10/10/2011

Parliament opening today

After the May general election, nearly half a year gone by without the convening of Parliament. Is this the new normal for the Parliament to sit after a new govt is elected? The newly elected MPs will finally have a chance to warm the seats in Parliament, to be seen and to be heard in Parliament. How did they feel being kept out of Parliament for so long? Were they short changed, or the people shortchanged?

The election went by as if it was a non event. The only thing that the new MPs did was getting to know the people and perhaps meet them in Meet The People session which is not really an official function of the MPs. The key roles of MPs must be in Parliament, legislating laws and debating on national issues and the well being of the country.

The new MPs will have a chance to say their piece tonight. And even before they say anything, some jokers already presumed that the opposition MPs will be there to talk nonsense, just to make noise in Parliament, and they would rather such MPs not to represent them. There are also many people who did not want the majority of the MPs to represent them in Parliament. There are 40% of such people who just want other MPs to represent them, not those who will be in Parliament. Do they also think that those MPs they did not want to represent them will be talking nonsense as well, or not speaking for their interests?

Some views wanted opposition MPs to be more like the ruling party MPs, to be part of a symphony. For that, they might as well join the ruling party and be part of the ruling party, and to sing the same tune as ruling party MPs.

Then there are calls from the ruling party MPs saying that they must behave and play the role of opposition MPs, to be more critical of govt policies.

So what? People want opposition MPs to be ruling party MPs and ruling party MPs want to act more like opposition MPs. Sounds like LPPL to me.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had nearly half a year of cooling off, so there will not be any feeling of short change or long change.

The original expectation of an intense orgasm is going to turn out to be just a premature ejaculation, until the next election comes. Sounds like LPPL to me as well.

Anonymous said...

The reason being that the next general electionn will be called, 5 years from the time the Parliament conveneds lah.

That means 5 years from now, the present government need to called for an election, which means 5 months X15,000 = $75,000 given away free.

UniversalRound said...

You forget. The reason why they delayed it so long was to push through as many 'populist' policies as possible (see Circle Line, increased HDB construction, tweaked 'welfare' policies) so as to deny the Opposition MPs ammunition. What they will do is to proclaim all these things as part of their grandmaster plan, just slightly and unavoidably delayed. The hope is that the non-PAP MPs will have nothing to say and as such, the PAP can claim that they are useless and silent just like how they deny them ground in their own constituencies and accuse them of disappearing until the elections.

Anonymous said...

do the new MPs get paid before they are sworn in as MPs? are they MPs before they are sworn in?

The said...

/// UniversalRound said...

You forget. The reason why they delayed it so long was to push through as many 'populist' policies as possible (see Circle Line, increased HDB construction, tweaked 'welfare' policies)///

Can someone tell me why it is called the Circle Line when it does not form a loop? The Circle Line in the London Tube is a complete circle. Maybe there is provision to link up the 2 ends of our Circle Line under Marina Bay?

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Hi UniversalRound, welcome to the blog.

Can't believe it, taking 5 months to convene a new Parliament with new elected MPs.