Fears of a Black Swan in Singapore General Election 2011

[touzi]

Hyom's post maybe ironical, but it is definitely not hypocritical! He is reflecting what many pro-singapore voters are feeling. Most who loves singapore will not want the PAP to be voted out at this stage. I dare say not even rational and respectable oppositions like Mr Low Thia Kiang.

Whether the Civil Service will continue business as usual, will depend on the policies of the new government. If the new government resort to populist measures that hurt the country, there will be roads to take for Civil Servant. Comply and screw up the country , or oppose and there is likely to be deadlock.

At the risk of being accused to have been brainwashed by the PAP government, let me say that Singapore is not an ordinary nation. Will we even survive with one term of bad government? I hope we will never find out. Majullah Singapura!

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By the way, I find it unfair and offensive that PAP supporters are always portrayed as being driven by self-interest or idiots who cannot think for themselves. I know of many anti-PAP folks who hate the PAP partly because they could not afford that condominium in Orchard...Rational ?

[Zelphon]

Personally, I feel that we have more than a decade of bad governance from the PAP...

The relentless flood of foreign trash is the last straw !!!!

No accountability for their actions and decisions...

THEY DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE GUTS TO ADMIT THEIR MISTAKES !!!!

Paying themselves MILLIONS and openly raiding the reserves...

Look at the pathetic plight of the aged who helped built up the reserves during SG booming years...

What did they get??

Targeted HELP from PAP is a facade !!!!

PAP MUST BE BOOTED OUT FROM PARLIAMENT !!!!

[karlmarx]

At the risk of being accused to have been brainwashed by the PAP government, let me say that Singapore is not an ordinary nation. Will we even survive with one term of bad government? I hope we will never find out. Majullah Singapura!

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By the way, I find it unfair and offensive that PAP supporters are always portrayed as being driven by self-interest or idiots who cannot think for themselves. I know of many anti-PAP folks who hate the PAP partly because they could not afford that condominium in Orchard...Rational ?

no nation in the world is an ordinary nation. all are extraordinary in their own ways; born out of different circumstances, possessing different (dis)advantages, having different political systems. you seem to be suggesting that allowing the incumbent to remain in power is ideal given our extra-ordinariness. looking at the opposition candidates, i don't think there is a lack of intelligent and willing leaders other than the incumbent. if after 50 years of nation-building by the incumbent and we cannot even survive one term of bad governance, then the incumbent must have failed in building a resilient socio-economic system, or succeeded in making themselves 'too important to fail' as part of the system. neither of which is desirable.

pap supporters are portrayed as self-interested mainly because pap themselves are portrayed to be self-interested. i wouldn't say they can't think for themselves. because if you're a big fan of pap, something they're doing must be going very well for you. and you must be smart enough to realise that! regardless of whether you're talking about pap supporters or hater, everybody is self-interested. but some are compassionate enough to restrict their behaviour if it hurts the people around them, while others have no qualms in taking the most advantage -- without regards to economic or moral boundaries -- out of people. of the 50 odd years, why has the pap become so unpopular over the past few years? or rather, why were people so happy with pap from the 60s to 90s? the answer to both questions is in the level of equality in the distribution of wealth.

[etan]

TOL:

How about kick start the opposition party with a big bang?

If only the ex-PAP officials (esp. the ex-ministers who have got real substance, and of late, for some reasons cannot see eye-to-eye with PAP, and have opted out, reason being 'self renewal', alamak, should say give way to new blood) gather together and form a good opposition party? These people still got burning fire/desire inside them! Like that, things might work out more nicely? Opposition standard = PAP standard? At least got same standing in parliament?

But honestly, are these ppl willing to come forward to serve the country?

It would be wise to transfer out all their assets first before joining any opposition party just in case ....

I guess the international community will be watching our GE closely!

[iisterry]

iisterry,

Please do tone down your language and do not resort to personal attacks. Let's just discuss the issues involved. I understand that political views can make people very emotional but since this is a public forum we should endeavour to seek to respect differing opinions and "agree to disagree" (i.e compromise).

Thanks for your co-operation.

My apologies to hyom for the harsh tone adopted.

Politics is a clear and present issue to everyone for it is essentially "the rule of life".

I cannot easily tolerate opinions who ask for sympathy votes to the incumbent to prevent them from losing power over-night. This is unnecessary and if this thought was pervaded, we will see the incumbent returning to power with an even greater majority.

Do not vote out of sympathy or try to predict and use your vote to influence the outcome. Voting should be out of your heart and mind. You vote for the person that you best believe would be able to represent your interest. This can be the PAP, WP, NSP, SDP, etc...

