be exactly the kind of dogma we seek to avoid.

But what, then, makes a good Opposition?

ESTATE MANAGERS OR LEGISLATORS?

Crucial to this question is what a Member of Parliament (MP) is meant to do, another debate that has been ongoing. And again the debate has been framed in a simplisticBINARY fashion thus far: should MPs be town council managers or parliamentary legislators?

The answer is obviously both.

First, an MP needs to show that he has the ability and integrity to manage a town council well. A town council is set up as a microcosm of the issues that a country at large faces. At the heart of it is the allocation of financial and other resources to maintain housing estates, upgrade them, disburse grants to needier constituents and manage other day-to-day operations of the constituency.

It is boring and mundane, but absolutely vital to keep a town running. Likewise, it is also these nitty-gritties that keep a country running, not grand speeches and rhetoric.

And that is why the town council issue, as confusing and grating as it may be for laymen, is so important.

If you can’t run a town, how can you run a country?

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Second, as many have rightly pointed out, MPs must also perform in Parliament. However, the debate on this has also been simplistic.

Several websites have compiled lists of the number of times MPs have spoken and have asked voters to make a judgment based on that. The Workers’ Party has also pointed to its parliamentary record of asking the most questions over the highest number of sittings.

This is valuing quantity over quality.

It is not the number of parliamentary questions one files but the impact one makes on the legislative agenda that counts. It is what one says that is important, not the number of times one speaks up.

A case in point is former Nominated Member of Parliament Walter Woon, who, by getting the Maintenance of Parents ActPASSED, arguably made even more impact in the history of Parliament than most PAP backbenchers.

If the Workers’ Party retains or increases its presence in Parliament, I hope its MPs will file full motions to debate matters of national importance they have championed during campaigning, such as minimum wage and the nationalisation of public transport, instead of filing hundreds of parliamentary questions that nobody remembers. Or, worse, engaging in fiery speeches that, in the end, results only in minor policy tweaks to the ruling party’s, is not only counterproductive but makes a mockery of being an Opposition MP.

This Polling Day, Singapore is at a crossroad. Many of us are not against the establishment of a good, credible Opposition that can contribute to nation-building. What we do not want is a fixation on numbers, that we have to have more Opposition MPs regardless of who they are and what they stand for. Such dogma would only be detrimental to Singapore.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

September 8, 2015
PAP Vs SDP – The Incumbent’s Weakest Link

Ever since it kick-started its general election campaign in January this year, the Singapore Democratic Party has made it a point to pack its calendar with something every month. As a publicity campaign, it has surely drawn a lot of attention, but also the negative kind from the ruling People’s Action Party.

The name-calling and character assassination that secretary-general Chee Soon Juan suffered in his time as a politician has only intensified, as PAP politicians spared no time in launching fresh attacks against him. The media, too, was eager to report on these attacks.

The biggest losers, however, would be citizens, who hardly have any chance to hear the SDP on its entire slate of policy proposals – the most wide-ranging and comprehensive by far among any political party.

Did such efforts help to drown out the SDP? The reverse might be true. Crowd sizes and the vocal support at the rallies, not to mention the long queue of rally-goers for Chee to sign the books they purchased, suggests that SDP’s traction has increased, either due to Chee’s personal brand, or what the party has been rolling out and engaging residents with in walkabouts.

The question now is whether the SDP would be able to build upon its success at GE2011 – although not winning any seats, the party scored the highest in terms of vote percentage increase since the last election – or whether the refreshed attacks might blunt its voter appeal compared to other opposition parties, as the real risk for this GE could be political oblivion.

Does SDP have the credible slate of candidates it needs to face off against PAP? Will the beleaguered reputation of Chee cause more harm than good for the party? Will its many policy proposals finally fall on deaf ears if it cannot produce any Members of Parliament to have them discussed in the House?

New blood, new attitude

The launch event for SDP’s “Your Voice in Parliament” campaign went out with a bang in January 2015, and it has surely shook the PAP, particularly with the side announcement that it was keen to contest Tanjong Pagar GRC. Hence, it was hardly surprising that the first blood drawn for GE2015 was by Tanjong Pagar incumbent Chan Chun Sing, who went on national media tocall Chee a political failure.

But Chee’s initial reaction was surprisingly measured, if not downright humbling. “I want to tell my fellow Singaporeans, especially students, that we must not be afraid to fail. It is from our failures that we learn and become better persons and go on to achieve great things.” Such words speak of a man with great fortitude, and solidifies the SDP’s brand and goals.

Chee, it seems, have found the right public relations mix to rebuild his battered image as an opposition mad man, caused by his ideals (which were often perceived or painted to be extremist) and actions (hunger strikes and shouting at then PM Goh Chok Tong during walkabouts).

To add to that, Chee seems to have found a more credible and measured slate of candidates to run, including Paul Tambyah, Chong Wai Fung, John Tan, Bryan Lim, and Jaslyn Go. It would appear that SDP is eager to get on a more professional footing, contrary to the “rabble-rouser” image that it has been smeared with. In particular, Dr Paul Tambyah comes across as possibly the most distinguished among opposition candidates this GE. His demeanor – as someone who cares for the people, knows exactly what he says and will not pull punches to say it – pinpoints exactly what a constructive opposition should really be about.

