Tag: Singapore

Court Application Filed On Lee Kuan Yew Interview Agreement With Government

The executors of the estate of Mr Lee Kuan Yew have filed an application seeking guidance from the Courts on proper interpretation of an interview agreement between the late Mr Lee and the Government.

The court application was filed by Mr Lee’s younger children, Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang, on Sep 2 and a pre-trial conference was held on Tuesday (Sep 22).

The agreement relates to the custody and use of certain interviews given by Mr Lee, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, to the Oral History Department, a spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) said.

The Government will establish the proper interpretation and status of the agreement before the Court, the AGC added.

The next pre-trial conference will be held on Oct 27.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

September 23, 2015
Ill-Mannered Foreigner Cuts Queue While Boarding And Alighting MRT At Jurong

At around 5.45pm, I alighted the MRT towards Joo Khoo and I queue up near the escalator going downwards the ground level. As I was queuing on the right came this Ah neh who want to cut queue from my right side.

When I was about to ride the escalator, he still insisted to challenge me and he suddenly cut in from of me which I suddenly evade to the left to avoid collision.

Hey f*cker, do you know if you cut like that you may injure people? What if I ram into you and the rear people also collide. If you want to cut, wait for someone to pass than wait for an opportunity to cut in but not that like.

This is how people got into accidents and if you are a driver your license should be revoked long ago. I will check with police regarding this matter and if they say I could have filed. You ought to be taught a lesson.

Not the first time but the second time is seriously a close call as I almost bang into him.

Ashton
A.S.S. Contributor

Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

September 22, 2015
Singapore: Popcorn Democracy?

Confrontational politics, social media and political apathy — some of the issues raised during MARUAH’s post-election forum What’s at Stake?

After the unexpected landslide victory of 69.9% of the popular votes by the People’s Action Party (PAP) in this year’s Election, pundits, academics and other politically-minded individuals shared their analyses of the result and its implication for Singapore.

Against this backdrop, MARUAH, a human rights group, held a forum called What’s at Stake? on Saturday, 19 September. It comes eight days after polling day

Speaker Alex Au who was one of six speakers at the forum, avoided giving a mere explanation of the result. Instead he posed “provocative” questions for people to consider,among which was the state of opposition politics. Speaking directly to Workers’ Party’s dip in performance — he touched on their reluctance to “boast” of their performance in Parliament and questioning PAP on a number of issues. He felt their inability to score on such matters may have backfired.

Confrontational politics

The writer behind the blog Yawning Bread spoke about the importance of party branding. To differentiate themselves from each other, opposition parties should not just criticise the PAP, but each other, he said.

According to him, in people’s minds, the opposition parties are all the same. Hence, opposition parties should “forget about opposition unity” and be unafraid of contesting each other.

When an audience member questioned the need for “confrontational politics,” Au said, this is “unavoidable”.

Disputing this point, political analyst Dr Derek da Cunha pointed out that the Workers’ Party (WP) had actually performed well over the years because it took a moderate stance.

Role of social media

Dr da Cunha also took to task social media’s role in determining election outcomes. He said it had “zero impact” and that he has been saying this “forcefully for six years.”

Terry Xu, Chief Editor of The Online Citizen (TOC), said that prior to this year’s Election, he would not have agreed with Dr da Cunha, but now does. He noted that despite the satires of PAP politicians his publication put out, voters were hardly swayed by them — presumably to vote for the opposition.

Xu took issue with new sites like SIX-SIX.COM, Mothership and The Middle Ground, urging the audience to ask where funding for these sites comes from, even implying, without any proof, that they may be backed by the Government.

Author and blogger, Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh pointed out the question of funding and the need to moderate one’s content is an issue all media outlets deal with. He added that readers should decide for themselves the credibility of a news site.

Dr da Cunha questioned TOC’s credibility after putting out articles from anonymous sources. He said that while he used to think the site was good, it has over the years become “more extreme.”

In reply, Xu said the people who write the anonymous articles are teachers and academics who are afraid their positions in the workplace might be compromised when they are associated withTOC.

Death of the new normal

Au said that the one point all the speakers could probably agree with is that “the new normal” of higher political engagement after the WP won a Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in the 2011 election “was a figment of our imagination.”

In the same vein, Thomas said the 2011 result might have just been a “blip” and the presumed “death of the apathetic Singaporean” was false.

Singaporeans might be interested only in “popcorn democracy” where they engage with politics once in every four or five years during election season, instead of actively engaging with politics every day, he said.

“Maybe Singaporeans just want the veneer of democracy.”

Going forward?

As per its discussion theme, What’s at Stake?, MARUAH’s forum laid out issues of concern for Singaporeans after the recent election.

