Transforming The PAP (3)

The line up for the cabinet has now been announced, and Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong has described the changes therein as ‘epochal’.

The word epochal means either ‘of or characteristic to an epoch’ or ‘uniquely or highly momentous’.  The word epoch refers to ‘a particular period of history, particularly one considered remarkable or noteworthy’.

Fret not though.  Good Ol’, reliable Mr. Eugene K B Tan says, ‘the new cabinet line up is certainly no populist reaction.’  (In the same breath, he goes on to admit ‘the May 7^th results for the People’s Action Party (PAP) would have contributed to the extent of the changes that ring out the old and ring in the new’.)

At just a little after 3pm, Mr. Tan’s commentary, New Cabinet Will Have It’s Work Cut Out, has attracted 18 comments so far.  Meanwhile, The Online Citizen’s (TOC) editorial, Bold Cabinet Line-Up, Now For The Follow Through, has attracted 55 comments.

What everyone wants to know, of course, is whether the changes to the cabinet are changes that will lead towards more change or, in Mr. Tan’s words, ‘Will it be more form than substance?’  TOC suggests that, ‘The start to renewing the moral authority of the PAP should be the abolition of the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) scheme and a reduction in ministerial pay’. 

I don’t know so much about ministerial pay and my guess is that the incoming Government might indeed choose to at least revamp the GRC system.  As I’ve mentioned previously, one of the first things it should probably do is see to it that all the figures from this most recent election are released, right down to the details of the count in each of the individual wards.  For now, detractors are assuming a return to Single Member Constituencies only would allow candidates from parties other than the PAP a more even chance in future elections.  There’s a risk too that doing away with the GRCs might be perceived to be a populist reaction, and, having spent the entire campaign period slamming everybody other than the PAP for ‘being populist’, this is not a government that can afford to be perceived as populist, I think. 

In any case, without anyone having seen the detailed figures, it’s impossible to know for sure whether the GRC system served to keep not-the-PAP candidates from winning in specific wards in 2011 whether it didn’t.  A couple of the SMC contests – in Potong Pasir and Joo Chiat – were very close indeed and yet both were captured by the PAP at the end of the day.  A difference of 2% is still a difference of 2% whether it’s registered in an SMC or in a GRC.  The PAP could take us back to the days when the political map was made up of SMCs and only SMCs and it would still be possible for a party with barely 51% of the vote to hold 100% of the seats in the House, provided that support was spread out sufficiently evenly.     

No.  My personal view is that the PAP would be foolish to implement any further changes to the electoral system without first winning the agreement of all other parties that an amended system would be seen as being fair to everyone.  To do that, it will need to release all the available figures and, in the event that these serve to ‘prove’ that it has indeed been manipulating the electoral boundaries to its own advantage, hope that voters can be persuaded to accept its sincere apology and commitment towards establishing a fairer system for the future.

Re-Writing History

I’m sorry and the truth is that I have tended to feel irritated around practically every single commentary Mr. Paul Gilfeather has ever written for the newspaper, Today.

Mr. Gilfeather is described as ‘the principal correspondent at Today’ and I seem to remember that he used to write for one of the British Tabloids – The Mirror, I think.  Most recently, he decided to focus Singapore’s attention on Oliver Stone.

What was it about Mr. Stone that heated Mr. Gilfeather’s blood to boiling point?  Mr. Stone has revealed that he is making a 10-part documentary series called The Untold History of the United States, which he has suggested will serve to re-examine certain elements in history ‘more sympathetically than ever before’.

‘Surely there is more historical value in a film project like Steven Spielberg’s brilliant, fact-based drama The Pacific, in which we are reminded of the incredible sacrifice made by the Americans fighting tyranny and evil?’ writes Mr. Gilfeather.  But why should Mr. Gilfeather choose to use such exceptionally powerful language, I wonder?

He must recognise the extent to which his stated opinion sounds even more ‘hysterically outspoken’ than Mr. Stone’s; he is billed as ‘the principal correspondent’ after all; any journalist worth his or her salt, particularly the British ones, knows he or she should apply words such as ‘tyranny’ and ‘evil’ only with extreme caution.

The last time I looked online, which was on the day of publication, Mr. Gilfeather’s commentary had attracted just three comments.  I added a fourth one myself.  Another commentary, A New, post-Lee Kuan Yew Era, written by Assistant Professor of Law, Eugene K B Tan, had attracted 40 or more comments and yet Today preferred to print a written response to Mr. Gilfeather’s piece as well as an extract from one of the on-line responses rather than any kind of response to Mr. Tan’s. 

In this morning’s print edition, the newspaper carries a second letter that refers to Mr. Gilfeather as having raised ‘an important question about who should write and present history’.  We might equally well ask ‘Who should write and present political commentary?’  For now, it seems the answer to that, at least in the context of the Today newspaper is Mr. Eugene K B Tan and only Mr. Eugene K B Tan. 

Transforming The PAP (2)

Assistant Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University Mr. Eugene Tan has described Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister (SM) Mr. Goh Chok Tong’s retirement as cabinet ministers as ‘a magnanimous act of statesmanship and a powerful expression of humility (Today, Monday 16^th May, 2011)’.

Previously, in a comment in reply to the Sunday Times, MM Lee had said ‘Both former PMs withdrawing from the government will indicate that it is not government as usual, and that the PM (MM Lee’s own son, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong) can and will revise and revamp his policies going into this new situation’.

