The changing fate of the opposition parties

 

 

The opposition used to be a joke for decades, a fumbling and incompetent group of ‘unripes’ going into the political arena to ‘tikam tikam’ or to make a fool of themselves. And in every election, without fail, they would compete among themselves in multi cornered fights against the ruling party at the peak of its power. Even on a one on one they would barely stand a chance. And they would still go in like a pack of ‘gilas’ to challenge the ruling party. Competing was all they wanted, not winning, and making a fool of themselves was something to be proud of.

 

There were some credible and serious candidates and parties but their credibility and reputation were dragged into the mud when the opposition camps were filled with the unspeakables. Occasionally a couple of opposition candidates could make it to Parliament by sheer will of the people and pernicious personal zeal. For decades, the cries for an opposition representation in Parliament, a greater representation, were there. But the people could not put the cross on the opposition boxes for good reasons. They were not presenting themselves as serious choices.

 

The ruling party’s game plan and how they systematically destroyed any good candidate and opposition party added to the demise of the opposition camp. But still, the biggest enemy of the opposition camp was themselves.

 

Things are changing. The political scene has never been like this before. Thanks to the ruling party and their great plans and great policies that they thought were good for the people and ignoring the people’s objections and pain living with them, more good people have started to move into the opposition camp. The 2011 GE, the by elections and the Presidential Election were clear signals that the people were voting the oppositions. As long as the opposition can produce serious and credible people, they would be in the game.

 

A fortnight ago, the opposition camp did the impossible by coming to an agreement to prevent a 3 corner fight. This has never been possible, but it came at the right time and brought a lot of hope and comfort to the people wanting a strong opposition presence in Parliament. There was opposition unity and the clowns have fled the scene.

 

Unfortunately it was too good to be true. Someone sent in the clowns again and opposition unity was shaken. The open criticism by NSP against WP, which was also part of the unwritten agreement not to bitch at each other, was not well received. The intent to go for a 3 corner fight in MacPherson was a hit below the belt. The agreement in the opposition camp could be torn wide open and a clear break was just a matter of time. Fortunately the other parties hold on to their horses and did not jump at the cue and fall into the trap set.

 

Without anyone breaking ranks, except for NSP, everyone will be watching NSP’s next move very carefully and its intent and motive. They knew that there is a bad apple and the circumstances have forced the bad hats to wriggle out from their holes. The bad hats have unmasked themselves in broad day light and social media followed the lead to dig out more evidence of what was taken for granted, with a pinch of salt.

 

Hazel Poa’s fall out and resignation from the NSP is a good thing. It comes at the right time, still in time for the GE before more damage is done to the opposition camp. The voters are now shown the true picture and hopefully the full picture of the credible opposition parties they should be voting for. There are still some doubts as to which opposition party is real or unreal. But a few parties have stood out as genuine and reliable and would receive the blessing of the voters.

 

WP, SDP, SingFirst, SPP and Reform Party are now in good stead as the opposition parties of choice. They have gained credibility and acceptance from the voters by their actions and their stand. I was at the launch of the SDP new office and could sense a quite confidence in the party and the supporters. And there were many young people coming out to support them. SDP is back as a respectable party with respectable leaders. Chee Soon Juan is no more the leper to fear and to stay away. He has matured and looking every inch an opposition party leader. Then there are Low Thia Khiang and his team, and the newcomer in Jee Say with a strong support base among the professionals. Lina Chiam has also earned her spurs in Parliament as a NCMP with her serious questions.

 

Many good things are happening on the opposition camp. The best thing to happen of course must be the unmasking of the questionable parties representing the opposition camp. This rain has clear the sky and no one can hide or disguise himself as opposition if he is not. The old game plan of confusing the voters in 3 corner fights has fallen through. Things are so much clearer as to who should receive the votes from opposition supporters. 3 corner fights there would be, but the real opposition parties would get all the votes from the voters. The voters would not be deceived and would vote for the opposition parties that count even in a 3 corner fight.

 

The feeling and support for the opposition camp has never been better and focussed. And the choice is clearer and simpler for the voters. No more deceptions and impersonations and misrepresentations.  And with an enlightened voters who would only vote for an opposition party that can win, not like before, vote blindly, this GE is going to be a big battle for or against the two camps, the ruling party or the opposition.

 

It is PAP or the best opposition party. No fakes or imposters or callafares. The winning formula is the Punggol East formula. The voters will vote in the same way and send the spoilers packing and losing their deposits.

Silver Support Scheme – Your money or my money?

The govt has announced the Silver Support Scheme to pay a stipend to honour the pioneer generation and as a form of retirement benefit.

According to the Straits Times, “Seniors to enjoy payouts from 2016” (Aug 18) – “150,000 eligible Singaporeans, aged 65 and above, to get a quarterly payout of $300 to $750 from early next year.”

The details have yet to be published and theoretically all the pioneers will get something. There is something like 500,000 pioneers out there which means that more than 2/3 will not be getting this stipend.

