Thinking Outside the Box

“Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?'” Robert Francis Kennedy (1925 – 1968)

A big “Thank You” to all my readers who read my first post about a week ago. I appreciate your comments and valuable feedback.

At the outset, let me say I am well aware that my post today will touch the raw nerves of a large number of opposition Singaporeans whose mind has already made up that the WP candidate, Ms Lee Li Lian, is the “best” opposition candidate. In their mind, she is the best opposition candidate not because she is best qualified to do the MP job well, but because she has the “best” chance of winning. Over the last few weeks since the announcement of the date for the Punggol East by-election, everyday there are literally thousands and thousands of posts and comments written on the walls of Facebook, Yahoo News Singapore, TR Emeritus, and several other political forums.

I am especially impressed by one of the comments, written by a netizen called Mike, that I read on TR Emeritus. In my opinion, his comment shines like a star in the dark sky, as shown below:

Mike:
January 11, 2013 at 6:32 pm Mike(Quote)
“In a democracy, there is no such thing as party “favorites”. As much as party “reputation” is important, the mindset of a voter should be voting for the correct people into parliament. Otherwise, there will be a second PAP in the making – and the cycle inadvertently repeats itself. Dangerous pride tend to creep into human beings’ mindset as the bigger fish they become. China kicked out Chiang Kai Shek, and replaced him with a greater dictator with even greater executive powers in Mao that was near-impossible to displace, with the disastrous “Great Leap Forward” just 3 years after their victory in the civil war – with all the promise of the peasantry being their own landowners falling into pieces. Voter mindset has to change, or we’ll have another Yaw, Palmer scandal – People who like to stand for elections MUST be at the forefront and be their own man, and NOT by creeping into the picture under the coattails of their party leaders as PAP norm”.

I fully agree with Mike’s comment above. Trust me, I like Ms Lee Li Lian. I think she is a very pleasant and likeable woman. But, I am sorry to admit that, if I were a voter in Punggol East now, I would not vote for her to be my MP. My reasons are:

1. Lets be objective, if Li Lian is not a candidate under the WP, do you seriously think she will make it into Parliament on her own ability and personality? (assuming she wins which is still a big question mark). In my opinion, there are many other women who are better in many ways, who would make better MPs. Someday, if Ms Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss and Ms Nicole Seah step into Parliament, I will give both of them my best wishes because they become MPs on their own merit rather than under a so-called brand name. Anyone who aims for public office must be prepared to be under public scrutiny. There is very little information about LLL’s work experience and background. I tried to do some research and the only information I could find is as follows:

a) The Channel NewsAsia Website said: “According to the Chairman of the Workers’ Party, Ms Sylvia Lim, pointed out that Ms Lee has been helping Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh in Eunos division – as his legislative assistant. She also works with the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council to address the concerns of residents”.

b) The Yahoo News Singapore Website said: “Lee, an in-house trainer at a financial institution, last contested the Punggol East ward at the 2011 General Election. She has been with the party for six years and has held various posts including president of the youth wing and is its current deputy webmaster”.

c) The WP’s own Website said: “Lilian is currently a Trainer with a private institution. She has been actively involved in both industrial and financial sales for the past 6 years”.

I cannot speak for the Punggol East residents who will be doing the voting on 26 January 2013. But for me, I have my reservations when I read about such a scanty and vague curriculum vitae. I would not employ her to work in my company if she is hesitant to disclose the “private institution” that she works in, let alone electing her for such an important public office as a Member of Parliament.

2. By now, Singaporeans know that the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has already withdrawn from the Punggol East by-election contest. Prior to the SDP’s decision to withdraw on 15 January 2013, many WP supporters were everywhere in cyberspace, “pressurizing” SDP not to be a “spoiler” and split the “opposition votes”. The WP supporters said that the WP should have the first right to contest in Punggol East before the SDP, RP, and SDA. These supporters claimed that LLL has walked the grounds in Punggol East for a long time before 2011 and also after 2011. And because of her prior extensive walkabouts in Punggol East, LLL should be the RIGHTFUL opposition candidate to fight with PAP”s Dr Koh, whereas the candidates of the SDP, RP and SDA are labeled as “opportunists”.

a) Channel NewsAsia on 14 January 2013:
“Asked about why the (WP) party has not been working the ground in Punggol East, since the last elections in 2011, secretary-general Low Thia Khiang said the party decided to focus on Aljunied, and pool its resources there, after winning the seat. Mr Low said the party decided to cease all ground activities in the wards it contested to focus on Aljunied”.

b) Yahoo News Singapore on 14 January 2013:
“Party secretary-general Low Thia Khiang also took the opportunity to explain why his party members, including Lee, might not have been as visible in the constituency since after the last general election.”
“The Workers’ Party is a small party with limited resources, so I decided our priority should be on Aljunied GRC… (and that we should) cease all ground activities at the constituencies we contested,” he said.