MM Lee would not be MM Lee if he had been able to resist the temptation to add ‘It is vital to avoid a situation were people vote to have more Opposition for Opposition’s sake’, of course.  What matters is that, even without that addition, the people of Singapore should be made to understand that the People’s Action Party (PAP) really does mean to implement some changes in during this next term of Government.

What changes and why?  An article at www.theonlinecitizen.com, ‘What exactly is the change in PAP’s promise?’ suggests that ‘In the 2011 general election, the people voted for change, not just in communication, but in policy.’  I’m not so sure they did, however; one could even go so far as to argue that 60.1% of them voted in favour of having things remain pretty much the same as ever, in fact.  The problem writer, Mr. Howard Lee, has so nearly but not quite put his finger on then isn’t whether the PAP can amend its policies in such a way that can make them appear any more attractive to the 39.9% of people who voted against the PAP but whether it can do so without making them appear any less attractive to the 60.1% of people who voted for it.

‘The PAP has forgotten that the key crux of discontentment is no longer that the PAP does not listen, but rather that the PAP has gone overboard in pretending to listen,’ says Mr. Lee.  Once again, I would argue that the PAP has been listening and evolving in recent years; it only looks as if it hasn’t because the people of Singapore have managed to evolve themselves even more rapidly.  As recently as 10 years ago, the bulk of the griping one heard was covert, discernable if you went out of your way to deliberately listen for it and – and this is most important! – were able to appear as a ‘safe repository’ for people’s complaints.  Neither the PAP nor any government department was perceived to be a safe repository and, let’s face it, 75.3% of the vote in the 2001 election does sound like a fairly convincing mandate.  

Lee Kuan Yew Retires as Minister

Both Minister Mentor (MM) Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister (SM) Mr. Goh Chok Tong have announced that they mean to retire as cabinet ministers.

Somewhat typically for Singapore, the ex-ministers’ joint announcement was made even before the returning Prime Minister (PM) Mr. Lee Hsien Loong (son of LKY) had found an opportunity to present any line up for the incoming cabinet.

People’s Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Halmah Jacob said at a community event earlier today (15^th May 2011) that she did not think the decision was made as a result of the election.  Why was it not made prior to the election then, I wonder? 

I am particularly curious to notice how constituents in Marine Parade GRC might react to this announcement.  Critics insist the electorate in Marine Parade would not have returned Ms. Tin Pei Ling to parliament had it not been for the fact that the PAP in that constituency was supposed to be being helmed by Mr. Goh, a ‘Senior Minister’ whom voters had been encouraged to imagine the country could not afford to lose.

I am curious too to see what members in the incoming cabinet will have to say about its line up given that no fewer than four members in the outgoing cabinet have either lost their seats at the General Election or have said they don’t wish to be a part of it.

Tin Pei Ling - MP!

Why was I not surprised to hear that Ms. Tin Pei Ling was one of the first – probably the first - newly elected Members of Parliament (MPs) to host a Meet the People session following the announcement of the results in Singapore’s General Election 2011?

Ms. Tin is going to need to work very hard indeed, I think, if she means to prove to her detractors that the people of Marine Parade did well to return her to parliament.  It will be interesting too to notice to what extent Ms. Tin’s party, the People’s Action Party (PAP) will be willing to support her endeavours to redeem herself in the eyes of the Nation.  Was it her own idea or was she advised to make an early start on working with actual constituents in MacPherson, I wonder?  What else might she be expected to do as an MP other than serve those of her constituents that happen to be seeking financial assistance and/or help in securing rental flats?

Senior Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, has already been heard saying something or other about Ms. Tin and the National Solidarity Party (NSP)’s Ms. Nicole Seah both having been factors in the outcome of the Marine Parade results.  (Being some three years younger than the much-maligned Ms. Tin, Ms. Seah’s presence in the contest might have served to make Ms. Tin’s ability to handle the rigours of being an MP appear all the more questionable; one could hardly defend her lack of appeal as a candidate on her youth and inexperience, not when the yet more youthful and even less experienced Ms. Seah appeared to be winning over so many hearts and minds not only in Marine Parade but at a National level as well.)

He has also been heard to suggest that the PAP wanted Ms. Tin as a candidate not so much despite her youth but, more accurately, because of it; the PAP appears to have expected that she might help the PAP to win over the youth vote.  Had the party been able to attract a Ms. Seah, my guess is that it would have been delighted to field her.  I’m uncertain whether the PAP can hope to attract any young candidate that might appear so appealing as Ms. Seah, however; the party’s branding makes it unlikely any so obviously passionate a young person would perceive it as providing a platform upon which to stand for change and it is Ms. Seah’s eagerness to promote change that forces her to be so open about her opinions, I think.

Ms. Seah did not ask voters to like or dislike her; she asked them to like or dislike the policies being put forward by her party.  Ms. Tin, on the other hand, failed to appear to support (or even to oppose) any policy referred to in the PAP manifesto.  She promised to do her best to help her constituents get their needs met, leaving voters with the impression she might try to help them deal with the bureaucracy and that would be enough to see them well and happy.  In a Singapore that is all of a sudden more politicised than ever before, TPL’s approach doesn’t appear to cut a lot of ice, I’m afraid.

Transforming The PAP (1)

Here are just two things I’d love to notice Singaporeans talking about now that the 2011 General Election is over and done with:

1. What might a ‘transformed’ People’s Action Party (PAP) actually look like?
2. Is it possible that a transformed PAP could remain in power indefinitely?