Where is this money coming from? Is the govt dipping into the reserves or is it taking from the interests accrued from the CPF savings it has ‘tangkap’ from the pioneer CPF members?

The other question is that for the sum of the stipends, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, belong to the people, is it a fair trade off for the pioneer generation to receive the stipends? Should the pioneer generation be grateful, be thankful to such a generous govt, out of the blue offering to pay them a few hundred dollars every quarter? Or should they cry foul, and demand to have their CPF money back?

Some pioneers would be grateful, especially the older cohorts that have little in their ‘tangkap’ accounts. But for those with hundreds of thousands in jail house rock, I don’t think they are happy with the peanuts being returned to them.

Where is the money or where is my money?

Who do you think? Happy, grateful or angry, feel cheated?

Steve Chia withdraws from MacPherson SMC

On Sunday morning Steve Chia wrote on his Facebook, ‘The trolls have won’ and announced his withdrawal from contesting in the MacPherson ward. He also said he would not contest in this GE. In the same message he commented that Tin Pei Ling was not a strong candidate and wished the WP well in the election.

This is a big contrast to his earlier angry remarks, attacking WP for not responding to the overtures by NSP during the husting to prevent a 3 corner fight. And the NSP CEC’s decision to send in a team was somewhat a reaction to WP’s stance, a kind of defiance. If WP was aloof, they would put in a team to challenge them.

The events following NSP’s decision to engage in a 3 corner fight was not well received and social media went on overdrive to dig out every scrap of juicy news of Steve Chia’s past and the nude episode with his maid. This might prove too much for Steve Chia. The heat was too hot to take and would not go away at least till the GE if Steve Chia were to contest MacPherson. Steve Chia also admitted that he had to take care of his family and their feelings and thus this withdrawal.

Steve Chia is not the only victim of this saga. NSP’s President Sebastian Teo also had his dirty linen brought out for airing. According to an article in the TRE, Sebastian Teo was charged in court for corruption and was bankrupted. The information was not volunteered or disclosed to the NSP. Netizens wondered aloud why such sensitive information was not raised by the PAP, suggesting something fishy in the matter. They openly concluded that NSP is a mole party of the PAP or at least many members of the CEC were. Of course these were just allegations and difficult to prove.

The biggest loser is of course NSP. NSP has lost all credibility after this incident. It appears to be a wishy washy party and acting rashly, even negated on its commitment, on its words not to engage in 3 corner fights. The comments in the social media have put NSP as a party with no standing in the eyes of the electorate, a questionable party with a hazy background. It would not be easy for NSP to redeem itself from this mess and to regain its credibility as a trustworthy  opposition party.

Whether NSP is really a mole party is now immaterial. The immediate impact is that it has a lot to answer and given the imminent GE, it does not have time on its side to do damage control. The fate of NSP in this GE is as good as gone with the wind. Many netizens have been calling the NSP to withdraw from the GE and allow other opposition parties to replace them in the constituencies they have choped for the GE.

Maybe NSP may just have to do it to show some sincerity, take a break to explain what actually happened, to rebuild the trust of the people. Failure to win back the people’s trust could see it being thrashed in the GE and losing their deposits as well.

Who are the trolls? This is a question in everyone’s mind.

When would you consider losing your country?

Every country guards their independence and the right to live according to what they believe is the best way for its citizens zealously. They built a strong military force to keep foreigners out of their country so that their people can enjoy what they have built and what is in the country. And every citizen has a duty to fight and die for the country, to defend the country and its people and its way of life.

We have gone down this hazy road of filling our country with foreigners. Other countries also have done so for different reasons and under different circumstances and conditions. The European powers went on a path of conquest and colonisation, to own countries and people. After WW2, many of the colonised countries were returned to the natives who declared independence from their colonial masters, to decide the fate of their countries and peoples.

In some countries like Australia and New Zealand, and some islands where the natives are insignificant in numbers, the colonialists seized the countries for good and imposed their own laws on immigrations. Australia and New Zealand have been very careful in letting the right type of people they want into their countries and at a number they are comfortable with. They ensure that they are the owners and the dominant people in the new countries they seized from the natives. Countries like Australia and New Zealand would never allow immigrants to swarm their countries and turn themselves into a minority.

The colonialists conquered countries by forced and ruled the natives with the gun. They may be small in numbers, but they controlled the population as their subjects and with lesser rights than them. The end of WW2 found that colonialism was no longer acceptable as a way to conquer and rule over the natives of the land. But in countries like Australia and New Zealand, and the USA, their overwhelming majority allowed them to continue to be the masters of the land and with the natives existing as a subgroup in the country.

We gained independence and we called ourselves the people of a country called Singapore. We are the majority, the four major races as one people of a nation.

The unrestrained immigration policy in recent years by the govt has filled the island with so many foreigners, that in absolute numbers, the Singaporeans are now a minority. The govt thinks it is ok. The people did not think and did not care if it is ok or nor ok as long as their lives are not too adversely affected.