Chee Soon Juan and Lawrence Wong (image – CNA)

The PAP, however, has been less than admirable in how it approached SDP. The incumbent has either written SDP off as irrelevant or treats Chee like a convenient punching bag, as the volleys of insults filled media space. Following Chan, Lawrence Wong exploited a live broadcast to attack Chee’s character by dredging us the latter’s fumble with figures in his Parliamentary select committee speech. Chee’s opponent in Holland Bukit Timah GRC, Vivian Balakrishnan, also attacked the SDP’s policies as “tax and spend” programmes that would turn Singapore into Greece. Balakrishnan’s GRC team mate Sim Ann also slammed Chee for his earlier dispute with Singapore People’s Party’s Chiam See Tong, and recently chastised Chee as someone who likes to “chut pattern”.

Chee, again, responded to Wong with class, reminding the PAP “not to indulge in the destructive politics of old” and instead re-focused the debate back to the SDP’s proposals and how it has raised issue with government policies. And thus far, he seems intent on ignoring Sim’s frivolity.

Similarly, Chee’s response to Balakrishnan was equally focused, if not a lot more hard-hitting, going back to policy issues. Chee has demonstrated an eagerness to focus on policy issues rather than take broad swipes, as what the PAP has done. What the PAP has not done in making GE2015 a clean fight, SDP has done by focusing on the issues that matter.

Sound policies, credible party?

Prof Paul Tambyah [Photo: Yee Kai, TOC]

In fact, it is the SDP’s focus on public policy that sets it apart from other opposition parties, and truly gives the PAP a run for its money. Its comprehensive slate of policy proposals covers issues ranging from its most widely publicised national healthcare plan to the more municipal town council plan, its counter to the Population White Paper to a vision for a progressive economyfor Singapore launched earlier this year.

The direction is sound. SDP is projecting itself as a credible alternative, giving voters a reason to vote for the party, not just against the incumbent, as Chee often says. These policies, previously nothing more than thorns in the side of the PAP, are starting to turn into festering wounds, as the incumbent appears to be struggling to find proper counters to the proposals other than “cautions” and “tax and spend” statements.

SDP’s policy papers, plotted out over the past few years, have highlighted precisely how inadequately the PAP has prepared for this campaign, as the PAP has thus far done little to demonstrate its policy direction for the future, beyond its current “trust us and we will sort it out later” mantra. The PAP comes across as a lumbering machine slow to respond to the concerns of citizens, while the SDP has expressed connection and determination to chart a way forward.

Chong Wai Fung and Jaslyn Go

To note, SDP’s proposals are not watertight, and Chee has also indicated so himself at his policy launches. He has maintained that he welcomes criticism and debate on SDP’s proposals, if only to make them better at answering the needs of Singaporeans. This open and consultative approach bodes well, and would likely serve as the SDP’s election promise to citizens.

A drop of red in a sea of white and blue?

The SDP has thus far projected itself as a credible alternative to Singapore politics, if not public policy. It has gamely taken up the challenge to put ideas to paper, with the hope that citizens would put faith in turning those ideas into reality. Chee, as party leader, has done a lot more to restore his public image, and if the response of the audience to his recent rally speechesis anything to go by, Singaporeans are starting to get the sense that he is not the crazed and deceitful bag of political cunning that he has been painted to be.

It was also apparent at rallies that Singaporeans are listening more to the SDP’s policy proposals, finding resonance with the ideas and looking beyond the far-left, human-rights-or-nothing-else mandates that they were made out to be (in reality, they never were – you can never divorce social and economic progress from a firm grounding in human rights).

Would it be enough to secure Chee and the SDP a place in Parliament? While the likes of Dr Paul Tambyah and Chong Wai Fung are immediately electable, we should also not discount Chee as a potent force whose support from the people has only grown in past years. Only time will tell if he will be seen in a different light from yesteryears, and secure the people’s trust.

Nevertheless, as we edge closer to polling day, the SDP is turning out to be the PAP’s weakest link. In the face of uncertain times and lacklustre policy direction, the SDP is shaping up to be the party that many want the PAP to be, but for some reason never found the courage to be. And courage would be Chee’s and the SDP’s greatest ally this week.

Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

September 8, 2015
Faisal Manap Berusaha Kekalkan Kerusi Bagi Penggal Kedua

MEREKA menyapa beliau dan menyambut mesra risalah yang dihulurkan, malah ada juga penduduk yang sempat berbisik, “jangan khuatir saya sokong anda”.

Gelagat dan reaksi positif sedemikian menguatkan lagi azam Encik Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap, 40 tahun, agar terus berkhidmat dan memastikan Parti Pekerja (WP) mencatatkan kemenangan di GRC Aljunied, sekali gus mempertahankan kubu mereka daripada dirampas semula oleh parti pemerintah.

“Kebanyakan penduduk di kawasan undi Kaki Bukit yang membentuk sebahagian daripada GRC Aljunied mendiami flat jenis dua, tiga dan empat bilik.

“Umumnya, mereka warga biasa, pekerja biasa dan kami memahami isu yang dihadapi mereka, baik dari segi tekanan akibat kos kehidupan dan kos perubatan yang semakin meningkat ataupun kebanjiran pekerja asing yang membataskan peluang pekerjaan untuk rakyat. Jadi kami akan terus menyuarakan keprihatinan mereka,” ujarnya yang berusaha mengekalkan kedudukannya bagi penggal kedua.

Kemenangan Encik Muhamad Faisal dalam pilihan raya umum 2011 turut mencatat sejarah tersendiri apabila beliau menjadi calon Melayu pertama daripada parti pembangkang yang memenangi kerusi parlimen.