The fact that I’m bothering to pose the second of these questions might seem a tad strange.   Just yesterday, I commented that it seemed to me the primary problem in Singapore right now is that the people of Singapore don’t seem to be so accepting of the ‘PAP good, not-the-PAP bad’ mantra as they used to be.  Why should it matter to them if the PAP can remain in power indefinitely then?

It matters, I think, because, as various key figures within the PAP have been wont to say on more occasions than I can find the time to list, Singapore is such an exceptionally tiny boat floating in potentially exceedingly stormy International waters that becoming more of a two- or multi-party democracy than it is at present might serve to very seriously curtail its ability to remain stable.

I also commented yesterday that the PAP might not appear to have been effectively transformed until such time as its own members could be persuaded to recognise the possibility that not-the-PAP might not be so bad after all.  The problem with this, of course, is that admitting that the other guys might not really be so bad in what remains an essentially adversarial political system might prove to be political suicide.  Of course the PAP needs to argue that it is right and the other side is wrong.  How else could it hope to continue winning in future elections?

Call me a hopeless idealist if you will and there is, I think, an alternative way forward that might even serve to impact the rest of the World to the good as well.  Put simply, the PAP must let go its attachment to the idea of Singapore needing to be ruled by the PAP and revisit its original vision of an Independent Singapore ruled by Singaporeans.  Once it has done so, it might truly be described as ‘transformed’; until it has done so, my guess is that it will continue to see its share of the vote diminishing and diminishing again until, eventually, it will be replaced in Government by one or another or a combination of those parties it has, until now, chosen to refer to collectively as ‘the Opposition’.

How could it show that it is committed to reinstating its original vision?  One of the first thing it should do, in my hopelessly idealistic opinion, is see to it that all the figures from this most recent election are released, right down to the details of the count in each of the individual wards.  This might have the effect of silencing those critics who wish to claim it does not deserve the overwhelming majority of the elected seats (81 out of 87) that were up for grabs in 2011.  Alternatively, in the event that the figures should happen to prove what the critics have been saying to be true, the PAP would have an opportunity to apologise to the electorate and to undertake to establish a more representative system in the future.  That action alone might serve to quieten a lot of the grumbling and could be used as evidence that the PAP means what it says about transforming itself back into a party that listens.

What then?  Call for the early dissolution of this parliament and for a new election to be conducted whose results cannot be called into question as Gerrymandered or ‘fixed’ in any other way.  Those MPs that were returned to parliament without having won a majority of the votes in wards they are now supposed to helm could be removed from Parliament, either as a result of having being dropped off their party’s slate or by the voters.  (Let’s face it:  The figures that have been released so far suggest there might be quite a few GRCs that would have returned teams comprised of a mixture of both PAP and not-the-PAP representatives had voters been permitted to vote for individual candidates instead of being required to vote for teams.)  This would provide further evidence that the PAP does not mean to talk about transforming itself so much as it truly means to transform.

Autocracy, Belief and Control

What seems to me a highly intelligent posting at The Online Citizen explains more clearly than I have ever managed to explain it my discomfort around an election that has, according to the media, been contested by a group of people called the People’s Action Party (PAP) and another group of people called ‘the Opposition’.

The author of the piece, one Karen Tse, quotes the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard as saying ‘Once you label me, you negate me’.  ‘A cursory glance at the state-controlled media reveals how labelling of “the opposition” by the PAP is problematic because it suggests an unruly quality in all opposition parties,’ says Ms. Tse.

I agree.  Where I am less inclined to agree so wholeheartedly is where Ms. Tse describes ‘The primary problem that Singapore is facing…’ as being that ‘the PAP has established itself to be the sole party capable of running the country with good intentions.’  On the contrary, the primary problem it seems to me that Singapore is facing is that the people of Singapore don’t seem to be as universally accepting of the ‘PAP Good, Not-the-PAP Bad’ mantra as they used to be.

Since this most recent election, Minister Mentor (MM) Lee Kuan Yew, who was a founding member of the PAP, has already been heard to say ‘2011 has seen a generation that does not remember whence we came’.  Even if you assume that statement to be true, it seems to me unlikely that even the mighty PAP can make a whole 40% of the population remember whatever it is they are supposed to have forgotten.  Other PAP figures, most notably George Yeo in his final campaign speech, have instead acknowledged a need for a transformation within the PAP.

Transforming itself is going to be a challenge for a party that’s comprised primarily out of advocates for the ‘PAP Good, Not-the-Pap Bad’ mantra, unfortunately.  Ex-Minister Ms. Lim Hwee Hua (a team mate of Mr. Yeo’s in Aljunied) commented just yesterday that ‘the test would be whether after the transformation people feel that the PAP has tried really hard, and is now better able to reach out to more people’.  I don’t know that very many Singaporeans, not even the 60% of them who voted for the PAP in this most recent election, want to see a party that is ‘trying hard’ nor even one that is ‘reaching out’, however.  Rather, Singaporeans of all political persuasions are anxious to not only be heard but be taken into account, I think. 

The PAP must give up believing that the only reason 40% of the people don’t seem to like its policies is because, unlike the other 60%, they don’t properly understand that those policies represent what’s best for Singapore.  Instead, it must accept that different people might have different opinions about what’s best and that, in a democracy, it’s up to the voters to decide whose best they prefer.

George Yeo for President!

For all that a number of the postings I stumbled across prior to Singapore’s General Election 2011 often appeared to be a tad tongue in cheek about the outgoing Minister for Foreign Affairs standing for election as Singapore’s next President, I am strongly inclined to support the idea of George Yeo for President.