It is not too far wrong to say that there are 50% foreigners here or more, if new citizens are included. This seems ok for the moment. What if the percentage of foreigners goes higher, 60%, 70% or 80%, will it be ok? What if the foreigners turned citizens seized political power and become the new leaders and start to change the rules of citizenship and discriminating against the original Singaporeans? Not possible?

Take a hypothetical case for a mental exercise to see if it is acceptable and putting aside the question of possibles. Are Singaporeans comfortable with the foreigners turning new citizens cum PRs forming more than 70% of the population. This is not counting the transient workers and Employment Pass holders. What about 80% or 90%?  If Singaporeans are not bothered with the numbers and percentages of foreigners and new citizens here, and if the govt also thinks it is a good thing, a right thing, and this state of affair really happens and Singaporeans become like the insignificant natives of Australia, New Zealand and USA, is it ok? Would it be too late to rewind the clock?

At what point, at what percentage of the population becoming foreign/new citizens would it be considered that the country has been taken over by foreigners, invaded?

Or does it need to reach a stage when the new citizens/PRs start to discriminate against the original Singaporeans and with the latter unable to resist anymore, would it then be called an invasion and the lost of the country to foreigners?

As it is today, some foreigners have already started to practise discrimination against the Singaporeans and with the Singaporeans unable to do anything about it, hapless, and the govt not sure what it is thinking and doing about it. Are we already invaded and on the verge of losing our country to foreigners? There is no need to invade a country by military forces or to raise a different flag to take over a country, especially if the people are willing to give it away freely, or did not know what is happening.

What is the definition of an invasion or a country taken over by foreigners? Or is it something that is not important, no need to think about, will not happen or let it happen, a natural trend of globalisation.  Some tweets are crowing about globalisation, states being irrelevant, and borderless. While they are blowing their loudspeakers, they are raising barriers against free immigration. But silly countries believes this propaganda and went head in, opening up their countries to foreigners and allowing foreigners to take over their industries and countries in blissful ignorance of what lies ahead. Leave it to market forces? Globalisation is the in thing. Borderless is the way to go. We are just a hotel and so be it?

What do you think? Have we lost our country or on the way to losing it?

The impossibilities and impracticalities of MPs running town councils

The AHPETC case exposed the huge flaws embodied in the town council system whenever a new political party wins an election and a management change. The sheer tediosity of handing over the administration of a town council and its accounts to another party is enough to disable the process for months or years.

A town council must conduct a full audit of its accounts before it can hand over to the new management, with all the outstanding matters as well, plus its operating system. How long would an audit team take to complete such an audit for a GRC? A month or 6 months or a year? No political party/town council management would conduct such an audit prior to an election to prepare to hand over to a new political party. They cannot be assuming that they would lose an election. But a General Election is a general election and every party/MP must presume that they can lose. So it must become a necessity and mandatory to do such an audit a few months before a GE.

How much will it cost for such an audit and who is going to foot the bill?  What if the new management insists on bringing in their own auditors, not trusting the incumbent’s auditors? Is this fair or a good thing for the residents to pay for such a system to test if an MP can run a govt by running a town council first? Better still, all candidates standing for election should be sent to IMH for a thorough check up on their mental health and also a full medical check up on their medical conditions to certify they are fit to be an MP.

In the AHPETC case, we also read about a $20m or $24m computer system being sold for a few thousands and re leased to the town council and subsequently withdrawn and the new management had to pay for a new system. Does this mean that theoretically, all town councils would face the same administrative problems and to pay for the cost of a new system? And how long would it take for a new system to be developed and implemented, another 6 months or more? How would all these affect the efficient running of the town council and the resident’s interests?

The handover and takeover procedures of a town council is not as simple as one would think. If there are discrepancies in the audit, in processes and outstanding matters, the successor may not be willing to take over unless they are sure that all things are in order, which means more delay and haggling.

And who adds on this unnecessary task of demanding a potential MP to hunt around and prepare a team of town council management and operation staff to be ready to take over after an election even before he wins an election. Is this a fair requirement? Is it a fair requirement for the independent MPs or small parties that would not have any fair chance of running a govt to have to prove themselves to be able to run a town council? Would someone needs to prove that he can be a minister or PM before he is allowed to be one?

There are huge time constraints, practical problems and issues in the handing and taking over of a town council, and the very serious consideration of cost. Why are all these necessary? It is simply impractical and very tedious to change the management of a town council every time there is a change of MP and incurring huge cost and time and an interruption of the services to the people.

How can this be a good thing when many of the problems faced by AHPETC would not be there if it is run by a stats board like it was done previously by the HDB? Is this really a good idea, a clever idea?

What about the idea of emptying the surplus fund and transfer them to an untouchable reserve and the new management have to start from ground zero? Is this fair and functional, operational sound? The money belongs to the residents and should be retained by the town council for the needs of the residents. Is this not daylight robbery? Whose money is that? Why are other town councils allowed to retain and hold on to the money for the residents and a new management not allowed and like AHPETC, ended short of fund?

The town council system is effectively compromising and sacrificing the interests of the residents for this nebulous objective of testing the ability of MPs to run a govt. 

Really?

What do you think?