Dalam usaha mengukuhkan barisan alternatif, parti pembangkang telah menampilkan seramai 16 calon Melayu/Islam dalam pilihan raya umum kali ini, berbanding 13 dalam pilihan raya umum lalu.

Dalam wawancara itu, Encik Muhamad Faisal turut menekankan pentingnya masyarakat Melayu memberi sokongan kepada barisan alternatif Melayu kerana ia dapat mengukuhkan lagi kesejahteraan masyarakat.

WP sendiri menampilkan tiga karyawan Melayu berkelulusan sarjana – Encik Mohamed Fairoz Shariff, 36 tahun, mantan pegawai Lembaga Perpustakaan Negara; Encik Redzwan Hafidz Abdul Razak, 30 tahun, jurutera; dan Encik Firuz Khan, 48 tahun, pengusaha coklat, ChocolateXcellence, yang berpangkalan di Wales, Britain.

“Kita perlu saling bantu-membantu dan lengkap-melengkapi. Dalam era sekarang, kita tidak boleh mempunyai hanya seseorang atau sesebuah pertubuhan sahaja yang boleh berdiri secara sendiri bagi mencapai satu kebaikan.

“Saya rasa, dasarnya ialah nilai untuk bekerjasama, agar saling lengkap-melengkapi, itu sangat diperlukan terutamanya dalam masa sekarang.

“Kalau kita tengok, maaf kata, selama 50 tahun ini, PAP telah menerajui masyarakat Melayu/Islam Singapura kita tetapi jika kita tengok pada ‘Suara Musyawarah’, di mana ia satu koleksi suara masyarakat Melayu/Islam, menunjukkan lebih banyak lagi yang perlu dilakukan masyarakat,” katanya.

“Sejak lima dekad lalu, PAP masih belum dapat (memenuhi) apa yang diinginkan masyarakat.

“Jadi saya rasa, sudah tiba masanya agar diadakan satu barisan alternatif bagi melengkapi apa yang telah kita ada sekarang,” ujar wakil rakyat itu sebagai mengakhiri perbualan.

Source: http://beritaharian.sg

September 8, 2015
5 Things About The Fifth Night Of Election Rallies

The People’s Action Party took a breather from night-time rallies on Sunday (Sept 6) as campaigning for the Sept 11 polls heads into its second week.

Four opposition parties held rallies – the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) at Stadium Drive, Reform Party (RP) at Delta Hockey Pitch, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) at Jurong East Stadium, and the Workers’ Party (WP) at Simei Road.

Here are our five highlights:

1. SO WHO WENT

Supporters at the WP rally on Sept 6, 2015. ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

Judging by the crowds that filled a whole field in Simei Road, the fierce battle that is expected between the WP and the PAP for the four-member East Coast GRC might well take place. Thousands chanted and cheered as each speaker spoke. In the 2011 GE, the PAP got 54.8 per cent to WP’s 45.2 per cent.

The other opposition rallies saw much more modest turnouts.

2. DR CHEE HITS OUT

One of the fieriest speeches of the night came from SDP secretary-general Chee Soon Juan. His target: his Holland-Bukit Timah GRC rival, PAP minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

Among other things, he took Dr Balakrishnan to task for overspending on the Youth Olympic Games budget by three times. But, he said: “When I disagree with Dr Balakrishnan, I disagree with him on what he says, but I don’t dislike him… I have great admiration for him.”

He and fellow candidate Paul Tambyah also spent time hitting out at comments Dr Balakrishnan had made about politicians’ salary.

At a forum last week, Dr Balakrishnan said that only two kinds of people can serve the people at zero cost – those who are wealthy, and those who are corrupt. He was responding to a participant who had questioned the MP allowance, which stands at $192,500 annually.

3. KEY ISSUES THAT CROPPED UP

SPP rally: Mr Bryan Long, SPP candidate for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC and the first speaker, set the theme by holding Mr Chiam See Tong up as the exemplar of a good opposition parliamentarian.

Mr Chiam See Tong at the SPP rally on Sunday, Sept 6, 2015. ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

He listed three ways in which the SPP team will follow Mr Chiam’s example – by being respectful of opponents, by being constructive and by not giving up even if they fail. And he exhorted voters to “keep Mr Chiam’s fire burning”.

Other speakers elaborated on this. SPP volunteer Choo Zheng Xi pointed to Mrs Lina Chiam’s active questioning in Parliament as an example of the need for opposition MPs to ask hard questions.

Mrs Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss, who is contesting Mountbatten, also paid tribute to Mr Chiam’s long years of service, adding that his efficiency in managing Potong Pasir proved that opposition parties can run town councils. She also lauded his “passion to serve” the people, taking on the post of MP long before MPs received generous allowances.

RP rally: There was no clear theme at the RP rally. Ang Mo Kio GRC candidate Jesse Loo kicked off the night by answering questions that he said Singaporeans have posed, and reassured that the opposition is unable to raid Singapore’s reserves and that they cannot “anyhow” pass policies.

RP candidates (from left) Darren Soh, Noraini Yunus, Andy Zhu, Gilbert Goh, Kumar Appavoo, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Osman Sulaiman, Roy Ngerng and Siva Chandran at the party’s rally on Sept 6, 2015. ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

Other candidates attacked hot-button issues like the cost of living and healthcare costs. Radin Mas SMC candidate Kumar Appavoo, in particular, covered everything from the care of the elderly and the price of HDB flats to birth rates and his strategies as a minority candidate. He ended by asking his “Chinese brothers” to vote for him.