Now that the results are in and George is quite definitely out of Parliament, I trust Singaporeans might give the matter some more serious thought and hope George can be persuade to reconsider the statement he has already made (referred to in Today newspaper on Wednesday May 11^th 2011) to the effect that he does not consider himself ‘temperamentally suited’ to the role.

Several bloggers have already suggested that perhaps what George meant to say is that he does not consider himself temperamentally suited to the role of obligingly rubber stamping anything and everything that gets put in front of him.  According to a couple of amendments that were made to the constitution of Singapore in 1991, the President of Singapore does have certain powers he or she might choose to exercise according to his or her own discretion, as demonstrated by Mr Ong Teng Cheong, Singapore’s only popularly elected President to date.

Mr. Ong, whose candidacy had been endorsed by the People’s Action Party (PAP) captured some 59% of the popular vote, a marginally lower percentage than that captured by the PAP Government of the day (61% of the valid votes in the Parliamentary General Election of 1991).  George might succeed in winning a rather larger percentage of the vote than Mr. Ong did in 1993, however, and very possibly a larger percentage than the just over 60% the PAP has managed to pull together in 2011. He might be empowered to refer to a stronger popular mandate than the present Government then, which might, without going so far as to disable it in any way, provide a reassuring check on that Government.  He might further be empowered to demonstrate to Singaporeans the role a truly popular President might play as a key member of Singapore’s legislature rather than as a Rubber Stamper.

That’s if and only if not only George can be persuaded to stand but some other eligible candidate can be persuaded to stand against him, of course.  I am inclined to agree that George might prove temperamentally unsuited to the role of President-Appointed-By-Default.  Candidates who have been awarded Certificates of Eligibility to stand for President need not go so far as to submit nomination papers until after they hear that they have been declared eligible, however, thus neither George nor anyone else would be required to confirm their intention to run until they knew whether the Presidency was going to be contested or not. 

(Note:  I have tried my hardest to check that the current President, Sellapan Rama Nathan, was afforded an opportunity to withdraw from both of the One Horse Races for which he entered, in 1999 and 2005.  I was unable to locate any kind of evidence one way or the other, however, and will appreciate hearing from anyone who knows where exactly such evidence might be found.)  

Best Possible Outcomes?

What’s the best possible outcome for this election?  The answer to this question will depend on who you ask.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) would very much like to be returned to power, of course – preferably with its present ministerial team still intact.  (Deputy Prime Minister Mr Teo Chee Hean warned at a PAP rally last night that the Prime Minister’s burden might be made even heavier.  ‘If you take away the people who can be good ministers, who is he going to work with?’ he asked.)

Meanwhile, the Worker’s Party wants to see an increase in the number of Members of Parliament belonging to parties other than the PAP – Constituency MPs with full voting rights as opposed to non-Constituency MPs who can say whatever they like in parliament but who don’t always get to participate in the voting that follows each debate.  The WP is facing a tough battle in Aljuneid, however, where a vote for the WP might not be equated with a vote against the PAP but with a vote against incumbent Foreign Minister, George Yeo, who, truth be told, even the WP appear to have a great deal of respect for.

(During the last of the PAP rallies to take place in Aljuneid last night, Mr Yeo appears to have accused the WP of trying to distract Singaporeans by setting up a website calling for him to become the next elected President.  All I’ve been able to find so far is a facebook page, here.  My personal sense is that it’s an idea that might seriously take off in the event the WP does manage to wrest Aljuneid out of PAP hands.  Out of all of them, Mr. Yeo comes across authentically anxious to serve rather than govern the people of Singapore.  I will be writing more about this under a separate heading and will come back to post a link to that piece here.)

For myself, I am inclined to imagine that the best possible outcome for Singapore – and, if it did but know it, probably for the PAP as well – might be for the PAP to be returned to power but having lost Ang Mo Kio, where the PAP team is led by the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.  The party would be forced to select a new leader, meaning that the country too could enjoy a new leader but without having to do away with the PAP, which isn’t something I believe very many Singaporeans truly want.  Changes in leadership have worked to revitalise party fortunes in other countries – John Major was able to lead the British Conservative party to their fourth successive General Election victory in 1992, for example, something the outgoing and, by then, very seriously unpopular Margaret Thatcher could not have done.

Of course, Singapore’s PAP is structured rather differently to any of the parties in the UK.  Until now, the role of leader has been passed from one incumbent to another – from Lee Kuan Yew to Goh Chek Tong, from Goh Chek Tong to Lee Hsien Loong.  No vote has ever been held, or not that I’ve been able to uncover any evidence of.  The constitution would allow that a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister could be tabled in Parliament, but that might be very bad for Singapore’s image, I think.  In other words, having the electorate fail to return an incumbent leader might be the only way to stimulate debate around the matter of the party’s leadership.

Cooling Off Day

The campaigning period is officially over and Singaporeans are supposed to be spending the next 24 hours thinking about all the various issues that have been raised.  The Polling Stations will be open on Saturday morning, and then…

Who knows?  In one of the most insightful commentaries I’ve come across so far, P N Balji, director of the Asia Journalism Fellowship, writes that ‘one unmistakable message is shaping [the] General Election 2011’.

‘The Singaporean voter wants to engage and he wants to do so actively and energetically,’ he writes, and, for what it’s worth, it seems to me he could well be right.  Find P J Balji’s commentary here.

Electoral Reform?