Braema Mathi, President of MARUAH, had asked the speakers to provide some ideas for electoral reform as well. Dr da Cunha suggested that GRCs be of “uniform size,” following the practice in 1991 where there were four-members each for every ward.

He also said that the EBRC should publish its report on boundary shifts no less than four months before polling day and that policy changes like the introduction of sample count this election should not be announced “just days before polling day.”

Besides Dr da Cunha, Au seems to have been the only other person to have sketched out some steps forward, with his suggestion that opposition parties brand themselves better and that opposition parties collaborate more with civil society.

Source: http://six-six.com

September 22, 2015
Why Should Singapore’s Prime Minister Be Chinese?

Talk of the “rising star” of Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has raised the old question of whether Singapore is ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister. But why shouldn’t Singapore be ready?

If Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party captured people’s attention during the general election period, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has undoubtedly emerged as the darling of the post-GE period.

There’s already a Tharman for PM Facebook page with, at the time of writing, over 760 likes. Reuters did aprofile on him as a “rising star”. As anchor minister of the Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC), his People’s Action Party (PAP) team coasted to victory with almost 80 per cent of the vote, an even better performance than the team in Ang Mo Kio GRC led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

If Singapore had a more competitive democratic system, Tharman could probably mount a leadership challenge within the party and win power. Yet the matter of Tharman’s suitability for leadership consistently runs into another question (apart from his own apparent unwillingness): is Singapore ready for a non-Chinese prime minister?

The question was first brought up in the 1980s, when Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew revealed that he had considered then Minister for National Development, S Dhanabalan, to be a worthy successor, only to decide that the country was not ready for an Indian prime minister. This message was endorsed by Dhanabalan himself in 2007, when he said that he was “not saying it’s not possible [to have a non-Chinese prime minister], but I think it will take some time.”

Current prime minster Lee Hsien Loong reiterated this in 2008 shortly after Barack Obama was voted in as the first black president of the United States of America:

Will it happen soon? I don’t think so, because you have to win votes. And these sentiments – who votes for whom, and what makes him identify with that person – these are sentiments which will not disappear completely for a long time, even if people do not talk about it, even if people wish they did not feel it.

Lee now believes there’s more of a chance for a non-Chinese prime minister as Singapore’s younger generations grow more accepting and are more ready to connect across racial lines, although he still notes the need to communicate with voters in Mandarin.

The question is thus an old one. But it’s high time it got turned on its head: why shouldn’t Singapore be ready for a non-Chinese prime minister? Why shouldn’t we be able to have a non-Chinese prime minister right now (or whenever Lee Hsien Loong steps down)?

The question about winning votes shouldn’t actually be an issue, seeing that Singaporeans don’t get to vote for the leader of the PAP, and therefore the Prime Minister, anyway. (In fact, most PAP members don’t get to vote for the leader of the PAP either; only cadre members – who are selected by the Central Executive Committee of the party – get to vote on the leadership in the Central Executive Committee.) Singaporeans only get to have a say over whether that candidate gets elected as an MP; once that’s done the leadership of the party is out of our hands.

In any case, Tharman’s ability to win votes has been amply demonstrated in the recent general election, showing that it is not the ethnicity of the candidate, but the respect that he/she can command, that does the trick.

The issue of being able to communicate in Mandarin might be more of a consideration. Chinese Singaporeans do make up the majority of the local population, and it would of course be important for the prime minister of the country to be able to connect with his citizens.

Yet being a Chinese majority country has not stopped Singaporeans from electing non-Chinese leaders before. Singaporeans got to vote in their first general election in 1955, following the Rendel Constitution that gave all local citizens the right to elect the majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Labour Front won enough seats to form a minority government. Their leader, and therefore Singapore’s first Chief Minister, was David Marshall, born to a Baghdadi Jewish family.

Research by historian Dr Thum Ping Tjin based on the Chinese newspapers of the time shows that despite not being Chinese, Marshall was popular among the Chinese in Singapore, as they felt that he stood for labour rights and freedom from colonialism:

While the Chinese press avoided endorsing any specific politicians, their editorials and readers’ letters show a clear respect for Marshall. They believed that he understood the Chinese, and felt the Labour Front would represent Chinese working class interests better than the businessmen of the [Progressive Party] and [Democratic Party].

Throughout Singapore’s history there have been non-Chinese politicians who have managed to connect across racial lines and represent the people’s interests:Devan Nair, S Dhanabalan, Othman Wok and Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam among them. These men stood as candidates even before GRCs – supposedly introduced to help racial minorities get into Parliament – and have arguably done more to prove themselves and convince voters than any Chinese Singaporean former army officer parachuted into parliament on the coat-tails of an established anchor minister.

