晚报对佘雪玲的蓄意诽谤

我真的很难想象晚报会以如此没格的手段去胡乱报道这具有诽谤性的新闻。看看它在报纸的斗大标题是怎么写的：

“佘雪玲与已婚男面簿上载亲密照”

然后在文中的第一段就断然写道

"国民团结党第二助理秘书长佘雪玲面簿上载与一名男子的亲密照，男子据说是已婚男！" 

这标题和第一段文字已经涉嫌构成蓄意并恶意诽谤他人名誉的罪名！联合晚报在昨天（11月26日）14.30上载的网上宣传题也是以这第一段作为引题的。也许有人或律师提醒晚报这是具严重诽谤性的，所以在傍晚时分晚报才换了这引言：

“国民团结党第二助理秘书长佘雪玲有新恋情，面簿大晒亲密照！ ”

但是晚报主编必须知道实质的报章已经发售了出去了而没法更改标题和内容，这诽谤罪的嫌疑是脱不了身了。

第一，那男子并非“已婚男”而是“离婚男”。
第二，佘雪玲已经澄清这并非她目前的男友。*

虽 然晚报的报道里有加了一句，男子目前的婚姻状况不详，但是如果真是不详，为何大标题和首段竟然以断定的字眼说他是已婚男？看来，我们真的要怀疑晚报到底有 还有没有新闻从业员的最基本的专业道德与操守。在还没弄清楚事实前就胡乱报道这样具诽谤性的文章，这难道就是政府所谓的“负责任”媒体应有的所作所为吗？

晚 报和其他报业集团的报纸胡乱断章取意蓄意报道以达到中伤反对党人的形象已不是第一回了，我相信也不会是最后一回的。但是我觉得为了达到这目的而用这卑鄙无 耻的手段去形容象佘雪玲这样的女孩，试图把她报道成破坏别人家庭的第三者以破坏她政治形象，简直是令人感到非常遗憾的。

如果晚报还有那么一点华校生、读书人或华人应有的礼仪廉耻的话，那么就应该在晚报的封面刊登显著、慎重的道歉更正启事，以挽回那么一点点颜面和民众的信心。给人看到你们的诚意认错是不需要等到受害人发律师信的。

吴明盛

 *后记：佘雪玲再澄清，那男子的确是她的新男友

An Encouragement Note To Nicole Seah

The following is a note I have written to Nicole Seah after reading her article post "Ground Zero" on her personal Facebook.

Dear Nicole,

You may find it ironic or even feel that I am just being "sarcastic" but I have to congratulate you of crossing the most critical point of your life. Contrary to what you and many other people think, I think 2013 is the best year you could ever have in your life.

From what I have read from your post “Ground Zero”, 2013 is the year that provides the most important opportunity of metamorphosis for you, both in terms of personal as well as political development.

Although I hardly write to you about anything but in private, I have raised the concerns of your early political fame. Especially when you are blown out of the sky by the initial political fame gained with so many people flattering you, there lies the very danger of a devastating fall and destruction by the overinflated ego.

There is a Chinese saying, “少年得志大不幸”,literally means that most of those who have early fame or success in life, will probably end up with misfortune later. Right after GE2011, I actually felt guilty for transforming you into a “famous young Star” by urging you to stand for elections in Marine Parade which will inevitably put you into this dangerous path of “early fame”. As I watched over the days, months and years of how you have set your feet onto the sweet coated poisons of flattery and ego trips, I felt even worse. When I was persuading you to stand for elections in Marine Parade GRC, I have told you that you will definitely become famous or even a star, due to Tin PL factor of contrast and comparison. However, somehow I have left out the most important part of the potential danger lying ahead after becoming famous.

I didn’t write to you earlier because I know, there and then, you will not be able take criticisms constructively when what you heard most, was flattery. Pride and prejudice have become the biggest hindrance of your life. Anybody at your age if put into your shoes, would inevitably become so.

