Elected President - You got to believe it

I have said enough of this EP thing and there is really nothing much more to add. Hsien Loong had said it many times, that this is something he has to do, he will do it and there is nothing to stop him from doing it. You can kpkb, but it will not matter. He has decided that this is the best thing for Singapore. And no bets for how your representatives will vote in Parliament when this bill is up for MPs to ask questions. But there is one niggering point that I just want to clarify before race is enshrined into our race neutral Constitution, before race compromised meritocracy is justified as the new normal, that meritocracy is not compromised, that’s what they said. I am the law, whatever I said must be right, logical and unquestionable. It is good for Singapore, and definitely not against any individual. How not to believe a govt of honourable, sincere, selfless and flawless men and women sacrificing to serve the people and nation? If the people cannot believe in them, then who else can they believe?

Now what is this thing that needs to be spoken? The assumption in this thing is that the majority Chinese is racist and eventually minority race, or some minority race, would not have a chance to be the EP of this island. The Chinese would have this special advantage and would choose to elect only Chinese to be the EP. How many sensible people would believe in this racist line of logic? Proven? Has this been proven?

Never mind. The Constitution will be race neutral, really? It is at the moment. The founding fathers, including Lee Kuan Yew made sure it is. After this bill, when it is crafted to ensure that all minority race would have a chance to be the EP once in a while, would the Constitution still be race neutral? So would it be written in such a way that if any minority race is not represented after a number of years, that a reserved election would be held just for that race? This sounds fair for the minority races.

What if the assumption is false? What if the Chinese are not racist and would choose to vote for the best candidate and continuously vote for non Chinese candidates over a long period of time or over several terms? Would there be a reserved election for the majority Chinese to have a chance to be elected as the EP? See the point?

If the wording of this racial EP election is about protecting minority race and the word minority is added, then the majority will be excluded and not protected based on the assumption that the majority Chinese are racist and would always vote for a Chinese EP.

Don’t say it would not happen. Though there are definitely some Chinese that are racist, chauvinist, I believe the majority are not. Many are colour blind if one is to look at their voting pattern in the past and how they voted overwhelmingly in favour of minority candidates. Put Tharman up for election as the PM today, he would have won hands down.

What is the point of this post? Should the majority race also be protected in the Constitution in case the racist assumption is proven false? Maybe the Constitutional Commission has already thought through this and the wordings in the Constitution would be race neutral and the safe guard would be for all races that did not have a chance to be the EP for a certain time frame, not just the minority.

Oh, I also assume that all races meant CIMO and not Pinoys, Myanmese, Thais, Vietnamese, Europeans etc etc. In this rush to make sure the new rules would apply in the next GE, the definition of minority is conveniently not spoken. Our minorities are not just the Indians, Malays and Others, there are new minorities that are quite substantial in numbers and they would want to be represented as a race in the EP in the future. And if the Constitution is to pretect minority races, this issue or definition of race cannot be callously ignored. It is a time bomb that will go off if allowed to slip into the Constitution undefined.

The new minorities would be asking for their own representation in times to come. It would not just be the Eurasians in the Others category. The Pinoys, Myanmese, Vietnamese, Thais and Europeans, not Eurasians, would want to be counted. They would want their turns to be EPs. How to tell them that they are not minorities like the Indians, Malays and Eurasians?

What do you think?