Party secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam (West Coast GRC) and blogger Roy Ngerng (Ang Mo Kio GRC) used statistics to back up their arguments. The former sought to detail where the money for his party’s plans – including an old-age pension of $500 a month for those above 65 – would come from. Mr Ngerng tried to prove that the PAP returns Singaporeans only a portion of what they collect.

SDP rally: Besides Dr Chee and Dr Tambyah, the other speakers worked their way through a spectrum of topics. These included the high cost of living in Singapore and the lack of government support for minority groups such as single mothers. Also raised was the lack of opposition voices in Parliament. Dr Wong Souk Yee, who is contesting Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, said that with the presence of the PAP party whip and only seven opposition seats, “laws are passed without meaningful debate or challenge”.

SDP’s Wong Souk Yee on party whip, GST and population paper

WP rally: Foreigners were the big theme at the WP rally. Ten of its 13 speakers talked about the issue, and many attacked the 2013 Population White Paper. East Coast GRC candidate Daniel Goh said that the document’s footnote on nurses being “low-skilled” workers touched a nerve as his mother is a nurse. He said: “The Singapore economy is not a machine, and Singaporeans are not screws and nuts.”

WP’s Daniel Goh on population white paper

Nee Soon GRC candidate Gurmit Singh said that immigration had Singapore “creaking at the seams”, while East Coast GRC candidate Leon Perera said the decade before 2011, which saw a large influx of foreigners, was the “lost decade”. Mr Low Thia Khiang’s speech focused on WP’s proposals to cap the increase of foreign worker population and grow the Singapore core.

The speakers also linked the PAP’s immigration policy to the wide income gap, and brought up their proposed minimum wage policy a number of times.

4. MEMORABLE MOMENTS

* The SPP rally started about 20 minutes late but the sparse crowd did not mind since there were free snacks available. A booth with a popcorn machine and volunteers dishing out old-school biscuits attracted a hungry queue of about 20 people in under five minutes.

ST PHOTOS: SAMANTHA BOH

* The RP emcee had, at the last few rallies, made his presence felt with his fiery introductions. On Sunday, he drew a swift correction from speaker Siva Chandran when he introduced the Ang Mo Kio GRC candidate as “a former PAP man”, causing the latter to say “I hate PAP” and clarifying that he had just worked for the People’s Association. Earlier, the emcee told a story of leadership involving Alexandra the Great leading his army through the Afghan desert on the way to India. He also read out a list, given to him by a resident, of 20 items that Singaporeans had not “approved of”, including “sending old folks to JB”.

Reform Party Emcee at rally

* Radin Mas candidate Kumar Appavoo already faces a three-cornered fight, but things could get even harder if he keeps asking residents to vote for him on the “nine of…” September. He mentioned this date at the start and the end of his speech, quickly correcting himself both times. Polling Day is Sept 11.

* Activist Gilbert Goh, who is contesting in Ang Mo Kio on the RP’s ticket, called Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a “trader”, before carefully spelling out the word “T-R-A-D-E-R” to make sure no one thought he had said “traitor”. He gave five reasons for saying so, mainly involving how foreigners have come to Singapore to work and study.

* The WP’s can’t-miss neon-lit campaign trailer truck, dubbed the “Optimus Prime”, was spotted at the end of its rally. It was caught in the traffic jam after the rally, allowing rally-goers to snap photos and videos of it. When it moved, the crowd cheered.

Crowds cheer as truck with Workers Party banner leaves Rally

5. QUOTABLE QUOTES

“WE’RE NOT HERE TO PROVIDE ENTERTAINMENT, WE’RE NOT COMEDY CENTRAL.”

– RP’s Jesse Loo

“THE PAP MPS ARE MICE WHEN TALKING ABOUT THE PA (PEOPLE’S ASSOCIATION) LAPSES, BUT THEY CROW LIKE ROOSTERS AT THE LAPSES OF THE ALJUNIED TOWN COUNCIL.”

– SPP’s Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss

“OUR LIFE IS LIKE A BIRD IN A GOLDEN CAGE.”

– RP’s Siva Chandran on HDB flats in Singapore. He said they are nice to look at from the outside but the people suffer inside

“(RADIN MAS CANDIDATE) KUMAR APPAVOO HAS BEEN ACTIVE. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE HE’S ACTIVE.”

– RP’s Ang Mo Kio GRC candidate Osman Sulaiman

“THEIR SLOGAN IS ‘WITH YOU, FOR YOU, FOR SINGAPORE’. BUT IT’S ALL ABOUT THEM, NOT YOU.”

– WP’s Leon Perera

“DO NOT GIVE THEM (PAP) A BLANK CHEQUE OR THEY WILL SIGN IT FOR A VERY EXPENSIVE 6.9 MILLION.”

– WP’s Daniel Goh

“MAYBE IF THEY (PAP) SHAVE THEIR HEADS BOTAK, THEY CAN SCRATCH THEIR HEADS BETTER.”

– WP’s Gurmit Singh

Source: www.straitstimes.com

September 7, 2015
Disgruntled Singaporeans Hoping For Change Risk Voting In Destructive False Prophet

Hey guys,

So in light of the election coming up much sooner than anticipated, I have a sudden compelling need to assert my opinion to every one I know who is willing to listen, is interested in politics, or both. I don’t care if you are for PAP, or WP, or another opposition party.

I’m annoying you now because you’re on my Facebook list.