When I witnessed how you tripped and fell along the way with the various blunders you made publicly in forums, talks or in private, I thought to myself, all the efforts would be a waste after all. One will fall the hardest after he or she has climbed to the highest of the ego ladder. This is a historical lesson I learnt; the most effective way of destroying your opponents is to fan their ego to the highest and then after, give them the hardest blow to make them fall the hardest. They will never be able to stand up again to fight you. Strength comes not from your physical construct, but rather, from your mind and soul. Once your mind is destroyed by the fall from the ego ladder, no matter how strong you are in physical terms, you will lose the will to fight again.

When I read what you have written in this article “Ground Zero”, I feel so glad and happy for you. You have finally gone through the most difficult phase of this process of transition. Not many people can overcome this transition, a ruthless metamorphosis that will strip you of mind and soul. Some have even perished, taken their own lives for they cannot take the humiliation that comes from the fall from the ego ladder.

Thus, I have to congratulate you for making it through such enlightening process. However, I still hope that you can reconstruct your mind and soul to continue the political path which you have chosen to walk, with more wisdom and patience. Intelligence alone is not enough for one to walk the difficult, risky and uncertain path of opposition politics. You need wisdom, tact, patience, learning, hard work, team play and building, apart from charisma and stardom, to sustain and be successful in opposition politics. 

When you and other ex-RP people joined NSP and perform well in GE2011, I was extremely happy. However, I am utterly disappointed on how you guys run the campaign and later, demonstrate the impatience to take over the leadership of the party. I have no problem to hand over the SG at all but I guess it is the wrong thing to do after all.

Let me explain why I think you and others who are new to NSP are extremely politically naive and amateurish when you guys tried to take over the party. And why I decided to let Hazel become SG and allowing my membership lapsed as well.

Politics is not just about Stardom or Fame, not even about “talents”, be it “scholars” or whatever it means. It is about numbers and people management. Apparently, all of you have underestimated the strength of the “veterans” or “original members” of NSP. All you have focused is about what you want but nothing about the feelings or other people’s thinking or perception.

When I first join NSP way back in 2007, I didn’t even want to hold any position in CEC, although I was co-opted into it. But I still spent lots of effort and time to help Law Sin Ling, the then SG of NSP in various work; discussion of press releases, editorial of North Star, ground work as selling North Star etc. I wasn’t interested in taking up the SG post even after Law left. Not even when the veterans persuaded me to take over. The reason is simple: I was simply not ready to take up the SG because I have yet to gain confidence of the members. It will take time for anyone who wants to lead a whole group of people who are mostly older than you, to understand them better and find out more about each and every one of them. Else, any rush into such leadership position will be suicidal.

Anyone who tries to push you to take over such leadership position prematurely will definitely have ulterior motives or hidden agendas. It is actually a DEATH TRAP because once you take up that position, most probably you will not able to perform well because you lack the basic understanding of each individual in the party, least their full support, trust and confidence. Positions aren’t there for good showing only. They come with great responsibility and you will be putting your own credibility to great risk if you do not have the right conditions to excel.

Thus, it was only after Ken Sun stepped down and knowing the GE was near, I took up the post of SG. However, it is not without obstacle. There will always be others who want to be difficult and try to undermine your authority or position. There was one veteran who wanted to contest for the SG post. I told everyone, including him, right before the CEC elections that if he could find two congress members to propose and second him to contest for the SG post, I would decline nomination and let him be SG. He could only get one member to nominate him but no other to second him. The rest is history.

The point I want to show through my own experience, is that never underestimate the people around you. In politics, you cannot cherry pick but have to work with people whom you may not like at all. This is what team work is all about. As long as they are not there to destroy or sabotage the whole platform, you will have to play ball as a team player with them.

But when I saw how impatient the whole lot of you was rushing into demanding leadership positions, especially the SG post, I could only laugh at such naivety. I could have contested against Hazel and by now you should realize, most probably Hazel won’t win if there was a contest between us. (see afternote) But I didn’t. I empathized with your group’s plight, especially Tony and Hazel who have hopped from WP to RP and last (hopefully), NSP. They felt helpless of such “party hopping” because they felt that the main problem was that they do not have absolute control of their destiny via controlling the party platform. Furthermore, most likely if Hazel didn’t become SG there and then, your whole group would most likely leave NSP. Your group will become “political nomads”, so to speak. It will be a lose-lose situation for everyone of us. Even if I won the SG post, the whole party would still lose because we would lose the whole bunch of good, though politically inexperienced people.

