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.