At this point in time, I don’t care who I’m talking to. You are probably my family member, one of my best friends, ex-primary classmate, ex-secondary classmate, someone I’ve met overseas, someone I had a one night stand with. Whatever. As long as you’re a Singaporean. Or if you are no longer a Singaporean but still have relatives who reside here.

So if you’re going “What the hell, so long never talk now suddenly write me such a long message?!”, I totally understand your annoyed curiosity. But this message is important because it is Singapore I am talking about – your country and mine – and I have a fierce innate need to protect it, and the people I care about who are currently living in this beautiful, thriving, yet vulnerable country which we call home. I just hope you read it all before deleting this message (or me from your friend’s list).

I can start by saying how much I’ve learnt from studying and working overseas as a Singaporean, how people are fascinated in my unique identity of being a Singaporean (because frankly you don’t meet many Singaporeans working in the US and Canada), and how much I’ve learnt to appreciate Singapore. But let’s cut the crap and get straight to the point:

We Singaporeans are a bunch of spoilt brats.

We are a bunch of complaint kings and queens. Just look at when the MRT breaks down. “Wah lao, half an hour already MRT still haven’t come, hot like shit leh”; “All those foreign workers lah! Country so small already still want to increase the population”; and my personal favorite: “LTA CEO Chew Hock Leong should be sacked!”

Seriously?? Well thanks to some unhappy ducklings, Mr. Chew decided to step down.

Now let me shift gears a little. I’m currently living in New York City, and have so experienced the pleasures of the subway, also known as the MTA. NYC is huge, so there are 22 different subway lines to accommodate people living all over the city. They have express trains to speed up the commute, and most trains run on a 24 hour schedule.

The subway systems are also ALWAYS delayed, has the most adorable brown rats scavenging for their latest snacks, and has a death toll of over 100 people a year who fall and die on the tracks, either by suicide or they get pushed down by some racist mad man. (See here: http://clashdaily.com/…/racism-black-guy-pushes-asian-guy-…/)

Compare the statistics to Singapore’s MRT. How many people have died since the establishment of the MRT in 1987? Just a handful.

My point is, that our present government is at least responsible. After the incident of the Thai girl who fell down the tracks in 2011, the government hurriedly put up barriers on all MRT stations ASAP.

The other thing too, is that the MRT is government-run, and most probably debt-free. The MTA on the other hand, located in USA’s most metropolitan city, is privately run, and is currently $10 billion dollars in debt.

You read right. A first-rate city in a first-world country: 10 billion frickin’ dollars in debt.

That’s why despite the constant fare increase every year and a half or so, the subway service is still in no better shape than it was two decades ago. Two-hour delays in the blistering cold or sweltering heat is not uncommon.

You get my point with the MTA vs. the MRT. But I want to head on to deeper, graver matters.

FOREIGN WORKERS

We have issues with inviting tons of foreign labour into our workforce.

All the “stupid Chee-Na people shouting across the train cars, shitting in public outside our MRT platforms and Um Poo Nehs leaving their disgusting mucus on the side screens in the MRT where people lean on.”

It is unpleasant, I don’t deny it. In fact, after someone told me about the mucus, I got paranoid for a while making sure there were no mucuses before leaning when I saw an unoccupied side screen.

We complain about the shortage of jobs in Singapore, and it’s because of the tsunami inflow of foreign workers in the last decade or two. Every time I come back to Singapore (which has been rather frequent of late), I hear and see a lot of Filipinos working as nurses in hospitals, both private and government. I am uncertain of what kinds of jobs we are really complaining about in terms of having the foreign workers taking over our jobs, but I am certain they are jobs that most of us (especially us Millennials) will not want anyway.

Case in point: I know of someone, a Singaporean obviously, who recently after being registered as a nurse upon graduation, worked for 1.5 years and then quit. The reason she gave me was because she felt that working in the hospital was not for her. The real reason (fed back to me from someone else) was that she felt that the job was too tiring.

Thank god for foreign workers, or our hospital patients will be left sleeping and watching TV in their own poop all day because someone decided to quit because she is too tired.

My cousin’s husband, also a Singaporean and a team leader in an engineering firm, says he prefers to hire foreigners than locals, because “all the locals I’ve hired except for maybe one are lazy and have always given me attitude. They put out the least and expect the most. All the foreigners I’ve hired just work and get the job done.”
We need foreign workers, skilled and unskilled, because our work attitude is shit. For those whose work attitude is top-notch (which I’m sure yours are, since I like to pride myself in having quality friends and family), we still need foreign workers.

We invite the unskilled labor so that WE don’t have to go under the hot, humid heat laying bricks and cement for the construction of roads and the development of new buildings in our country.

WE get to sit in an air-conditioned room shuffling papers and building the economy that way. WE have the choice to be entrepreneurs, which the government highly encourages but which most of us don’t take advantage of.

This is how our economy has grown – and it is because of foreign workers doing the jobs that need to be done but the locals won’t touch.

We will have social issues inviting foreigners here. That is inevitable. It is also usually fixable with time.

We will have devastating economical issues if the country is unadaptable to change and ceases to grow. That… may not be so easily fixable in time.

Instead, the government has spun all the new developments into something that even other first-world countries lack. Public washrooms that look so luxurious you could spend all day putting your makeup on in there and not feel disgusted that you just tried to pretty yourself up ten feet away from someone peeing. A first-rate subway system that is 99% on time (fuck the complainers – you have not travelled. If you have, shame on you). High tech systems in our public libraries (in USA and Canada, the majority of books are still checked out by crummy old-lady librarians).

