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4/16/2006
ge round 31: a strong mandate to show our foreign friends
Chok Tong said: -
"It is important that he gets a strong mandate because, despite all that he has done, if the mandate is weak, what signals are we giving him? "What signals are we giving to our friends outside of Singapore and what signals are we giving to investors? So it is important that we give him a strong mandate."
However, Mr Goh declined to be drawn into setting a winning margin for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP). 'If there's a mandate, I would know whether it was strong or weak, but at this stage, I'm not in the business of measuring the support level for him,' he said.
The above is lifted from littlespeck.com.
What is this thing about a strong mandate? 84/84? Why is 70/84 not a strong mandate, or a popular vote of 60% not good enough? This is a serious problem affecting the thinking of Singaporeans. We are obsessed by abundance. And while some corners of the population are crying money not enough, there are some corners that cannot appreciate what is more than enough or having too much. I can foresee that they will suffer from indigestion one of these days.
Our society is suffering from excesses which we are blind to see and pretending to understand that money not enough is a problem to some people.
And we need a strong mandate to tell our foreign friends, to pass them a signal? What do our foreign friends want? What the American and Europeans want to see is obvious. I kind of getting use to this word obvious. They want to see multi party representation in parliament. They want to see more opposition members being elected.
Now what signal do we want to pass to our foreign friends?
actually it is nonsense to tell people about wanting a strong mandate when you cam't define it. if you can't quantify it, if you do not know what it is, any number can be a strong mandate or a weak mandate.
ReplyDeleteit becomes so subjective that you can call it anyway.
PAP wants a strong mandate from Singaporeans to continue to squeeze the people till dry by "suka" "suka" increase this and that after GE.
ReplyDeleteNot to forget the Ministers' pay will go North after the economy has "improved" even those majority Singaporeans don't feel it.
The CPF rates have not restored and majority jobs created are contract based with pay cut.
Don't you think contract jobs are still better than no jobs ? What do you want ? A return to the good ol' 90s before the financial crisis with near 100% employment and employers dishing out fat year-end bonuses ? Face it, those times are gone and never coming back. You'd do well to accept the new reality.
ReplyDeletethe pre financial crisis was a heady time when everyone was intoxicated, from the bottom to the very top. It was a time of extravagance and the problem was compounded when decision makers were equally drunk.
ReplyDeleteas for jobs, any job is better than no job. our sin is too many jobs in one person while too many ended up jobless. this is an inequality that people who are enjoying the party cannot see or feel.
I am struggling to understand your argument. So for eg. we have A, who's jobless and B who holds directorship in two public listed companies. Are you saying that B should vacate one of his director positions so that A can take it up ?
ReplyDeletethere are many people who are qualified to hold directorship position or senior management positions and are jobless, hungry for a job.
ReplyDeleteon the other hand there are people holding 10 directorship and 4 or 5 employee positions. obviously these people cannot do all these jobs and many were, well....
there is nothing wrong for people to hold two or three full time positions, or two or three directorships. but when things get excessively skewed when there are many people unemployed then the inequity is more painful.
our society is a very much govt managed and engineered system. and when govt interference leads to more inequitable results, people will not see it too kindly. the distribution of wealth must be more widespread and not loaded into a few people who are already filthy rich without having to put in real work.
a lot can be done in this area. no need to make a millionaire ten times more. it is not going to benefit him more but his ego to grab even more.
the same money can make 100 or 1000 people much more comfortable. the widening income gap is not something that is a worldwide phenomenon that cannot be micro managed here.