Tag: SDP

Battle For Sembawang GRC Shapes Up

The battle for Sembawang GRC is shaping up.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) slate of candidates is starting to take shape in the five-MP GRC that was substantially affected by new electoral boundaries last week, and its MPs have begun working the new ground.

Party chairman Khaw Boon Wan yesterday said he and his team were reaching out to the 53,177 new voters added to Sembawang GRC from areas that were under Nee Soon GRC, while “handing over” the areas with 61,061 voters that have been carved away to the new Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.

In the 2011 General Election, Sembawang GRC saw a contest between the PAP team and a Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) team.

he PAP won 63.9 per cent of the vote against the SDP, whose slate included academics James Gomez and John Tan.

The SDP confirmed it will again contest the GRC at the coming general election. But party leaders have yet to name their slate for the GRC.

With the boundary changes, two members of PAP’s current team in the GRC – Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi and first-term MP Ong Teng Koon – will see their wards go to Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, said Mr Khaw, who is the National Development Minister.

But Dr Lim Wee Kiak, a two-term MP in Nee Soon GRC’s Canberra ward, will join Sembawang GRC.

This leaves a spot open in Sembawang GRC. But Mr Khaw would not confirm if lawyer Amrin Amin, 35, a PAP new face spotted in the GRC, will join his team.

But he added: “He’s in my group. He’s proactive. I need a Malay after (the) carving out of Marsiling.”

The two other MPs in the Sembawang GRC team are Ms Ellen Lee and Mr Vikram Nair.

Mr Khaw gave the likely line-up for his GRC – and partially for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC – to The Straits Times when he met Nee Soon GRC MP Lee Bee Wah at a coffee shop in Yishun Avenue 11.

His disclosure reinforced a point that PAP organising secretary and Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen made at a SingHealth Nurses’ Day event yesterday: that the party would disclose its slate of candidates early, probably well ahead of Nomination Day.

At the meeting between Mr Khaw and Ms Lee, she briefed him about the 51 blocks that were being transferred to Sembawang GRC following the boundary changes.

Mr Khaw said boundary changes have the greatest impact on the PAP, and in some cases are “quite drastic … We’ve invested time. Now, new relations have to be forged”.

Losing Marsiling, which has a predominantly elderly population, Mr Khaw said, will lower the median age for Sembawang GRC and bring it nearer to the national median age of just over 40 years.

Yesterday, SDP members went on a walkabout in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, and party activist Paul Tambyah said it would return to the areas it contested in 2011 – including Sembawang – “because the residents know who we are”.

“We have been going back there over the years… on a regular basis, so these are a natural fit for us.”

That opposition parties aim to contest all 89 seats at the next general election, is a prospect relished by first-term Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Chia Shi-Lu.

Speaking to reporters at an event yesterday, he said that he and his fellow GRC MPs were at a “disadvantage” as theirs was the only uncontested constituency in 2011.

As the GRC, previously helmed by the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, has no history of contests to indicate how it would do in the face of a challenge, “we actually have to work harder than most others”, he added.

This is why the team campaigned in 2011, going door to door and meeting residents, as if they were facing a real election.

“We take nothing for granted because of this unknown element, which I suppose spurs us to work even harder,” he said.

The Singaporeans First party and Democratic Progressive Party are keen on Tanjong Pagar GRC.

But the SDP, which said in January that it was also considering Tanjong Pagar, confirmed yesterday that it would not target the GRC.

Said Professor Tambyah, who was accompanied by SDP chief Chee Soon Juan and party activists: “Many people in Tanjong Pagar are very keen to vote but, at the same time, there are many other parties that have expressed interest.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

July 31, 2015
Osman Sulaiman: Are Polyclinic Consultation Fees Inflated To Make Government Look Good With Sizeable Subsidies?

This is my dad’s medical bill from the polyclinic. I was quite happy when i saw that the bill is heavily subsidised. But after a second look, I realised that the charges for consultation is ridiculous.

The consultation fee for a neighbourhood private doctor is usually between $20-$30. Public polyclinic is supposed to be cheaper than private clinics. How in the world can a public medical service be much expensive?

It’s either the authorities are inflating the consultation fee and then makes it look like the gov is heavily subsidizing our medical cost or our doctors working at polyclinics are being paid super scale salary that rival the private sectors. I know the latter isn’t true.

But if the subsidies are a true reflection of the amount incurred, then what is stopping our gov to also subsidize private clinics so as to assuage the waiting time at the polyclinics? Tsk.

Source: Osman Sulaiman

July 31, 2015
A Reality Check For All Opposition Parties

I might be flamed by fellow opposition supporters for saying this, but I feel it’s better if we opposition supporters voice out our concerns BEFORE the upcoming GE.

Firstly, not all opposition parties have the same status. The strongest opposition party at the moment is the WP which has 7 parliamentary seats and 2 non-constituency members of parliament. The WP is stable, has good leadership, party discipline, a strong brand name, strong grassroots network and has managed to attract a critical mass of skilled professionals. These factors explain why the WP has a better image and thus a better chance of winning than the other opposition parties. As was seen in the Punggol East by-election, in a multi-cornered fight, the WP candidate will attract a much larger share of votes than the minor opposition parties.