Today is the last day for campaigning.  According to the constitution, Singaporeans must be allowed a ‘cooling off’ period before heading to the polls.  In theory then, no electioneering can take place tomorrow, and Singaporeans will be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in good time to cast their votes on Saturday.

According to Today newspaper, as many as 66 out of 150 voters its reporters spoke to in Aljunied have yet to decide who they mean to vote for.  I have a feeling opinion polls might be illegal in Singapore; the newspaper doesn’t say which way the more decisive 84 out of 150 people asked intend to vote.  Instead, it points out that the undecided 66 could decide this General Election’s fiercest battle.  Well duh! 

Meanwhile, voters are quoted as saying things like, ‘This is a very serious matter and I don’t want to vote frivolously,’ and ‘I think I will talk to my parents’.  A. has yet to decide who he means to vote for; he says he will decide at the polling station.  Frankly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference between the two candidates in our Single Member Constituency – both are promising to do something about traffic congestion and an increasingly desperate lack of parking.  Neither has said anything I’m aware of that sounds even remotely specific, however.  If I had a vote, I honestly think I might prefer to spoil my ballot paper than vote for either of them.  I could probably be persuaded to cast a valid vote in favour of anyone who was proposing some form of electoral reform, but, apart from maybe redrawing the boundaries yet again, no-one is, or no-one I know of.

Meanwhile, I understand the folks in Blighty are voting today in a referendum regarding precisely that – i.e. whether to replace the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system with an alternative vote (AV) system.  According to my mother, the Liberal Democrats, who have been campaigning in favour of a change for decades, don’t want AV but appear willing to settle for it, at least for the time being.  The Conservatives don’t want to notice any change to the current system and the Labour party doesn’t have any official position on the matter.  The opinion polls to date suggest the vote could go either way; for what it’s worth though, my Mother says she isn’t expecting the nation to say ‘Yes!’ and a close friend who will be voting in Northern Ireland admits she finds having elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, to local councils AND the referendum all happening on the same day ‘a bit much’.

Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are conducted under the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.  The STV system uses multi-seat constituencies, whilst the AV system doesn’t.  I have a feeling STV is what the Lib Dems ideally wanted to see being used throughout the UK and am certain the composition of House in Singapore would look quite different if STV were to be introduced into Singapore’s Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs). 

Could it happen?

In the unlikely event that the People’s Action Party should happen to lose in every constituency that’s being contested, the next parliament would look as follows:

Worker’s Party                             22/23

Reform Party                                    11

Singapore People’s Party                      7

National Solidarity Party                     24

Singapore Democratic Party                11

Singapore Democratic Alliance           6/7

People’s Action Party                         5

Will anyone be appointed to the 9 seats that have been reserved for Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) under such circumstances, I wonder?

To be eligible to become an NCMP, a candidate must have polled not less than 15% of the total number of valid votes in the electoral division contested by him or her.  The unelected opposition candidate who receives the highest percentage of votes is entitled to be declared the first NCMP, followed by other opposition candidates in descending order according to the percentages of votes polled by them.

In other words, assuming it prefers not to join any coalition that might be formed and that that coalition happens to include all 82 not-the-PAP members in the House, the PAP would be entitled to add at least an additional 3 PAP NCMPs to its ranks (4 in fact, provided it comes second rather than last in Punggol East, the only constituency in which more than 2 candidates are standing for election).

In the event that not all 82 not-the-PAP members can agree to form a single government, there will already be more than 9 members of the Opposition – 5 from the PAP, including no lesser figure than Lee Kuan Yew himself and a minimum of at least 6 others.  According to the PAP’s own argument, 9 is a perfectly large enough number of Opposition MPs to form a shadow cabinet that’s 2/3^rds the size of the present cabinet.  Add to these, no fewer than 9 Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs), and Singapore might continue to reap the benefits of having a strong government – i.e. one that enjoys the support of the vast majority of members in the House – whilst also incorporating a suitable number of alternative voices, no?

The only real difference would be that not only would the government not be being formed by the PAP but it would be being formed by more than one party.  Around the World, only Germany appears to have thriven under a succession of coalition governments.  Britain currently has its first coalition government in decades, one a great many commentators expressed their doubts could last as long as it has.  Would this really be such an appalling result for Singapore?  These aren’t questions that anyone can expect to answer except perhaps in retrospect.  Nor, unfortunately, can the questions ‘Can any not-the-PAP alternative come into power gradually or will it need to burst onto the scene unexpectedly?’ or ‘Will the PAP ever be willing to give up being Singapore’s main party and accept a role as one of many parties?’

What to vote for?

For all that almost all the Opposition parties that are fielding candidates in 2011 consider high ministerial salaries, the social impact of the recent influx of foreigners into Singapore and having more alternative voices in parliament to be ‘election issues’, the incumbent People’s Action Party (PAP) does not, or so it seems.

Senior Minister Mr. Goh Chok Tong said on Monday that the majority of the people are not concerned with the issue of ministers’ salaries, for example.

Referring to the Opposition’s calls for more alternative voices in Parliament, Prime Minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong said the political system in Singapore is contestable and easy for parties to enter and challenge the PAP.

As for the social impact of the recent influx of foreigners…  Quite honestly, I remain unclear as to where anybody really stands on that one!  Singapore definitely appears to be a lot more crowded than it was when I first moved here, the roads are more congested and that latest private homes that are being built (I don’t know so much about Housing Development Board flats) appear to be a lot smaller than used to be the case.  A. and I don’t tend to venture out so much as we used to on weekends or public holidays or, at least, to be very cautious about where we venture and how we intend to get there and to get back; too many of Singapore’s entertainment facilities appear to us to be too unpleasantly over-crowded to be remotely fun to visit.