And I credit these advancements to the blood, sweat and tears of our unskilled foreign workers, as well as the innovation of some of our skilled foreign workers. And of course, the brilliance and efficiency of our current government body.

And some hardworking, innovative Singaporeans, of course. Just some.

HOUSING

Housing is not affordable.

At least that is the main complaint. A Howard Lee mentioned in the Online Citizen about how “homes in Singapore are not affordable. Affordability is not buying something you will pay for 30 years down the road, at possible risk to your own retirement and a future family you dare not have. Affordability is paying for something you are comfortable with today without having to bet on your future.”

While Mr. Lee’s statement makes sense – grammatically – he and many others fail to see the much bigger picture. Which is:

At least you have a home you can call your own.

I don’t know how he came about that definition of “affordable”. In my experience and through the eyes of many others, affordability is when you have the financial capability to acquire that which you want. “Comfortable” is hardly ever in the mix, especially not if you are just a white-collared worker. Or in his case, a journalist.

What most Singaporeans are, I suspect, are that we have acquired a dependent taste for comfort. So if something is not comfortable, something is not right.

I reiterate: Singaporeans are a bunch of spoilt brats.

Look around at the other countries. Let’s start with the first-world countries, USA and Canada. While their internal regulations differ, the general outlook is the same: most people can’t afford to buy their own homes. By standard definition, it means that if the bank doesn’t offer you a loan, the house is unaffordable. Hence, many end up renting, and most for the rest of their lives.

For those who can secure a loan, if they don’t make timely payments on their mortgage, the bank forecloses it and your home is gone. Just like that. In comparison, HDB is a lot kinder to you, as in the case of one of my relatives. I would disclose more details, but I am not 100% certain about the housing procedures here and so do not dare risk disclosing fuzzy data. All I know is, HDB will be kinder to you than banks will be.

In the case of a foreclosure, you are left with nothing but a bad credit record which will ruin the rest of your life. Because guess what? The government there doesn’t care.
Zooming over to Hong Kong. Population is skyrocket high. There is also a housing crisis. I have a Hong Kong friend who is going to get married in November. When she finally marries the love of her life, they will be staying in a rented flat. She is 29, her husband-to-be only a couple years older. And they are not expecting to own their own home ever, because the housing there is too expensive. They don’t even have the luxury of securing a loan for a place they can absolutely call their own, even though they are considered middle-class in Hong Kong.

Or the other guy who had to beg his employer to not increase his pay for the next ten years, because he had applied for government housing which takes 10 years to get approved. At any time in that ten years, if your income hits above a certain bracket, you are out of the loop to getting your own “affordable” home, and are kicked back to renting an apartment, or living with your parents.

I don’t even need to go to the third world countries at this point. Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand. Your own home? Sure! Build one in the middle of the forest, or swamp, and you can call it your own

We Singaporeans are extremely lucky that there is even such a housing program out there for us to own a home. Don’t forget, we weren’t too different from The Philippines sixty years ago. Philippines have not progressed much, if at all. We are now a first-world country with developments that have surpassed other first-world countries.
As the world-renown American blogger, Mark Manson once said, “Singapore is like Manhattan, 100 years from today.”

We are living and breathing in a country that has taken extremely good care of us all these years. You don’t see smelly homeless people lying around the streets and in subway stations (i.e. NYC).

So housing complainers: Shut up and count your blessings.

GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION

I don’t need to go into the detail of the different government corruptions. It’s not necessary. All I will say is corruption is everywhere. It is in every country.
Psychological research has shown that people with power are highly likely to exploit the lesser people.

Human beings will always be imperfect. Even the government, which, surprisingly, is made up of – you guess it – human beings!

You have to focus on the bigger picture, which is: This country is safe. You can walk around in the middle of the night without having to fear being robbed. You can sleep without having to worry about being burgled. Sure, cases do exist here, but really, do spend a month in Malaysia; just the constant upkeep to be conscious about being careful when taking your phone out, just in case it gets snatched suddenly – in broad daylight. Or putting an electric fence around your home and feeling like a house prisoner every day, because burglary is rampant in your area.

You are living in fear all the time because the country is that corrupted.

The government in the United States is a joke. In reality, the United States does not have a government. It has many, and they are called corporations and banks. Yes my friends, the American government is controlled by the corporations and the banks.

Here’s how. Because of their free capitalist policy of having a president no longer than two terms, prospective candidates have to campaign, and you have to campaign all over the country, stopping by all 50 states. This incurs cost: food, travel and lodging, amongst other miscellaneous costs. It adds up. So how do they get the money?

Sponsors. Who sponsors them? You guess it. Whoever has lots of money. And in this case, corporations and banks have the financial power to sponsor the little guy: the ambitious lawyer, or doctor, or state senator, or the super gung-ho McDonald’s employee, so that they can get their message across and hopefully win votes.

Nothing is for free, however. There is always a silent pact made between the sponsor and the candidate. For example, if Bank of America were to sponsor Jeb Bush (George Bush’s brother who is currently campaigning for the 2016 election), they could propose something like: if you get elected president, you must make it legal to have credit card interest rates raise to 40% of the principal loan. Or mortgage rates to go up by 12%.

In return, they will house him in comfort and luxury for the length of his campaign.

This is just a hypothetical example and the numbers are a little over-exaggerated, but the underlying concept stands. Will Jeb Bush say yes? Sure. It doesn’t affect him. He gets paid $100,000/yr and lives rent-free when he is president. He doesn’t need credit from them. It’s the citizens who take up credit who will suffer from this proposal.
I don’t even need to spend my energy talking about third world country corruption. Seriously.