However, I also foresaw that Hazel and the rest will not succeed basically because she won’t be able to commit the kinds of time and efforts demanded from a SG. Furthermore, taking up such position prematurely without even first knowing the whole party well inside out, will definitely handicapped her effectiveness as SG. Running a party of ALL volunteers is MORE demanding than running a company. This is because for a commercial entity, you can just hire and fire but not for a political party of volunteers. You will have to spend triple effort in managing PEOPLE, human beings who have different egos and characteristics.

This is the reason why I have to let my membership lapse because of these predictions, I do not want to be made the scapegoat for being blamed for Hazel’s failure. True enough, from extraordinary long time in publishing the first issue of North Star right after GE2011, to lack of leadership on the ground work front and such, my predictions came true. It is just a matter of time before she fell from that position.

I have spent so much writing on these because I want to let you know, it will do you no good to be impatient in taking up political positions in NSP CEC when you cannot commit that level of efforts and time needed to be effective. Most important of all, you will need to spend more time to understand everyone in the party, not restricting to CEC members only. Else, even if you managed to get whatever position you aimed for, you will find yourself stonewalled and frustrated at all the time.

The other point which you have raised in your article Ground Zero, is that you realize you are not expert in everything. The truth is, if you want to be a politician, even just as an opposition MP, you will have to know almost everything with certain depth, though not to the expert level. It is good that you have such realization and you are still young. You could still put effort in learning more policy matters; enrich yourself with the learning of Economics, statistics or even sociology and technology etc. This is an ever learning path for politicians.

Last but not least, I do have confidence and hope in you to progress into an even more potent political force after this great year of 2013. I always remind myself: one learns nothing from being blown out of the sky by ego fanning but only from setbacks and failures in life, one will get valuable lessons to prepare for the future. 

All the BEST to you in your future political battles.

Goh Meng Seng

Afternote: Well, even if Hazel managed to win in a contest against me during that CEC elections, she would lose even more. She would be seen as an ambitious. anxious maverick who ousted the SG whom agreed to take them into NSP. She would be seen in the same light of those backstabbers. How could she actually "win" anything via such process? Such contest will do her no good at all. Thus, the only way to resolve such lose-lose situation, was for me to step aside willingly for her to take over the SG post because she would not stand down from the contest as she has been misled into such situation. All poisons are disguised with lots of good intentions and flattery in politics. Only amateurs fail to see through such plots. 

Half Way Bell Check of SG Political Parties - SDP III

It is never easy to write a "fair assessment" of other opposition parties which do not have any seats in Parliament. We cannot use the same yardstick as PAP or WP to assess them because they have neither any opportunity to demonstrate their skills in parliament nor running any TC.

There are three main areas which I would look at these two parties, mainly

1) Organization functions, growth and stability
2) Consistency in ground work
3) Policy literature, deliberation and strength which includes commentary, press statements on various political issues etc.

All these are important parameters to gauge whether an opposition party without seats could be successful or having better chance to convince voters of their abilities in its future election bids.

Voters mentality is that they may give you "chance" but you must first show them what you are capable of, in terms of consistency in ground work, appearance on the ground and your ability to talk sense in your policy statements and published stance on various political issues. Of course, the potential of the party will also depends on how well the party is managed and growth.

SDP's Struggle on Keeping Gains and Talents

Ever since GE2011, SDP has been consistently losing talents. Part of the reasons was that most of these "high profile" candidates were not empowered by the party to become new stakeholders by appointing them as Cadre members. This in turn deprive them the opportunity to participate in SDP's CEC elections which could provide SDP the necessary party renewal.

SDP has performed reasonably well in GE2011 without its Secretary General Dr Chee Soon Juan's direct involvement in its rallies and public appearance during the election period. Thus somehow, it gave SDP a very important signal that without Dr Chee, more voters are willing to give SDP candidates with "good caliber" a chance to serve them. Of course, this may create a sense of "crisis" to the SDP leadership that the new batch of candidates may over-shine or take over the party. Thus if we look from this perspective, it is not that difficult to understand why post-GE2011 for SDP ended up with the loss of critical talents.