So, the truth is LLL (and WP) has NOT been working the ground in Punggol East AFTER the GE in 2011 until the current by-election.

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. ”
― by Joseph Goebbels

This may seem like a small matter. But it was a pertinent argument point which WP supporters based on to “chase” away the other opposition parties from competing in Punggol East. If we cannot trust the WP to take its own initiative (until been asked on 14 Jan 2013) to speak up and correct an error propagated by its supporters all over the internet, can we trust the WP to correct bigger things for us in Parliament?

3. In my opinion, the WP leaders have an attitude that as long as something bad is not happening in their own backyard, there is no reason for them to get involved. I agree that there are times in life when keeping silent is a good virtue as in “Silence is golden”. On the other hand, keeping silent when there is evidence of injustice or unfairness, is a reflection of selfishness and lack of moral courage. In our local Singlish Language, we call that a “Bo Chap” attitude. An individual person has all the right in the world to have a “bo chap” attitude if that is what he or she likes to be. But a political organization representing a sizeable group of citizens of our country should have a higher standard of civic-minded conduct.

I just re-watched the entire video recording of the press conference on 11 January 2013 during which Dr Chee (SDP) announced the proposal of a joint campaign with the WP. The media, including the internet, has a very short-attention span. The whole press conference actually lasted 20 minutes, but everybody had a knee-jerk reaction after the first five minutes, and jumped to the wrong conclusion that the SDP wanted the “glory” of speaking in the Parliament and let WP do the mundane chore of managing the town council. In actual fact, that was NOT the MAIN message of that press conference. If everyone would take the trouble to listen to the video in its entirety, you would realize that Dr Chee was heeding the call of the people for opposition unity. The media was hung up and made a circus of the first five minutes and neglected to report the rest. The truth was SDP was OPEN to ANY form of cooperation with WP. The idea of SDP doing the speaking part and WP doing the town council part was ONLY ONE of the suggestionS.

For days after that unfortunate press conference, the WP displayed a “Bo Chap” attitude, and allowed the whole incident to play to its own party’s selfish advantage by not saying a word. Well, the media is what the media is. But I expected the WP to be a more responsible political organization, and to refute openly the misreporting done by the press. The WP can make all the (empty) promises they wish during an election campaign rally. But in the end, it is the little acts of kindness and consideration that the WP should have given to their fellow brother in the other opposition party, that would have made me trust the WP.

4. Finally, my personal message to the voters in Punggol East is this, Vote with your heart.
If you are a PAP supporter, there is not much I can say because I am all for the opposition to do well in Singapaore. If you are a die-hard supporter of the WP for whatever reasons, I also have not much to say except to vote what you want. My message is for those opposition supporters who are anti-PAP but NOT pro WP, and who have not made up their mind yet. I like to say to them, if I were you, I would give my vote to either the RP or the SDA. It is a pity that the SDP is not in the contest anymore, otherwise, you could have given your vote to the SDP too.

I understand that many Singaporeans are very disappointed with the PAP and they are suffering from the ill-effects of the wrong PAP policies. Contrary to what the WP supporters are telling you, you do not need to vote the WP in order to send the message to the PAP to repent. An opposition vote is an opposition vote, whether it is for the WP, RP or the SDA. As long as the COMBINED opposition votes is more than 50%, and even if the PAP retains the seat in Punggol East but with LESS than 50% majority, it would be an embarrassing enough message to the PAP that they have failed. The PAP will get your message even if WP does not win, as long as the COMBINED opposition votes is 51% or more.

