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.)