The only person who was new but elected into SDP's CEC was Dr. Vincent Wijeysingha but even he has quit SDP. The latest reports on Dr Ang Yong Guan has indicated that he would most probably moved on to Singapore People's Party with Mr. Tan Jee Say who have left SDP earlier to run for the Elected Presidency. Michelle Lee has long been seen putting up WP's blue T-shirt. Thus, it basically means that SDP has lost the WHOLE Holland Bukit Timah team which happened to score the HIGHEST among SDP's contested constituencies. i.e. SDP has lost its whole A TEAM.

Although SDP has since recruited new talents like Jeremy Chen who was involved in drafting the new Housing policy, but I think the lost of the whole GE 2011 Team A will reflect quite badly on itself. It will create doubts on both voters as well as other potential talents who might have second thoughts of joining the party after witnessing such losses.

The Best Website But....

If you make a thorough comparison of SDP website with other political parties, you will find that it is best professionally designed with good videos and even shopping cart for selling books to raise funds. Apparently, it has spent a lot of effort, time and most probably money in building up its website. However, something is just not right. First of all, there is no link nor information of who are the key CEC members of SDP listed on the website. Secondly, most of the books listed on sales are written by Dr Chee and even on the "FAQ", its first objective is to defend Dr Chee from the accusation that he "kicked" Mr Chiam See Tong out. Then it went on to stress that its Party is driven ideologically by Dr Chee, listing his books and such.

But it is interesting to note that SDP manages to get very talented people to help with its publication, website designs and video creation. It is a strength unmatched by other parties.

Ideologically Based on Dr Chee

It is not difficult to conclude that SDP has been built around Dr Chee by the look of its Website and literature published. Thus it seems that SDP cannot live without Dr Chee and the reverse may be true as well. This would mean that at present, any attempt to renew its top leadership would mean totally impossible because it has been so entrenched in one single man's presence in the party.

When you see Photos, you see ground work

SDP ground work has been "well documented" in the sense that each ground activity will definitely be reported on its website accompanied by photographs. However, if you observe very carefully, consistency on ground work is lacking. Consistency requires weekly engagement on the ground. There are sales of their newsletter Democrats and door knocking but these were not done regularly right after GE2011.

Ground work is more than just public visibility or photo shoot exercise. It is nice to put photos on website for netters to see but what matters most is what the ground knows of your presence.

Strength of Ideology, Policy Views and Political Literature

SDP professed to be strongly "ideologically rooted" by "Democratic Principles". Over the years, it has also developed a massive amount of political literature, thanks to Dr Chee working FULL TIME on this political front.

SDP has been able to provide timely comments, press statements and media responses for various issues, ranging from political stance, policy issues etc.It has taken its initiative to formulate various policy papers like Healthcare, Housing etc. These are good efforts even though we may not agree totally with their views.

It has also been actively sending its members, particularly younger ones, to participate in international or regional political events.However, the effectiveness of such overseas activities on local political scenes. But at least, there is some form of political education process.

SDP has put up various policy papers and some of them are quite impressive. However, many of those who helped to put up these policy papers, the brains behind all these, have left the party.

Policy papers alone will not get the party candidates elected. Each candidates' strengths and weaknesses count. Thus, it would be awkward if the party goes to GE with all these policy papers without the brains behind them.

The Linked Fate of SDP and Dr Chee ?

One of the biggest political blunder SDP has committed in post-GE2011 was the positioning of SDP by Dr Chee during the Punggol By-Election. Quite a number of SDP members and supporters I have met back then, expressed disappointment as well as frustration of Dr Chee's handling of the by-election issue.

Many acknowledge Dr Chee's contribution to the party for the past decades and had assumed that the fate of SDP will be linked to Dr Chee. However, some in the party, in increasing numbers, start to think that SDP would do better without Dr Chee as its leader. The Punggol By-election was a point that ignite such confidence crisis on his leadership.