Chinese-ness has for years been positioned as desirable, a criteria for success and power. Lee Kuan Yew has been described as a Chinese supremacist who believed that certain “Chinese” traits were crucial to Singapore’s success. Under the government’s CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others) system of classifying everyone into neat racial categories, Singapore is an incredibly race conscious country.

Yet this might not be giving Singaporeans enough credit. As voters, Singaporeans are more than capable of discerning who is or isn’t able to represent their best interests, regardless of the individual’s race. When push comes to shove, what really matters is the person’s ability to prove that he or she is a worthy representative and leader, and that’s a challenge for Chinese and non-Chinese politicians alike.

It is therefore strange that comments that Singapore is “not ready” for a non-Chinese prime minister is accepted as a reasonable political statement, and not some sort of ahistorical concern trolling.

Even if Singaporeans are voting along racial lines or according to racist assumptions, then what is needed is not a ruling out of a non-Chinese leader, but to tackle head-on the skewed value judgements and uneven playing fields faced by different racial groups, and to find the common ground and common concerns that Singaporeans have for their country. A prime minister, after all, represents the entire nation, not just the majority.

Lee Kuan Yew himself said in 1965 that “[t]his is not a Malay nation, this is not a Chinese nation, this is not an Indian nation.” Singaporeans have been reminded of this often this year, the year of the nation’s Golden Jubilee as well as the year of his death. If this is indeed the vision of Singapore that we want to live up to, then there is no reason to doubt our readiness for a non-Chinese prime minister.

The above article was first published on byline.com .

Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

September 22, 2015
Selling Tissue Paper At Food Centres – The Next Industry To Face Foreign Competition

Last week, we read in the Sunday Times that the latest industry facing stiff competition from “foreign talents” for jobs is the tissue-packet-selling industry at food centres and coffeeshops.

We thought the report was interesting and taught us a few things. It reminds us that any “profitable business” is always susceptible to new entrants in the market. And believe it or not, indicators reported by the Sunday Times suggested that selling tissue paper is far more lucrative than most of us realize.

A job that that pays a decent salary.

According to the article, people selling packets of tissue paper can earn anywhere from $20 to $100 day for a few hours of work. If we take the average value ($60) and assume 3 hours of work each day, the salary per hour works out to be a very decent $20.

A seller could expect to make about $1,440 for 24 working days of 3 hours per day each month. Not too bad, especially when you consider that there isn’t really much economic value created compared to other jobs such as a cleaner or a security guard.

Singapore, an open economy

Our government never fails to remind us that Singapore is an open economy. And part and parcel of being an open economy includes a very open labour market. To ensure we retain our competitiveness, we are always taught to be cheaper, faster and better, and that applies to everything, including selling packets tissue paper.

A more able-bodied foreigner who can cover ground more quickly would be able to reach out to more patrons at food centres and coffeeshops, thus, increasing their revenue. And because people are unlikely to make multiple purchases of tissue packets, this appears to be one of those finite, first-come-first-serve market.

Taking care of our elderly

We respect and empathise with the elderly in our society who are working hard to provide for themselves and their dependents in some cases, especially in our increasingly expensive country. Having to walk around for a few hours each day while lugging around huge plastic bag full of packets of tissue paper is not easy for some of the elderly people selling them. Doing so at an old age and possibly, with disabilities, makes it so much harder.

Being “self-employed”, these elderly citizens have no access to the type of Human Resources perks that the rest of us take for granted. No paid medical leaves when they are ill, no annual leave entitlements and no medical coverage.

And now, foreign competitors vying with them in the industry.

What can be done?

Even if they want to, it is difficult for any government legislation to help these elderly folks who are in the business. This is because sellers are required to have a license to sell tissue paper.

According to NEA, only 11 such licenses have been granted to sell packets of tissue paper. As such, we think it is safe to assume that foreigner or not, most of the sellers plying their trade are doing so illegally anyway.

Because most are plying their trade illegally, there isn’t much the government can do to help them. We believe that the government’s requirement for licenses to be applied for is to protect the local citizens, and maybe even, to render them further assistance via referring them to social welfare groups.

However, most do not do so, and are thus, left to fend on their own.

Singaporeans can do our parts by helping locals. By simply not purchasing packets of tissue paper from non-locals or able bodied people, we can ensure that only the most needy are able to sell their packets. We can also inform local sellers about the need to apply and get a license from the NEA so that they can continue plying their trade legally, and at the same time, get access to further social help if they are in hardship.

Source: http://dollarsandsense.sg

September 22, 2015