But okay, I will talk a little bit about that.

Malaysia:

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was exposed by The Wall Street Journal for embezzling US$700M (RM2.67 billion) to his personal accounts. He cites “donations” from Saudi Arabia. The ringgit has been in steady decline since his tenure. Earlier this year, the GST in Malaysia jumped from 0% to 6%. Overnight, just like that. I was in Malaysia on the day they implemented the GST increase (April 1, 2015) and couldn’t even get a calling card because all their systems were down.

Philippines:

Former president Marcos looted billions of dollars from the Filipino treasury during his 30-year rule. It is so widespread that they even made a Broadway production out of it.
Enough said.

Overall, Singapore is still developing, and at a rapid but steady rate. I don’t know about you, but I can totally overlook the tiny corruption innuendoes if the country continues to be SAFE and economically STRONG.

GOVERNMENT SALARY IS OUTRAGEOUS

Would you rather have an overpaid politician who does a rigorous job developing a country tremendously well so that we can all live comfortably; or an underpaid politician who doesn’t give two shits about developing the country and providing for their citizens – instead taking bribes left, right and centre from whoever sponsors them.

CONCLUSION

The reason I am taking so much precious time away from my projects to write all this is because I personally think that Singapore has entered into a dangerous zone in the last few years. Yes, I really think that this is more serious than what it seems. Maybe you are not smelling it yet. Maybe because everything is going so well. So comfortable.
However, seeing disgruntled comments on the internet, and hearing the rants of some family members and close friends, have made me conclude in the theory that if this inconsequential dissatisfaction goes on, Singapore will not last long.

Here’s why. When a person is disgruntled, they are open to change. When a “saviour” comes along, guess what happens?

By now, you would have guessed which government party I’m rooting for.

Because personally, I think that governing a country is not an easy feat. It takes a lot of brainpower, innovation, creativity and problem-solving skills to keep a country stable and its people happy. It is a few-men job serving an entire country. If you are a teacher, you will understand. How easy is it to maintain a class of 40 kids? The ratio of governing a country like Singapore is about 1:10,000. That is 1 government rep to 10,000 citizens. Will there be problems? Of course! Will there be discord? Sure!

However, we need to address the issues properly, not turn them into machine guns and use them to fire our own home team. As mentioned earlier, the government is made up of people. They are not Gods. They are regular people with brains and human DNA no different from the rest of us. People make mistakes. Yes, maybe they brought in the foreigners too fast too soon. But what matters is that the government is at least addressing their mistakes and striving to maintain stability for the country at the same time.

This is a vital point, so let me repeat (I wish Facebook would let me colour text):
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What matters is that the government is taking steps to address their errors, all while maintaining stability for the country and constantly focusing on its growth, all at the same time.
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Remember, our current government body did not just succeed in maintaining a country, it helped to DEVELOP it from a third-world country to a first-world country, in a span of a mere 50 years. That, my friends, is one helluva incredible feat. Have you noticed?
If you have been busy complaining, you haven’t.

I have been blunt up to here, but I will now half-apologize for being brute for what I am about to say next:
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If you decide to vote our present government out, you are not just foolish, ignorant and unappreciative, but you will be endangering the livelihood of all the other people who have benefited from the hard work that was put forth by PAP all these years since the beginning.
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Having said that, I now withdraw my half-apology. There is no apology needed for pointing out stupid actions.

We all have to remember, that we are a country with NO NATURAL RESOURCES. The reason that we have been able to survive and thrive all this while is because of the brilliance of Lee Kuan Yew and his dedicated team. Not only have they built a country from the swamps up, they have succeeded in maintaining a debt-free country and accumulated BILLIONS of dollars in reserves. When your country is debt-free, you are not subjected to the manipulation of banks and corporations to control your ruling, making the government free to do what it is meant to do.

The fact that we have NO NATURAL RESOURCES puts us in a very vulnerable position. Other countries that are in debt are still surviving because they have natural resources that they can always export to keep them alive. The reason we are able to survive and thrive is because of foreign investments. Foreign investments is the main reason we have made giant strides in terms of development.

Take away foreign investments, and what do you have? That’s right. Nothing. We have nothing, guys. But what we could do is export our people, since people are our only resource at this point, right? And so our women will work as maids, and our men will be construction workers for other countries. Get ready for your family to be split up just to put a roof over your children’s heads.

Or the likelier outcome will be that China will eat us up. We get sucked back in to the very country we constantly complain about. Hail Mao!
These are all hypothetical, but I do not believe them to be too far from a possible reality, if this disgruntledness from our short-sighted, unsatisfied local Singaporeans persists.

You have to be very careful about who you vote for. If you vote for a party who does not have sufficient experience in governing a country, Singapore will fall much faster than the time it took to build her up. And we have nothing to back us up, because we have NO NATURAL RESOURCES.

Personally, I think you have to really reconsider what you value. The government has only so much control in terms of staying in power. Because of our socio-democratic policy, you have to learn to fend yourselves against sweet talks. In my personal life, I have learnt to always be sceptical with what others say, and to only trust them by what they have done. This is even more so for politicians. It is easy to cajole disgruntled citizens to get their vote, but as a voter, can you trust that they will keep their word? More importantly, do you know if they will be capable enough to fend us from economic attacks?