The PAP appears to consider these things inevitable; unless Singapore can continue to expand its population, its economy cannot be expected to grow.  The Opposition appears to want that the PAP should be willing to consider growing the economy via some means other than importing more and more workers from elsewhere.  The PAP argues that as Singapore continues to prosper so too must individual Singaporeans.  The Opposition argues that unless individual Singaporeans appear to be prospering, it can’t really be the cast that Singapore is prospering.  The Gross National Product is up and so is the cost of living; neither mean nor median salaries are up, however, which must surely suggest that Joe and Josephine Average-Singaporean find themselves rather worse off today than a couple of years ago.

Who to vote for?

Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Wong Kan Seng, says the loss of a few Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) will severely weaken the current cabinet.  He also says that leadership renewal will be impeded if the new People’s Action Party (PAP) candidates who are being introduced in 2011 as members in the PAP’s various GRC teams are not elected.

He should know, I think; he is a member in the party that saw fit to introduce the GRC scheme in 1988.  At that time, the ruling party stated that the scheme was being implemented in order to enshrine minority representation in Parliament (at least one member in a GRC must be a member of the Malay, Indian or another minority community in Singapore).  In addition, it was considered that a smaller number of larger constituencies might be able to manage Singapore’s public housing estates rather more economically than a larger number of smaller constituencies.

Whether the scheme has worked to achieve what it was supposed to achieve remains open to debate.  (Critics argue that, rather than working to enshrine minority representation in parliament, it has served to make Joe and Josephine Average-Singaporean more conscious of racial differences than they were previously.)  A more significant observation regarding the scheme seems to me to be that, as the DPM has openly admitted, it forces voters to consider whether they might, by voting for whomsoever they happen to consider might manage their local issues most effectively, be depriving the incoming government of a vital team member. 

Meanwhile, given that it appears highly likely that the PAP will be returned to power yet again, it’s the Opposition parties that are busy reassuring voters the PAP is big enough to withstand the loss of one or two incumbent ministers, if not five or six.  And it’s the PAP that’s telling them the opposite – i.e. that it might not be able to govern so effectively in the event that one or more GRCs should fail to return a PAP team to parliament.   

Interestingly, it is candidates standing for parties other than the PAP that are also reassuring voters that the ballot in Singapore really is secret and that the future PAP government won’t stoop to persecuting voters who didn’t choose to vote for it.

Shouldn’t it be the PAP that is seeking to reassure the voting public on these two matters?  Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, has tended to fend off criticism to the effect that Singapore’s democracy isn’t ‘a proper democracy’ by admitting that the democratic system that’s been developed in Singapore is indeed quite different to any democratic system that has been developed elsewhere, and that Singapore is better off as a result of that.  Meanwhile, it seems to me the PAP might have fared rather better over the long term had it dropped the idea that Singapore is supposed to be a democracy several decades ago and amended the constitution to reflect that it prefers to be the World’s most efficient and essentially inclusive single party state.

K Jeyaretnum - More

Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong did not write in a condolence letter to the Jeyaretnums following their father’s passing that the late Mr Joshua Benjamin Jeraretnum ‘had to be destroyed’.

JBJ’s eldest son, Kenneth has apolgised at a press conference held on Monday 2 May for suggesting that he did.  

Speaking to reporters after a Reform Party rally, he said: ‘It was an honest mistake and I apologise if I misquoted him.’

Meanwhile, the question I would like to hear answered is how much damage did the PM inflict upon his own reputation by writing that particular letter of condolence in the first place?

I mean:  Did he need to mention in the context of JBJ’s track record as a politician that, ‘Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition’?  I thought the general rule with letters of condolence was to either write something very obviously respectful or to restrict oneself to writing as little as possible.  At least, one might ask oneself, ‘Am I helping the bereaved to feel better?’  If the answer is ‘Probably not,’ then it seems to me one can’t have sat down with the intention of writing a letter of condolence but some other sort of letter.

Kenneth Jeyaretnum

It seems the Reform Party (RP) Chief, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, misquoted the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, during a political rally that took place on Saturday 30 April.  Mr. Jeyaretnam told the rally audience that the PM had written in his condolence letter to the family following the death of Mr. Jeyaretnam’s father, Joshua Benjamin Jeraretnam, that JB Jeraretnam ‘had to be destroyed’.  Of course, the PM wrote no such thing, and his letter was reproduced in at least one newspaper in facsimile to prove it.  The letter reads as follows:

‘I was sad to learn that your father, Mr Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, has passed away.

‘Mr J B Jeyaretnam was a Member of Parliament for Anson constituency from 1981 till 1986, and a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from 1997 till 2001.  He used to engage in heated debates in the House.  Perhaps because it was because he and the PAP never saw eye to eye on any major political issues and he sought by all means to demolish the PAP and our system of government.  Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition.  Nevertheless, one had to respect MR JB Jeyaretnam’s dogged tenacity to be active in politics at his age.

‘However, our differences were not personal.  In 1993, one of you (Kenneth) wrote to Goh Chek Tong, who was then Prime Minister, to say that you found employers in Singapore reluctant to offer you a job and your only explanation was that the employers felt the authorities would not welcome your employment because of your name.  Mr Goh replied with a letter which could be shown to prospective employers to say that the government did not hold anything against you and that employers should evaluate you fairly on your own merits, like any other candidate, because Singapore needed every talented person that it could find.  Mr Goh had previously made the same point to your brother Philip, whom he had invited to lunch.  I am therefore happy that both of you have established yourselves in Singapore.

