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…

Polling Day: 7th May

Today’s front pages are all dedicated to the upcoming election, of course.  Nomination Day will be on April 27^th.  Polling will take place on May 7^th.  Many commentators are insisting this will be a ‘landmark election’. 

Writing for the free newssheet, TODAY, Assistant Professor of Law, Eugene Tan, admits that, after the votes are in, ‘Barring a dramatic reversal of fortune the PAP (People’s Action Party) will form the government, continuing an unbroken run dating back to 1959’.  He also asks, ‘Would it mark the beginning of a viable two-party system in Singapore’s democratic development?’  For now, Singapore has rather more than two political parties; it has the PAP and a whole slew of other parties, several but not all of which are loosely united under the banner of the Singapore Democratic Alliance.  Frankly, it appears unlikely these will find a way to cooperate with one another in order that every ward is at least contested, and none of them are claiming that they expect to form the next administration.

Having said as much, I stumbled upon a fascinating piece of writing this morning, Zakir Hussain’s ‘What Low Thia Khiang can learn from Lee Kuan Yew’.  In it, Hussain reminds his readers that even the now mighty PAP only managed to field four candidates in the elections to Singapore’s first Legislative Assembly in April 1955.  Within four years, however, it was in power.

‘Drawing attention to this oft-forgotten fact in a speech to university students last week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made the point that the quality of an opposition is as important as the numbers of its MPs.

‘He said: 'You have three now in Parliament, there's nothing to stop them from holding the government to account, from propounding ideas and strategies, from challenging the government's assumptions and forcing the government to justify why it's thinking, what it's doing.’

The writer goes on to acknowledge that ‘No doubt, the political climate and historical circumstances at the time were vastly different from today's situation’.  What he fails to acknowledge specifically though is that Singapore hadn’t achieved full self-government in 1955 and didn’t become an independent Republic until 1965.  Not only were the political climate and historical circumstances vastly different but so too was the structure of the house the PAP pioneers sought to establish a toe-hold in.

Murder at Keppel Bay

I don’t tend to read the Straits Times, although I do usually get to see its front page.  (Our opposite neighbours’ copy is still lying on their doormat most mornings as my husband and I leave the house.)

The discovery of the decomposed remains of one Mr. Wong Teck Siong wasn’t considered to be front page news, however.  Instead, our housekeeper told me about it.  As it unfolds, her son works for the guy who’s now been charged with murdering Mr. Wong in an apartment in The Caribbean, an upmarket condominium located at Keppel Bay Drive. 

According to the teaser story posted at the Straits Times, ‘many other details surrounding the killing… are still shrouded in secrecy’.  Our housekeeper’s primary concern right now has to do with what’s going to happen to the company her son works in if its owner is convicted of murder.

Tin Pei Ling

Will anyone be kind enough to vote for Tin Pei Ling? 

At the time of writing, the answer to this question might not appear to matter very much outside of Singapore, where I doubt very many people will have even heard of the current ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP)’s, youngest parliamentary candidate in this upcoming election. 

Nor, actually, does it matter very much – or not just yet - inside of Singapore where the ward Ms Tin is scheduled to stand in, Marine Parade, is one of several Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) that have gone uncontested in recent years, ever since 1991 in fact.

A GRC is described at http//en.wikipedia.org/ as ‘a type of electoral division or constituency in Singapore, the Members of Parliament (MPs) of which are voted into Parliament as a group’.  The GRC scheme first came into effect on 1^st June 1988 and, since then, no GRC has ever fallen to any party other than the PAP.  In other words, in the event that Marine Parade is contested in 2011 (which it currently appears likely it will be), Ms Tin’s team will either win or it won’t win.  As a mere individual, youngest parliamentary candidate or not, Ms Tin herself can do neither.

A Way to Find People?

I happened to be searching the web today, looking for one Josephine Hocking, a girl I used to attend sixth form with.  I didn't find any contact information for her but I did find an article that was written by somebody of the same name and posted at www.guardian.co.uk.  It was an obituary for a man who looks somewhat familiar to me; it's possible that he attended my first wedding as my friend's date, in fact.  Josephine always intended to become a journalist and possessed both the talent and the tenacity to do so, I always thought.  The man who died had lived in Brighton up until 1998, which is where she was living with the man she brought to my wedding way back whenever it was.  I can't remember if she told me they'd split up the last time I saw her, which was in London at around 1995 or thereabouts.  As I recall, I was well over an hour late by the time I managed to find the restaurant where we were supposed to be meeting, something Jo magnanimously insisted was perfectly OK; it was London Transport's fault, not mine, she said.  She was one of the people I meant always keep in touch with and didn't.  Such is life, I suppose.

Might she be able to find me via this post?  Only if she searches for herself or for the name of the school we both attended, I think!  For what it's worth though, we wrote and directed a pantomime together - Snow White and the Seven Garden Gnomes.  She'd be in her mid-forties by now, probably working as a journo, or possibly not.  She used to be a vegetarian and had the most amazing hair - not exactly pre-raphelite and probably quite uniquely difficult to manage, I'd say.  And that's about all I'm wanting to say for now.