It is a common fallacy that the rich will always support the PAP and the poor will always choose the opposition. It is the type of mentality that the person adopts instead of their financial standing which causes them to support a certain party. The recent tea-parties from the incumbent failed to gather any significant representatives from the private sector while others have chosen to support the alternative cause even though the threat of lawsuits and bankruptcy is very real. You can read between the lines.

We do not de-generate into ad-hominem attacks and typify PAP supporters as self-interested idiots or Opposition supporters as green-eyed paupers. Look at the gist of the argument and refute the facts instead. To insinuate that we should vote for a certain party because of an irrational fear of economy collapse is akin to saying one should not take bitter medicine to cure his ills.

Take a look at the old PAP and the current PAP.

_______________________________________________________

Toh Chin Chye - Science & Technology, Health & Education. Responsible for the industrialization of Singapore as well as for holding the PAP & Singapore together during the early tumultuous days whose contribution was also acknowledged by Lee Kuan Yew.

Goh Keng Swee - Defence & Education, Finance. Credited with the successful industrialization of Singapore and the formulation of Singapore's national economic development strategy advised by Albert Winsemius, a Dutch economist.

S. Rajaratnam - Foreign Affairs, Culture, Labour Minister. He played a key role in the successive pragmatic and technocratic People's Action Party governments that radically improved Singapore's economic situation, alongside huge developments in social development on the island with massive expansion of healthcare programmes, pensions, state housing and extremely low unemployment. Rajaratnam brought in the foreign investors and made diplomacy our only defense when we do not have soldiers.

Lim Kim San - He was credited for leading the successful public housing program (HDB).

And many others who sacrificed themselves and recognised the virtue of "Country Before Self".

_______________________________________________________


Fast forward to today, we have Lim Swee Say, Mah Bow Tan, Vivian Balakrishnan, Wong Kan Seng and many others who were "recruited" using *ahem*... carrots. The new batch is practically riding on the success of their forefathers.

Had it not been for Lee Kuan Yew positioning himself at the helm to send a clear and visible indicator for the old generation to relate to, I am quite sure that PAP would have lost its "mandate" long ago.

Lee Kuan Yew himself has rode the waves of Singapore's rise & fall. Whether he is solely responsible and credited with the recognition is another issue. I think most of us can tell when Singapore began its "downfall".

And our next generation of "leaders" as opposed to "opposition newbies", we have Tin Pei Ling, Army Generals, Union Chiefs, Foo Mee Har?

I shudder at the prospect of Lee Hong Yi taking over the reins of Prime Ministership.

I iterate again. To be pro-Singapore is to look to the long term. We need to distinct between Party & State. It is essentially a sense of nationalism that made others stand up and speak out against all odds.

The author of this post belongs to Mountbatten SMC (former Marine Parade GRC) and was an ex-army regular who pledges allegiance to the Republic of Singapore and not anyone's personal army.

[yeokiwi]

I just went through the list of PAP's new candidates and tabulated their first degree.
Here are the results:

Economics : 8
Science : 3
Law : 5
Arts : 4
Business : 2
Medicine : 1

Hmmm.. just as I expected. Does anyone spot something that I am looking for?

Although I do understand the agony of Mr Lim Boon Heng that people are always thinking that PAP is alway in "group think" mode. The kind of candidates that PAP is having will ultimately result in group thinking.
If all of them are trained in a similar discipline, the end result is that they tend to agree with each other.

With the luxury of GRCs, PAP should do more to increase the varieties of candidates that they are selecting.

[hyom]

My apologies to hyom for the harsh tone adopted.

No offense taken. After all, we do have common grounds to share like voting for the sake of our future and our children's future. Different people will reach different conclusions even though they may share the same objective. It is the same thing with investing - a stock could be shorted or longed by different groups of people with the same objective of making money.

It is understandable that politics is an explosive topic because it affects us in very intimate ways. In future, I will tread very carefully on political topics (a valuable lesson to take away).

[tonylim]

I am a non supporter of any political party but was rather bewildered when SM Goh said, ' the ground was not so sweet '.
How did he know the ground was not so sweet in the first place ? What made him have such conclusion ?

[nutty]

From fouls maybe?

We saw it coming in 2006 with new media getting popular.

The waves of criticism just get higher and higher in 2011.

[touzi]

I am a non supporter of any political party but was rather bewildered when SM Goh said, ' the ground was not so sweet '.
How did he know the ground was not so sweet in the first place ? What made him have such conclusion ?

[/quote]

Well, he once called an election when he was PM and declared that the "ground is sweet". The result was a shock for him. This is the same GCT who once scored an own goal against Seet Ai Mee, and who has probably scored one against Tin Pei Lin. Also the same GCT who when he organized his first election compaign as deputy PM, decided to do away with election rally. Only in Singapore can someone like him made it to be PM.. Maybe he is a good admninistrator, but GCT the politician, is strange entity to me.