‘Please accept my deepest condolences.’

As long ago at January 5^th, JB’s elder son, Kenneth, described this letter during a JBJ Birthday Memorial as ‘appallingly misjudged’.  ‘[It] characterised JBJ as a man out to destroy the PAP and our whole system of government,’ he said. 

In at least one report, Kenneth is described as having said the following:  ‘[It] characterised JBJ as “a man out to destroy the PAP and our whole system of government”.’ 

Did Kenneth include those quotation marks, I wonder, or were they added in by some reporter who never saw the written version of Kenneth’s speech?

Meanwhile, I have not been able to find any video or written version of Kenneth’s rally speech that includes any reference to the PM’s letter of condolence.

Arrival of Polling Cards

All of a sudden, it seems A. is willing to speculate about the upcoming election after all.  A Singaporean through and through, he is particularly anxious that I should understand the significance of Mr. Low Thia Khiang’s decision to quit Hougang and contest in Aljunied instead.  Quite honestly, I find myself way ahead of him, not only on that one but in several other areas.  I’ve said it before and will say it again here:  I find Singapore’s unique brand of politics absolutely fascinating.

A.’s sudden excitement is understandable, I think.  Hougang is one of just two Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) whose residents have resolutely refused to return a member of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in recent years.  Mr. Low has managed to hold the seat for the Workers’ Party (WP) for no fewer than 20 years, and popular opinion seems to be that he would almost certainly have held it again on this occasion except that the WP (of which he happens to be Leader) wants him to lead a team in the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) of Aljuneid. 

A GRC is a type of electoral division, the Members of Parliament (MPs) of which are voted into Parliament as a group.  Since their advent in June 1988, no GRC has returned a team of MPs affiliated to any party other than the PAP.  Until now, in fact, the closest electoral battle ever recorded in a GRC took place in – you guessed it! – Aljunied, where, helmed by party Chairman Sylvia Lim, a WP team managed to capture some 43.9% of the vote.

Is Aljuneid really the constituency to watch this time around?  Mr. Low has managed to hold on to Hougang for a good long while, and the voters in Aljuneid have come closer to pushing the PAP team out of office than those in any other GRC.  Or could it be that, whilst the biggest guns all train their sights on knocking out either the PAP or the Workers Party in Aljuneid, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) will be allowed to conquer the less volatile terrain of Marine Parade?

For what it’s worth, here’s what Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had to say about the crowds at opposition rallies.

‘Do you believe that all those who go there are going to vote for the Opposition?  Just think, [for] five years, they are in charge of your property , and your lives – mosquitoes, drains, property values – finally, you have to make your choice.  If you like to try your luck, well, good luck to you.’

(source:  Weekend Today, Saturday April 30, 2011)

35 Seconds Too Late?

A team of would-be candidates did show up to file nomination papers that might have allowed them to contest the upcoming election in the Tanjong Pagar Group Representation Constituency (GRC).  Their submission was ruled to have missed the deadline by 35 seconds, however.  The disappointed team intends to file a complaint with the Elections Department alleging bias, apparently.  Given that’s the same Elections Department that ruled that they had missed the deadline, I doubt complaining is going to get them anywhere, which seems to me a pity. 

Tanjong Pagar is the only constituency in which voters won’t have an opportunity to vote during the 2011 election, and I wonder that the People’s Action Party (PAP) doesn’t recognise that it might have been a good idea to have the Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, and his team, out fighting for their seats along with everybody else. 

LKY is Old School after all, and neither Joe nor Josephine Average-Singaporean appears to have much of an axe to grind with the Old School.  Rather, it is the New School (recently dubbed ‘the new PAP cadre’ by Singapore Democratic Party candidate Michelle Lee) that is coming under fire during the 2011 campaign period.  Being Old School, LKY didn’t need for a walkover to be declared in his constituency; the chances are that the voters in Tanjong Pagar would have supported him anyway.

 

Meanwhile, unfortunately for the PAP, having been in Government for the past 52 years, it can’t claim not to have played a significant role in designing such an incredibly exacting nomination system that would-be candidates might end up being disqualified for what might appear to be trivial reasons.  35 seconds is hardly a very long time in the history of an entire nation, is it?  (Yes, yes.  I can appreciate the argument that says if you allow someone to be 35 seconds late on this occasion, you’ll be setting a precedent that might allow them to be 70 seconds late next time, then 105 seconds, then 140 seconds, ad infinitum.  My point isn’t that the nomination system seems to me unfair; my point is that any criticism that’s levelled against it must surely be levelled against its architects – i.e. the PAP.)

Mind the Gap

There’s an all new cartoon strip in Singapore, courtesy of those clever people at www.gov.sg.  Scroll down the page to find the heading ‘features’ on the right hand side.  The Hows icon looks a lot like the Under One Roof icon. 

For those who can’t be bothered to view the strips for themselves, the Hows are a family of five that’s comprised of a mother and father (55+ years old), two grown up daughters (of unspecified ages as yet, although one of them is married and already pregnant) and one son-in-law.

Thus far, through their various interactions with one another, the Hows have served to remind Singaporeans that ‘Flat buyers and sellers have different interests’, and ‘Re-employment is a win-win for both employers and employees’, amongst other things.  A. finds the strip rather too ‘in your face’, and imagines its appearance in newspapers might prove counterproductive.  I, meanwhile, am fascinated to notice the extent to which the Hows might be seen to represent not exactly the cream of the Singaporean society but a family of essentially contented HDB-dwellers, classic Joe and Josephine Average Singaporeans if ever there were any.