Next in the ranking of the opposition parties, is the SDP. Why? Because this is a party with a history, alternative policies and a clear ideology. SDP’s grassroots potential is underused but not lacking, as it seems to be able to attract social activists and other liberals. Say what you may about the SDP but at least it does not give the image that it is an unstable party that lacks people. The party website is well designed and is kept up to date. SDP’s decision to pull out of the Punggol by-election and avoid being a spoiler earned it goodwill from opposition supporters and thus the SDP’s image was not tarnished by a great defeat. The SDP may have committed some blunders such as implying that they were unwilling to run a town council, but they have corrected that mistake! They realized that they have to turn their attention to municipal matters too. And thus, earlier this year, they published a paper detailing their plans on running a town council. The SDP is not perfect, but if your constituency is not contested by WP, it’s your best bet if you want an opposition win.

Why did I not list the SPP which has 1 NCMP as the second pick for opposition supporters? Last GE, we saw a nationwide 6.5% vote swing AWAY from the PAP. Thus, every constituency that was also contested by the opposition in 2006 saw a larger percentage of the votes gained by the opposition in 2011. All constituencies save for one – Potong Pasir. SPP instead saw their votes in Potong Pasir drop by 6%, leading to their narrow loss of a safe seat to the PAP’s Sitoh Yi Pin!

This is largely due to the choice of SPP to field Lina Chiam who was intended to be Chiam See Tong’s successor. This is widely perceived to be the reason why SPP lost. Mrs Chiam was not eloquent enough at her rallies. Nor did she attack the PAP candidate sufficiently. Most importantly, she did not manage to convince the swing voters that she had a good chance of winning against the PAP candidate. That was why there were 242 spoiled votes. If just half these votes had gone to SPP, she would have won!

I’m not against SPP but I’m just saying that SPP has to deal with these REAL perceptions if they intend to field Mrs Chiam in Potong Pasir again. A party only stands a decent chance if it can generate hype among its supporters. Supporters and swing voters have to be convinced that the party can win. Remember, Sitoh Yi Pin has been the incumbent MP for Potong Pasir for 4 years now and he has a huge advantage over Mrs Chiam. It is no longer 50-50 as was the case in 2011. Even other opposition parties like the DPP are doubting Mrs Chiam’s ability to win again. That is why these opportunists want to cause a multi-cornered fight in Potong Pasir.

SPP can still win back Potong Pasir if they field someone younger, whose appeal to the voters is stronger. If they wish to revive Mr Chiam’s legacy while renewing SPP, then why not field Mr Chiam’s daughter? As Nicole Seah proved in the last GE, it is possible for a young, eloquent and inspiring female politician to generate sufficient hype to shift the vote towards her party, even against a strong incumbent from the ruling party.

SPP has been gifted with the entry of strong opposition personalities like Ravi Philemon and Jeanette Chong-Aruldoss, who is poised to give the PAP a tough fight at Mountbatten SMC once again. So why not build on that to renew the party’s overall image? I hope SPP can see the bigger picture and try to attract back swing voters.

All the other opposition parties are not main contenders. NSP received a lot of bad publicity after GE2011 because they went through a change of 5 secretary generals in such a short time and furthermore lost almost all their top candidates in the last GE to other political parties. Singfirst and PPP are new parties with no history and swing voters usually stick to established parties when they vote. RP and SDA have been discredited by their secretary generals losing their deposits in the Punggol by-election. These parties will be entering the upcoming GE with voters perceiving them to have a low chance of winning. They have a lot of hard work ahead of them. It will be an uphill task for them to win a seat in parliament.

Harold

Source: www.tremeritus.com

July 30, 2015
Walid J. Abdullah: Multi-Cornered Fight Is Good, Vote-Splitting Will be Rare

Some people have expressed their fears of multi-cornered fights in the upcoming GE (they are mostly either opposition supporters or people who want the PAP to be in government but wish to see more opposition voices in Parliament). I do not share their fears and have more faith in Singaporeans in this regard: not because i believe that all Singaporeans are politically astute in all aspects, but because there have been evidence to suggest that Singaporeans have learnt the potential effects of multi-cornered fights.

In the 2011 Presidential Election, Singaporeans were divided between three candidates: eventually, Dr Tony Tan won the election with the tiniest of margins. A substantial amount of people who voted for Tan Jee Say (25%) must have regretted their choice, as had they casted their votes for Dr Tan Cheng Bock (who would be the natural next option: one cannot imagine a person who voted for TJS preferring Tony Tan over TCB), TCB would have been the president.

Fast forward to 2013: Punggol East by-election. There were two things that did not receive sufficient attention in the aftermath of the sensational electoral outcome: 1) the disastrous performances of Desmond Lim and Kenneth Jeyaretnam (Desmond’s one is particularly important), and 2) SDP was completely ignored by WP when the former attempted to devise creative plans to mount a ‘unified’opposition to PAP.

