From greed to fear

Going back to fundamentals, one man one vote and one MP for one constituency. That was what was all about in a democratic election. But there were weak candidates that would not survive in such a system. All political parties have strong and weak candidates. And when a strong candidate is pitted against a weak one, the result is obvious. There was also a genuine need to ensure minority representation. A GRC of 3 of which one must be a minority member was invented. It worked. All GRCs were mostly walkovers. The opposition were struggling and panting to recruit good candidates and to find the money for deposits. With the GRCs, it was a miracle formula to ensure victory in the GE. The advantages to a big and strong party were obvious. How could the opposition parties find that numerous good candidates to stand in a GRC? How could they raise the money, at $16k for a 6 member GRC it comes to $96k, to lose. The barrier to entry is raised higher and higher with each election. The strongest point of a GRC is that it can be easily carried by a minister. Just send in a minister and the GRC will be in the pocket. Some jokers still think so. So we have 3 member GRCs to 4, 5 and 6 member GRCs. Why not, it is a sure win formula. But things are not working out as they were supposed to. The trump card of a GRC, a minister, is turning from an advantage to an Achilles’ heel. Several ministers will not only be unable to helm a GRC, they will become a liability and guarantee its defeat. That is how bad it has become. I may be wrong if you see how confident they are in their walkabouts, like they are definitely going to be elected. And despite the high monetary cost to put up a GRC of 5 or 6 members, the opposition not only could raise the money, they could attract enough quality candidates to stand in the GRCs. This is unprecedented and totally unexpected. With stronger candidates from the opposition parties and badly weakened ministers leading the GRC teams, suddenly the odds of winning a GRC are more in favour of the opposition. Or at least the chances are more equal. What does this mean? With GRCs, clean sweep is so easy and effortless then. Walkovers were the order of the day. The PAP could win big when the odds are in its favour. Now the odds have changed and the fear of losing big is so real. The spectre of a freak election result is going to haunt the PAP in this election. But why called it a freak result when it is just what the people decided who they want to vote for? An election result is an election result. What is so freakish about it? If GRC is going to cost the PAP big losses this time, you can bet that the GRC game will be over in the next GE. It will all be back to square one, one man one vote and one MP for one constituency. All the great reasons and arguments for GRC will be passé. GRC will be seen as gambling in big stake. One either wins all or loses all. Can be quite dramatic, traumatic, and quite irresponsible in a way to stake all for a show hand. Some may be counting how many ministers will be packing their bags after this GE. A freakish election is going to happen, and can happen.

Just a little musing

Read it in the 3in1kopitiam and posted by a blogger as a comment in the thread about Malay is our national language. He was responding to Wong Wee Nam’s article on the historical importance of Malay as our national language and teaching it as a second language or whatever may not be right. The funny blogger was telling his story of his command of the national language and he was glad that he learnt some of it at least. So he tried it out at a nasi padang stall by asking the stall owner how much it cost. ‘"sumau buat apa ringgit" (all how much )?. But the macik corrected me saying encik abdul rahman dah mati,sekarang dollars,bukan riggit!’ The macik had a wonderful sense of humour. She knew this guy was not trying to pay in ringgit here. He thought ringgit was the Malay word for dollar. Well almost, when ringgit and the S$ were trading on par then. Now we know it is not the same anymore. So macik told him that we don’t use ringgit here anymore, but Sing dollar. The younger generation have mostly lost this skill except for the Malays. The orang tua may still make do with some pasar Melayu like aku pun boleh : )

My A Team

The election fault lines

There are several major issues that will be tested in the GE. Among them will be the cost of living, the cost of housing, foreign talents, casinos, high ministerial salary, public transportation, medical fees, the political system, cronyism, corruption etc etc. All these issues will generate a lot of heat during the campaigning. Some of them will develop into fault lines that will divide the people into taking sides. One of the hottest fault lines must be housing, the owners and the young people waiting to buy their first homes. The owners will be more comfortable with a policy that will keep the price of their properties intact or growing. The non owners will be rooting for a party that could hold down the runaway prices to make their first purchase more affordable. In the ring will be the 80% HDB owners against all the young people that are queuing up or are waiting to grow up. Technically, it is a forgone conclusion that the home owners will have an upper hand. But going deeper into the issue, it may not be that straight forward. The other fault line is the divide between foreigners and locals. The govt is still taking a stand that they are all for more foreigners here and are heaping praises on the importance of foreigners to the well being of the locals. This will definitely piss off the locals who have one way or another affected adversely by the presence of too many foreigners, competition for jobs, housing and space. In this divide it is clear that it will be the govt and the foreigners versus the opposition parties and the locals. The govt will still have an upper hand with their die hard loyal local supporters and the new citizens behind them. The devil hiding in the shadow is when the foreign talent issue is linked to new citizens and old citizens in politics. We can see the anger brewing and the divide gaining momentum. The third major fault line is likely to be the pro PAP versus the anti PAP groups. There will be many who will stay on to support the PAP as the govt because of its track record. There will be a new emerging force that sees the track record, especially those of recent years, as being less than satisfactory. The old records will be played over and over again. But the new records with its new funky beat and off beat may not be acceptable to some voters. The old records were good, the new records bad. So going down the road it could be more of bad new records than more of good old records. There could be a shift in the followers, especially when the opposition are presenting the voters with a new wave of new talents. And the new idols are looking quite attractive. The alternative is at least seen to be better than the new records which are being rejected for all its flaws. The danger here is that the ruling party is lumping the old record and new record together and the people could be confused and think that they are the same, or they could only look at the new record and reject it completely. The fourth fault line which is seething in the under current and not fully exploited is the casinos. This is not only an emotional issue, an issue of values, a social ills, it could be tainted with religion and morality. This could become a full blown issue to divide the electorate during the campaigning. For the moralists, it is a clear cut right or wrong issue and can be very uncompromising. The election battle line could be drawn along these fault lines which will make voters taking sides much simpler.

Geisha and companions

A geisha and her companions. Both companions are partially hidden by her body, on the further side. Click the Art of RAR image on top right for more photo paintings.