Young Melissa How and her husband Peter might have needed to moderate their expectations in order to be able to buy a home of their own, for example, and at least they were able to buy a home.  Elsie Tan might have needed to retrain in order to find herself a job, and yet she rose to become ‘one of the 100 model workers honoured by the labour movement’ in the strip that appeared just two days after the one in which she first came up with the idea of going back to work.  Are there really ‘enough flats for everyone’, as the caption for April 14^th’s cartoon says there are?  Is re-employment always a win-win for both employers and employees?  The problem, it seems to me, is that, even if the government could prove these statements to be true, the real Mr and Mrs Average Singaporean might tell them, ‘We’re sorry, and we don’t want to stay active and save more for our retirements; what we want, actually, to be able to retire.  And we don’t want to have to moderate our expectations in order to be able to buy a home either; what we want are dream homes and quickly!’

In an episode of the British comedy classic, Fawlty Towers, a disgruntled guest describes the view from her window as ‘Not good enough’.  ‘What did you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel window?’ asks an incredulous Basil Fawlty.  ‘The hanging gardens of Babylon?  Herds of wilderbeests sweeping majestically across the plains?’  The PAP government in Singapore might be forgiven for feeling equally bewildered when it hears that Singaporean’s are less than 100% satisfied with their lot.  Hasn’t it provided the populace with 10s of 1000s of new homes since it first came to power?  Hasn’t it guaranteed that their savings can grow faster when invested in its Central Provident Fund (CPF) than they can in any plain or simple bank account?  Its youngest candidate in the upcoming election, Tin Pei Ling, has been just about hung, drawn and quartered on YouTube for describing the cost of education in Singapore as ‘very low’ and, as far as I can make out, university tuition fees at least really are quite low in Singapore as compared to those in either the US or the UK.

What might Singaporeans have been promised, I wonder, that should have left them feeling more disappointed than grateful?  And, as long as their standard of living appears to them less than it should be, how can the PAP be expected to catch up the difference for them?

Raving Loonies? (Part 2)

So what is it that Singaporeans feel they need to be so reasonable about?  I’m not sure I have the smallest idea.  A. found it weirdly amusing (and, God knows, he does probably deserve to feel amused about something!) to refuse to tell me the first and even the fifth or six time I asked him who he cast his vote in favour of in 2006.  In the end, I believe, he looked at the personalities involved and voted for the guy he thought most likely to work to improve local residents’ quality of life.  As a voter in the UK, I wasn’t required to worry about what my MP was proposing to achieve in my constituency; improving local residents’ quality of life is a job for the local council and not for the people’s representative in parliament.  All I really had to decide was whether I would prefer to see the Conservative party or the Labour party form the next Government and, thereafter, vote for whichever local candidate seemed most likely to defeat the candidate from the party I didn’t want to see in power.  Under what is essentially a two-story system, provided the party I didn’t want could be defeated, the party I did want must inevitably come into power, you see? 

Another thing that makes it appear fairly easy for British voters to decide how to cast their votes is that the two dominant parties are each likely to be promoting a hugely different set of proposals.  For example, as long as the Labour party is proposing to use tax payers’ money to build more subsidised housing, its Conservative counterpart will be proposing to sell off any subsidising housing that’s owned by the state in order that tax payers might not have to pay so much tax.  Voters need to get used to the idea of voting against what they don’t want and not voting in favour of what they do want, that’s all.  In contrast, Singaporean voters appear to expect that opposing candidates should each be making more or less exactly the same promises to the electorate – to control the cost of living, create more jobs for Singaporeans, keep housing affordable, etc.  The only real difference is that the PAP doesn’t usually have very much to say about public accountability; it’s only the representatives in other parties who are inclined to bang on about that one…    

Raving Loonies? (Part 1)

For some reason, I am able to feel a lot more excited about Singapore’s upcoming election than my husband is.

Perhaps this is because, as a mere Permanent Resident in Singapore, I won’t be required to cast a vote on May 7^th.  As a bone fide citizen, A. will be required to vote however, and he will want to do so sensibly.  Acting sensibly appears to both harder and a whole lot necessary in Singapore than it is in the UK, unfortunately.  Governance is considered to be a serious business, not something to poke fun at.

This might explain why there’s no Monster Raving Loony party as yet in Singapore.  Officially registered in England in 1983 by musician David Sutch of Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages, the party issues daft manifestos and proposes even dafter laws but with the intention of drawing the voting public’s attention to serious issues.  To date, it has fielded candidates in both local and national assembly elections, where candidates are only required to deposit a sum of GBP500 in order to be allowed to stand as a candidate.  In 2011, would-be candidates in Singapore are required to lodge a deposit of around 15 times that amount.

Which is the more mature electorate, I wonder?  The one that requires the right of universal suffrage to be exercised reasonably, rationally and responsibly or the one that permits voters to not even turn out at the polling station unless they choose to do so?  It all depends on one’s definition of the word ‘mature’, I suppose.  Whilst a great many Singaporeans might disapprove of the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch, as many Britons would prefer to notice that a no candidate is ever permitted to walk into parliament without having first been opposed, no matter how inconsequentially.  Neither approach appears to me to be ideal or even any better than the other; they are merely very, VERY different to one another…