Hougang’s political demography

In the last election, WP won 65% of popular votes in Hougang leaving PAP’s Desmond Choo with only 35%. This may look innocuous enough but on careful scrutinizing, it is actually a very tight situation for the PAP.

The general distribution of voters between the PAP and opposition is normally a 30% hard core supporters for each side and leaving the balance 40% as the fence sitters or swing votes. Applying this general pattern, PAP was only able to win 5% of the 40% swing votes. In this scenario the optimists in PAP camp would think there is room for improvement, to move the 5% a few notches up.

On the other hand, the WP can at most win the 5% from PAP and stripping PAP to the skin of its teeth. This will be the worst case scenario this weekend for the PAP. Anything less is unthinkable and will send a signal that it is all over for the PAP.

Another probable distribution in the case of Hougang, which is an unusual constituency, is that WP has a hardcore support of 45% against a PAP’s 35%, leaving a balance of 20% swing votes. If this is the case, in the last election PAP was only able to hold on to its hard core supporters and WP had a clean sweep of the swing voters. All the lose votes went to WP. This means that PAP was not making any headway with the fence sitters at all.

And the outcome of this by election could see PAP at 35% again or winning some of the swing votes from the WP. It would need to win 15% of the 20% fence sitters to have a chance of winning Hougang. Hougang is likely to be retained as WP needs only 6% from the swing voters to retain the seat. For WP to take anything less than 5% from the swing voters is likely to be remote.

My assessment is that WP should retain the seat of Hougang but will find it very difficult to better the result of the GE as that would mean eating into the hard core supporters of the PAP camp. Desmond is likely to keep his 35% with a +/- 3% either way.

Horror! China’s economy slowing down

The World Bank has issued a warning to stupid Asian countries that China’s economy is slowing down. What it is saying is that these economies would be dragged down because China’s economy is going down. China is going to be in deep trouble and will hurt other Asian economies as well.

Now, would the shitty economies that are going bankrupt one by one in Europe be hurting the Asian countries? Definitely not. Even when the US barely achieved a 1-2% growth would not hurt the Asian economies.

Okay, China’s is going to have a hard landing as they prayed. They have been praying and hoping that China’s economy will collapse and their wish is coming true. How hard is this hard landing, and how bad is the slow down? The official report of the World Bank cuts China’s growth from 8.4% to 8.2%! Oh my God, what a pathetic figure of growth numbers. Only 8.2% growth! This is disastrous. What a badly managed economy, such miserable growth.

Now which country in the world is going to chalk more than a 5% growth? Any country out there? You mean there is no other country out there that can achieve a 5% growth rate and China’s 8.2% growth is so bad that the World Bank needs to issue a warning?

What kind of joke is this? Any country that can attain a 4 or 5% growth number will likely be trumpeting to the world on how well it has performed. 8.2% is not good enough, is bad? Yawn.

A battle for the hearts

I was watching the news last night, trying to catch a glimpse of Png Eng Huat on TV. The coverage of Desmond Choo and the PAP was quite extensive, running into minutes. Desmond got the most air time, speaking at the podium. So I waited to see how much time was given to Png Eng Huat. All I saw was Sylvia Lim, Chen Show Mao and Pritam Singh. Png Eng Huat was not featured at all. Oh I got a glimpse of him in his walkabout, maybe 2 sec.

After a couple of days of coverage mainly on PAP candidate, finally we are seeing some balance in coverage for the two candidates and parties today. Is this a result of the criticism in cyberspace that it was a one sided reporting and a no choice situation to show some fairness in reporting? The perception and comments in cyberspace were that the reporting was obviously a one sided affair.

And what about the campaign tactics itself? The ruling party could have gone on to tell the voters of what they could do for them, on how good they are in meeting the aspirations of the Hougang people. But the key issue was to run down Png Eng Huat, calling him dishonest, questioning his integrity with a sneaky copy of the minutes of WP CEC meeting which was confidential and should not be in the hands of outsiders. The WP cannot use the OSA to arrest anyone, and that sneaky act was used repeatedly everyday to run down the WP candidate.

How this sneaky copy of minutes got into the hands of the PAP is definitely not the fault of the PAP. It must be from someone untraceable, anonymous. Maybe some unhappy WP CEC member. Definitely not a PAP supporter. The people waving this piece of minutes are definitely honourable people and would not stoop to this kind of nefarious activity to get hold of the minutes of a confidential meeting. Waving them in public is also nothing to be ashamed of.

We are at the end of the campaigning. Who will win the hearts of the people, not only the people of Hougang? Every Singaporean interested is watching the whole show and taking notes of how the game was played, who is honourable, who is dishonest, who is playing fair, who is cheating all the way. And they will make their own judgement for this by election and subsequent elections to come.

The verdict will be out in a couple of days. Who have won the hearts of daft Sinkies? Who have taken the Sinkies for granted?

Desmond Choo distancing himself from NCMP issue

Desmond Choo is trying to fight a gentleman’s election in Hougang. He knew that belaboring on the NCMP issue and questioning Png Eng Huat’s integrity over it is like hitting below the belt and will make him look bad. He chooses to be a gentleman and to distance himself from talking about it. He does not want to slip into the longkang.

And I think Png Eng Huat is also doing his best not to attack Desmond Choo personally or drag out other unkind things to say. Hougang voters deserve to see these two candidates fight a fair fight, on issues and on how they want to represent them in parliament, and on bigger things. Parliament needs decent people who will be there to talk about issues of the state and of the people, not to go for character assassination. Though some really believe that they are immortals, the truth is out there for all to see. Mortals will be mere mortals.

Hope Desmond Choo and Png Eng Huat will stay on course and not be misled into petty squabbles. The people of Hougang will have the final say and vote the one they think is best for Hougang and for all the people of the country.

More Sinkie jokes

The banking industry is hailing a grand plan to groom Singaporeans for key positions. My God, they suddenly realized that barely any Singaporeans are good enough to fill key positions in the banks. No wonder they have to bring in foreigners to fill the many top positions in the banks. Sad isn’t it. And it looks like one whole generation of Singaporean bankers have been wasted and now a plan to groom young Singaporeans for the future. Hopefully in 30 years we will have some Singaporeans that are found good enough to fill the top positions in the banking industry.

And the reason is simple. There are just not enough Sinkies with the right experience and skill sets in the banking and finance industries to fill up the top jobs. Now they have to go to third world countries to look for them. What is the matter? A regional financial centre, with aspiration to be a world financial centre, or nearly there, could not train of produce bankers with the right experience and skills. And only small cities in some corners of the world can produce such talents. Is this meant to be a joke? April 1st has gone by for nearly two months! I would think all the third world aspirants who want to learn the latest skills in finance would want to come here to learn the ropes?

If a world class financial centre is not the place to train and throw up experienced bankers, where else can do better? Timbuktu or Fiji Island, or Mauritius? Maybe Bermuda Triangle. And what to think of our world class universities when second and third grade universities from Australia to the US are supposedly producing better and cleverer graduates to fill the top posts here? Gaming the score sheets to be ranked among the best is looking more like a futile exercise, like the straight A graduates that are found wanting to third class graduates from lower ranked universities.

And the banks were proud to tell that 75% or 80% of their employees were Singaporeans AND PRs. What the fuck is this PR thing lumped together with Singaporeans? How many are Singaporeans and how many are PRs? Please tell. Another cannot face daylight fact of Sinkie Land.

This must be a classic joke of paradise.