There is no need to vote the WP and give them another seat to do nothing in Parliament. The WP has this favorite phrase (or rather excuse!) that they do not “oppose for the sake of opposing”. It is just a convenient excuse for them to not speak up for your concerns and problems bravely and courageously in Parliament. The WP is just too kiasu and kiasi to be your VOICE in Parliament. They are just like the PAP, they give lots of EMPTY promises during the election rally and they do not deliver after that. They are only concerned to protect their seats and their salaries. They have been lazy to do enough research to propose new alternatives and policies on your behalf and voice them in Parliament. They are just like a second PAP.

Your refusal to give WP your vote will not hurt you in any way, but it will go a long long way to support, grow and improve the other true opposition parties in Singapore. You will help to make the WP to be humble to realize that they (the WP) need the SDP, RP, NSP, SDA etc. just as much as the others need the WP. Hopefully, all these opposition parties would unite and work together for the good of the Singaporeans in the next election in 2016, which is not that far away. But if you vote the WP, and they win this seat from the PAP, they (the WP) will be arrogant and greedy, and continue to bully the other opposition parties. And that is not a good scenario for opposition politics in Singapore. The WP has openly said through their supporters that they would like to gain as much as one third of the parliamentary seats in Singapore. And these WP supporters also said that until they have one third of the seats (and we do not know when that will happen?), there is no point speaking and raising new alternatives in Parliament, and that is the reason (or excuse?!) for the WP MPs not speaking for you so far in Parliament for the last 19 months since the last general election in May 2011.

My point is just as much as we need to send a message to the PAP, we must not forget to send a message to the WP too. And the way to send a message to the WP is to deny them a win in the Punggol East by-election. We have to tell the WP to come up with good candidates who can perform well in Parliament and work as a qualified MP from their FIRST day. We, the taxpayers, do not believe in training our MPs on-the-job and paying them $15000 a month at the same time. Also, it is good to remind the WP to do some self-examination, and not to be over-aggressive to “chope” all the wards and contest everywhere. Earlier on, I mentioned a reference to a report in Yahoo New Singapore when the WP’s Mr LTK said “The Workers’ Party is a small party with limited resources, so I decided our priority should be on Aljunied GRC…” My question to Mr LTK is, if you admit that WP has limited resources, why is WP so ambitious and want to “conquer” more “territories” than they can handle? And would their over-ambition to get more seats prevent them from focusing and performing their current job well? Could this be the reason why they are not doing enough research and suggesting new alternative policies in Parliament? Why WP cannot give chance to other opposition parties who may have the resources? For all we know, Singaporeans may soon realize that, given an opportunity, other opposition parties can produce good MPs too.

Trust me, by letting the PAP keep this one seat in Punggol East (at less than 50% majority), and denying the WP the seat, will not do more damage to you than what you are already suffering. Our hope is to look forward to the next general election in 2016. Hopefully, by 2016, all the opposition parties will be able to attract new and better candidates, and do well. But for now, please go ahead and vote RP or SDA.

In conclusion, I would like to send the following message to both the PAP and the WP:

“The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use — of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public”, by Robert F Kennedy.

Thank you for reading.

A few thoughts about the Punggol East By-election

Hi, I have wanted to start a blog since a long time ago. However, for one reason or another, I have not started one until today.

A Facebook user posted a comment on the Facebook Wall of Theonlinecitizen. One of the points he said was: “…The PAP is still waiting for the WP to make a wrong move and involve them in lawsuits to bankrupt them. Those advocating a confrontational stance failed to or under-estimated the ruthlessness and basic instincts of our govt…”

Since I did not agree completely with the comment, I responded with my own comment. Surprisingly, I managed to collect 34 Likes for my first long comment on Facebook. So, instead of having my thoughts lost somewhere in cyberspace, I like to post them here as the first post of this blog.

As an introduction, I like to say I love Singapore, a beautiful island that I call my home. Sadly, the government polices (since the 1990s) are not the best for our country. I am not pro-PAP, not pro-WP, and not pro-SDP. I like to say that I am pro-SINGAPORE.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

Ok, below is my first post of my brand new blog. This post was originally a comment in reply to another Facebook user, so please read it in that context:

The only place in Singapore where you can speak openly and not be sued is in the Parliament, known as Parliamentary immunity. It is a privilege that comes with being elected. That is why it is sad to see the WP MPs not making full use of their privilege. It is a waste of the people’s trust and faith in them. Contrary to what is said in many of the comments on Facebook, I do not think it is easier to speak and debate in Parliament than to manage a Town Council. To debate well in Parliament, you must be smart (think of the caliber of our first generation PAP leaders like the late Dr Toh Chin Chye, Dr Goh Keng Swee, and Dr Richard Hu etc.), well-read and experienced on a wide range of current (and historical) local and world affairs, courageous, able to think on your feet and rebut intelligently and convincingly. Of course it involves a lot of hard work to read, research, analyze, present and debate your case in the Parliament. You can employ a top-notch property management manager to manage a town for $15,000 a month, but you cannot employ an MP. MP = Member of Parliament. An MP is elected by the people to voice their concerns in the Parliament and to help make good laws. In many countries, an MP does not manage the town council, the mayor does that.