In the 2011 GE, Desmond contested the Punggol East constituency against PAP and WP candidates. He received 4.45% of the votes. In 2013, he attained just 0.57% of the vote share. While both results were atrocious, the second one was particularly so. I argue that Singaporeans had learnt from the Presidential Elections that every vote truly mattered in a multi-cornered contest, and hence were less likely to waste their votes on candidates who had no serious chance of winning (in the first place, a significant portion of the 4.45% he received in 2011 could have been purely out of sympathy, and when the going gets tough, there really is less room for sympathy or other considerations). The fact that SDP withdrew very early on, suggests that its leaders probably believed this from the start too.

In Political Science literature, the above phenomenon is known as the ‘psychological effect’ in voting, and was made popular by Duverger. I believe we have seen the psychological effect occurring in Singapore, and that we will see more of it if there are more multi-cornered fights.

Hence, I contend that the following will be likely to happen:

In the constituencies that WP is contesting, the other opposition parties who decide to contest will not get their deposits back. In fact, I do not expect them to get more than 3% of the votes. This is regardless of which are the other parties.

In the constituencies that WP is not contesting but there are multi-cornered contests, it depends on which parties are contesting. If SDP and NSP contest, then maybe the votes would be significantly split: this is because both are parties of similar stature, and opposition supporters may be divided as to which would be the party that would get more votes.

In the constituencies that WP is not contesting, and only either SDP or NSP is contesting with the other smaller parties, one can expect the other parties to not get their deposits back.

So perhaps the opposition parties should take heed from lessons of the 2011 Presidential Elections and 2013 Punggol-East By-Election: be prepared to lose your money in the multi-cornered fights, because vote-splitting between the opposition parties will be rare.

In any case, Singaporeans should not be overly-worried about having more parties in electoral contests: such a situation is ultimately good in enhancing democracy.

Source: Walid J. Abdullah

July 29, 2015
Analysts: Multi-Cornered Fights Unlikely

Although several opposition parties have staked their claims to the same constituencies, the political analysts TODAY spoke to said multi-cornered fights are likely to prevail only in constituencies the Workers’ Party (WP) does not gun for. Multi-cornered fights, they said, hold “grave consequences” for other opposition parties that do not have a branding as strong as the WP’s.

Singapore Management University law don, associate professor Eugene Tan, said the WP is in a “healthy bargaining position”, and unlikely to concede the places it staked a claim to.

“In a case where there is nothing much to differentiate between the two or more opposition parties, voters may not know where or on whom to pool their votes. And this is where we are likely to see votes being split,” he said.

WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang on Sunday (Jul 26) announced his party’s intention to contest in Marine Parade GRC and MacPherson SMC — the former being a ward contested by the National Solidarity Party (NSP) in the 2011 polls and the latter, a part of it until electoral boundaries were redrawn last Friday.

The NSP has called for a meeting this Friday among opposition parties to hammer out deals and avoid multi-way fights.

MULTI-CORNERED FIGHTS MORE LIKELY IN WEST, CENTRAL PARTS

With the WP’s plans to expand eastwards, Assoc Prof Tan and former Nominated Member of Parliament Siew Kum Hong felt multi-cornered fights are more likely to happen in the western and central parts of Singapore. Said Mr Siew: “I think most other opposition parties will be hesitant to challenge the WP.”

Added political analyst Derek da Cunha: “The other opposition parties have yet to concretely demonstrate that they are on the same level as the WP in terms of voter appeal.”

The analysts also cited the Punggol East by-election in 2013 as an example of why opposition camps should avoid multi-cornered fights that involve the WP. Ms Lee Li Lian from the WP won the single seat with 54.52 per cent of votes, while the PAP’s Dr Koh Poh Koon garnered 43.73 per cent.

The Reform Party’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam and Singapore Democratic Alliance’s Desmond Lim raked in 1.2 and 0.57 per cent, respectively, and both lost their election deposits.

National University of Singapore (NUS) sociologist Tan Ern Ser said the prospect of multi-cornered fights means opposition parties have to work harder. “They would have to try hard to differentiate themselves from one another, such as with more well-thought-out criticism of the ruling party and better ideas, better programmes that resonate with voters. Maybe even better candidates.”

NUS political science associate professor Bilveer Singh suggested that fighting in single-member constituencies would be “more economical” for opposition parties, especially “the new ones that have no ground record”.

CROSSOVER OF CANDIDATES

An issue that may muddy the parties’ claims to contest for various seats is the crossover of candidates between parties since the last GE.

For instance, Ms Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss, who contested for the Mountbatten seat in the last election as part of the NSP, has announced her intention to fight for the same seat again, now under the Singapore People’s Party umbrella. She left the NSP earlier this year.

“Many a time, they move because of bad blood, unhappiness. So, that makes the ability to make concessions, to give and take, somewhat more challenging,” said SMU’s Assoc Prof Tan.

“We do not know if the trust and confidence among the opposition parties is strong enough for them to come up with a deal, where everyone would feel they have not been shortchanged.”

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

July 27, 2015