Non Chinese stands a better chance of being elected against a Chinese in Singapore

 The Chineseness of Chinese as a race is rapidly being watered down to the point that many Chinese do not see race as an important factor in their composition in Singapore. Many would simply want to be known as Singaporeans and nothing else.  There are also many Chinese that have forgotten or want to forget that they are Chinese, do not want to be identified by race.  Some are even embarrassed for being Chinese, or at the extreme, some even despised themselves as Chinese and hate anything Chinese. To the latter group, Chinese are China Chinese, not Singapore Chinese and they are Singaporeans, with no race. Yes, very odd way of personification after decades or centuries of demonisation of the Chinese race as inferior and obnoxious, despicable, no talent, by the western media.

On the political front, and given this composition of the Chinese and indifferent Chinese, quite a significant number of Chinese would live by the mantra of meritocracy as the desired value rather than race. As long as the man is capable and able, he would receive the vote of the Chinese. Caveat, there are still a section that is very Chinese and very proud of being Chinese. And there is the odd minority that could be racist, like in any racial groups. But this group is very small and insignificant to make a difference in the political arena.

Thus, in a democratic electoral process, the Chinese voters are quite evenly split into two halves, those that would choose a better man based on meritocracy and those that would choose based on race. Just on this alone, a candidate of a non Chinese race could have an even chance of winning against a Chinese candidate from the Chinese voters as he can count on his minority racial group to make the difference.

We  can add the factor that minority races tend to favour their own candidates, nothing racial about this, just an affinity, especially when they are in a minority, the preference is skewed in favour of the minority candidate.When the Chinese votes are splitted equally, the votes from the non Chinese voters would be the decider and thus the overall vote would favour a minority candidate...in Singapore. This is how far Singapore has progressed politically. You can still hear it clearly the voices calling for Tharman to be the next PM. And there are many incidents to prove that this theory is true from the results of recent elections when a minority candidate could win an election outright against a Chinese candidate in a single seat constituency in Chinese majority Singapore.

Many of the Chinese has lost their sense of identity as Chinese in multi racial Singapore. Many would prefer to be seen and known as a non racial identity, anything but Chinese.  Maybe it is time to do away with GRCs. Maybe it is time to put away the belief that the Chinese or non racial Chinese is not ready for a non Chinese PM in Singapore.

This phenomenon is likely the result of a big Chinese majority in the population. There is a lot of comfort and false confidence that nothing would change if the PM is a non Chinese. Life would be still the same, their lifestyle and way of life, opportunities in life, would not be affected. Hypothetically, if the Chinese become a minority or marginal majority, would the Chinese still be so indifferent to race as a factor in politics and political office, or in job opportunities? Did they see what had happened in Malaysia? Did they learn any thing from it? Did they see or experience what is happening when foreigners take over a company or organisations and the huge numbers of Singaporean PMETs being sacked to make way for foreigners?

What do you think?  Is this a good thing or a bad thing, the watering down of Chineseness in Singaporean Chinese?