I think you have confused debating with confronting. Think how much skill, experience and knowledge that Obama and Romney must possess in order to debate each other during the last US Presidential debates. That is what is meant by a debate not a confrontation. Just because the current government is ruthless, does it mean all you can do is like what LTK has been doing for the last twenty years. He either keeps quiet or says “no comment”. In fact, it is because the current government is ruthless, that we need to elect MPs who are confident, brave and courageous, and can debate well in Parliament, the only place where they can speak openly about difficult issues without getting sued. There are so many existing bad policies in Singapore, the high HDB prices, the too lenient immigration policy resulting in overcrowding and job competition by too many foreigners, the non-transparency about our national financial reserves, the high CPF withdrawal age, unaffordable healthcare services especially for the elderly, high ministerial salaries, high COEs, ERPs and MRT breakdowns etc. And you think you can wait for the WP MPs to grow up and debate these issues in five years time???? Are we trying to train a WP MP on-the-job like the way PAP is training Tin Pei Ling?? PAP has so many seats, they can afford to have a few quiet MPs. But for the opposition, every seat is precious and yet they are not speaking up??? If there is an average of one MRT breakdown per month now, if the WP MPs do not speak up NOW and get some improvements done, go figure how many MRT breakdowns we will have in five years time.

That is why I cannot understand why everyone is making the SDP the bad guy. It is like a herd mentality. To be fair, you forgot that when YSL left Hougang, SDP was the first party to say they would NOT be contesting in Hougang because WP was the incumbent. But this time, WP was not the incumbent in PE, so it is fair game for everyone. If WP candidate is better, vote WP. If SDP candidate is better, vote SDP. If SDP fields Dr Paul Tambyah, I would consider him a better candidate than WP’s Lee LiLian. Say whatever we want, good brain and qualifications (besides a good heart and conscience), are important criteria for an MP. Do you think Lee LiLian (or any other WP candidate), if elected, will dare (or capable) to speak on any issue without getting an approval from LTK, who himself does not know how to debate.

In my opinion, voting for WP vs PAP is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. WP is only good at solving the “symptoms”. LTK does not have the heart, the brain nor the will to help solve and cure the larger fundamental and critical “disease” problem in Singapore now. The WP says they take care of bread and butter issues. Please tell me how are bread and butter issues independent from national policies??? If GST is high, it increases the cost of living. If immigration policy is too lenient, it leads to overcrowding and deterioration of physical infrastructure, overcompetition for available jobs and high housing prices. If healthcare policy is not right, it leads to unaffordable healthcare services etc. For e.g. lets say if a Singaporean is unemployed because of unfair competition from foreigners, (i.e. a bad immigration policy), then no matter how well you manage the town council and talk about bread and butter issues, this person’s life will still be miserable because he does not even have any income to buy bread.

You should be thankful that there are still some Singaporeans like CSJ who would dedicate their lives to protect the oppressed and underclass in Singapore by fighting for good national policies. Even if CSJ is not 100% right, he is a good intelligent man with good intentions who has suffered much under the hands of the government. I am disappointed that LTK could not be benevolent like an elder brother (considering our Asian culture) and a respectable statesman, and set a good example of being less selfish and less greedy. LTK could be classier to at least accept CSJ’s request to talk. I believe the old saying, “Pride goes before a fall”. If LTK is a humble person, he should realize his success today is not just because of his own talent, hard work and whatever else. Many notable Singaporeans (and their respective families) in the past had suffered much pain, loss, shame and sacrifice to soften the hard political ground in Singapore bit by bit, so much so that he could enjoy his current position. For example, I do not think LTK could hold a candle to the late Dr Lim Hock Siew, who suffered many years in prison and yet remained a gracious gentleman till his death without any arrogance.

Thank you for reading.