The WP won Aljunied GRC in 2011. In these last five years, they have not shown us much in terms of progress. What significant progress has Aljunied shown? Nothing. What they have shown instead is a deficit in their accounts and a host of other issues. I don’t care for excuses of the PAP trying to squelch them out of that one constituency, since they can’t even manage one constituency well. Excuses are a symptom of irresponsibility, and they are used by the weak. The fact is, you either produce results or you don’t.

If I were in the shoes of the WP, I would put in 200x the work and make Aljunied progress significantly. I would work my ass off to surpass what the PAP could do. I would gather top brains and brainstorm with them to advance Aljunied and make the neighborhood symbolic to my efforts. I will want to show fellow Singaporeans that I can do this, so that you can vote for me with more confidence in the next election.

The WP has shown none of that. Which means they are either complacent, or incompetent. And either is bad news. In addition to their inadequacy, Low Thia Khiang said he would touch the reserves to reduce housing costs in order to appease the local population.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?!?!!??!?!

The reserves, which was painstakingly built over the years is NOT to keep whiny Singaporeans happy. The reserves is to buffer out emergency crises. The reason why we are still able to be competent as a country despite the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2008 crisis is BECAUSE of the reserves. Despite the crises, we are still able to develop and grow and surpass other first-world countries. If it wasn’t for the reserves, we would probably be in a very different scenario right now. You may not even have the opportunity to complain about so-called “housing affordability” while Singapore struggles to bring herself back to stability. It takes a few years to bounce back from an economic crash. Singapore was able to get back up on its feet with lightning speed both times because it has no debt and an abundance of financial reserves.

You don’t have adequate financial reserves and you end up worse than Greece, because this is Singapore we are talking about.

I have absolute zero confidence in the Workers Party and the other opposition parties. Mainly because they did not have the mentoring experience from MM Lee during the development period of Singapore. If the PAP was able to build a country from the ground up debt-free, it will be easy for them to maintain it, because the system is already in place. To vote for a new government means a change in the governmental system, which will take a number of years to get established. And frankly, because we have NO NATURAL RESOURCES, Singapore does not have the luxury to test out new forms of governmental implementation that have not yet been proven competent enough to lead the country.

Here is why: Foreign investors are watching us very closely. One wrong move in the change of hands of government ruling, and they will pull out faster than you can blink your eyes. These are the same foreign investors that we are highly dependent on for the survival of our country.

Despite these red flags, Singaporeans are still blinded with risky, lofty and IMO stupid promises. Both George Yeo and Tony Tan were key roles in bringing in foreign investments to Singapore in the last two to three decades. Remember what I said about that the only major source of growth we are dependent on right now is foreign investments?

And we are now entering a dangerous zone because George Yeo was voted out in 2011, and Tony Tan won by a narrow count of 7382 votes. That is only a 0.34% marginal win. If this electoral riskiness continues, we may not be a nation much longer.

Let’s just all go to China.

Personally, I think we all need to put our whimsies aside and focus on the bigger, overall picture. Yes, the government is responsible for the country’s growth, but we play a much bigger role in the country’s economy and stability than you can ever imagine. We need to work with the government to address issues that we are facing, not cuss and swear and threaten to vote them out when something falls out of place.

Because at the end of the day, if the key leaders in our current government do get voted out, it will be us who will have to bear the consequences of dealing with the never-ending issues of government reformation, not the MP’s. The MP’s, especially the senior ones, will have made their money. All they need to do is cash out and go some place else to start a new life with the experience that they have accumulated from serving a country.

Case in point: Three months after George Yeo stepped down from politics in October 2011, he was immediately engaged as a senior advisor to Kuok Group. Since August 2012, he has become chairman of Kerry Logistics Network, a logistics company based in Hong Kong.

If you haven’t already caught on, he became chairman of a company in less than a year of his political resignation. Talk about rocketing up the corporate ladder.
The MP’s will be fine. It is us who will be stuck with the never-ending problems of a new governmental system, and the problems will be much more severe than MRT breakdowns, rude foreign workers or “comfortable housing affordability” (*roll eyes*). We will have to deal with actual job crises, the impact on Singapore during and after a world economic crash (which is bound to happen soon, if it isn’t already happening now with the recent stock market crash), and new forms of government corruption which, I am 99% certain that that will be imminent, and far worse than what we have all found in PAP.

They may overlook and/or take slight advantages of certain things while they busy themselves with building a country, but you will never find a better governmental system than the PAP. A business investor (whose name I forgot) once said in a Forbes magazine, that “if only China was like Singapore, the world would be a much better place.”
My mother always told me – and I love her to bits – that John F. Kennedy said during his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

It is time we all grow up. Don’t spend your time complaining about the nitty-gritty issues. Spend your time instead to find a way out of your rut, if you are in one. Don’t nit-pick inconsistencies, work on fixing them. Use those educated brain cells of yours to figure out a way to get ahead, not waste it on clever grumbling. If the country is advancing at a rapid rate, work to keep up with it. Figure out a way to forge ahead, far far ahead. If you get left behind, it will be your fault because you got complacent. Singapore is filled with ample opportunity to succeed. The government is giving out ridiculous grants for local start-up companies. How can you take advantage of that? Instead of grumbling about not having enough jobs, how about you take the initiative to create jobs for others?

At the end of the day, a country is a country because it is made up of people.

You.

You are responsible for how this country progresses. You will also be responsible for how this country might end up. The unfortunate thing is, that if you are careless in your actions, it may result in the downfall of others who do not deserve it.

So vote wisely.

Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

September 3, 2015