Hsien Loong - Hot button issues

In his party address to 2,500 PAP activists Hsien Loong raised two hot button issues, one, raising of GST, and two, amendment of Constitution to ensure the president is from the minority group, from time to time.

In the first issue, despite claiming that we have so many hundreds of billions, maybe trillions, in our reserves, the govt is showing signs of desperation for money, to collect money, and raising GST is what it is going to do. Why so urgent, so desperate I don't know. Only reason is money not enough. If money enough, there is no need to keep on taxing the people. Right? Or because money got so much, more reason to want to tax more, to collect more money? I leave it to you guys to guess what is wrong or right with this desperation.

I think it is ok to amend the Constitution to provide for a minority president every now and then. I also think that this is unnecessary as long as the ruling party knows what it is doing, to every now and then put up a minority president as it should be. Having to amend the Constitution is a very serious thing and in our case a very complicated thing that would only aggravate the already sensitive and emotional situation, now made more complex with the irresponsible increase in population with more new minorities becoming significant in numbers.

In the past we have the CMIO formula that was quite readily accepted. Now with minorities that may become majority, with new minorities growing in numbers, a change in the Constitution is unlikely to please anyone and may even become a problem for the future. The number of Indians is increasing rapidly and could become a majority or near majority. The number of Pinoys, Myanmese and whatever tribes are also growing. How to cater to these new minorities?

We used to lump the significantly lesser minorities as Others conveniently. But if their numbers grow, would it be necessary to include in the Constitution for a Pinoy PM, a Malay PM, an Indian PM, maybe a Myanmese PM etc in the future? Would the now bigger Others be able to be grouped under Others when their numbers become significant to demand their rightful place in the island that once did not belong to them?

What would happen if Indians and Chinese are equal in numbers in the future, or nearly equal in numbers when the difference is undefined? Is there a need to define how many is necessary to be considered majority or minority? Hypthetically, what if the distribution becomes 40% Chinese, 35% Indians, 15% Malay and 10% Others? When the Chinese are no longer the absolute majority, and the minorities are not significantly lesser than the Chinese, how would the majority minority formula be defined or redefined? Would the current presumptive formula in the about to be amended Constitution still be valid and relevant?

Amending the Constitution on racial grounds is opening a can of worms that would be difficult to put back in. This is truly playing with fire as no formula is going to be right or acceptable to all. I would suggest stick to the present formula and do not try to fix something that is not broken. There is no one formula that would please everyone and it is better to stay with what we have now.