Dr Chee will be able to contest in next GE but it was reportedly said that someone close to him has put up a "matter of fact" comment that he should quit politics altogether if he doesn't win the next elections. Unfortunately I don't see how he could win when all his able generals have left the party one by one.

I personally feel that Dr Chee should have opened up the party for renewal, accept the fact that the party has performed much better in last GE without his public participation and it is time for him to sit back as party advisor instead of taking the front driver seat. It doesn't reflect well if the party could put up an individual as its candidate during GE but in the end, was NOT promoted as the party's cadre members for whatever reasons. This is especially so when the candidates in question, are all very well qualified.

It would be irresponsible for a party to put up a candidate whom it doesn't trust to be its cadre member but deems fit to be an MP in parliament representing Singaporeans, unless there are really valid reasons to refuse such promotion for these candidates.

Especially so for a party that advocates Democracy, it should first practice it openly instead of just merely playing lip service about Democracy.

Cadre System and its Folly

The Cadre System is practiced in most political parties in Singapore, except for a few. The Cadre System is set up to prevent infiltration by opponent's agents so to disrupt leadership continuity or placement. However, the Cadre System has become a tool for incumbent leaders to control who can contest and vote in party leadership election. Most of the Cadre System only empowers the CEC or even just the few party leaders to decide who can be or not be cadre members of the party.

Thus, if the CEC or leaders are to preserve their own power and position in the party, the only thing they need to do is to appoint more members that they trust to vote for them during CEC elections. This will create a bad vicious power inbreeding and made renewal extremely difficult if the leaders themselves refused to step down.

During my time in NSP, I have made a couple of proposal to improve the Cadre System (or Congress Membership) in NSP. CEC will not be the only entity that holds the power to promote and appoint cadre members. The Cadre members themselves can propose and approve cadre membership during Party Congress. This will strike a balance of power between the need to prevent infiltration while avoid power inbreeding among the CEC members. I have also proposed to give Party Congress of cadre members the only power to remove critical assets like MPs. The CEC basically cannot sack any MP (if they have any) due to politicking, but have to seek the Party Congress endorsement in doing so.

This is to prevent the similar situation where SDP CEC sacks Chiam See Tong from party membership back in the 1990s due to differences in opinion and politicking.

Democracy - The Balance of Power

SDP has to show that it is serious about what it advocates : Democracy. The fallout of its team of promising candidates in the last GE indicates a serious systemic problem within the party framework.

While it is "norm" that parties may field candidates who joined the party at the very last minute but it must be cautioned that any candidates fielded by the party will be seen as someone whom the party has confidence in serving the constituents. Thus it is illogical for the party not to have the confidence in these candidates to become stake holders of the party by promoting them into cadre members.

The party structure will also need to be seen as transparent,accountable and open to constant renewal. It must also be seen as balance in delegating power instead of being seen as a "One Man Show", else it would be ironic contradiction for a party that advocate Democracy but in reality, practice dictatorial management style.

Conclusion

After the departure of Vincent Wijeysingha, I am rather pessimistic about SDP's future. No matter how many good policy papers it has produced in the past, political contest in Singapore is still reliant on individual personality on the ground.

A party cannot progress with massive loss of experienced, good candidates, especially from its A Team. It will setback the party's advancement and dent the party's credibility if the reasons for losing these candidates is due to internal politicking or the lack of trust in these candidates. 

Unfortunately, rightfully or wrongfully, Dr Chee will be seen as one leader who have dampen the progress of his party TWICE in history. I do not have high hope that Dr Chee could win the GE when he keeps losing good candidates. He may have the best Website and so on, but he lacks the appeal to the voters at the center who will decide winners.

Goh Meng Seng

Singaporean First Alliance

Over the years, we have heard about how the big influx of foreign workers or talents has created great impact on Singaporeans' life. We have also heard about how some Singaporeans cry out foul about those who protested or made comments about these foreign migrants as "Xenophobic" or simply "Extremists".

Some would even accuse anyone who raise the flag of Singaporean First as Xenophobic without really understanding what it means, neither will they reason it out in proper context.

We have seen how companies under the control of foreigners have started to build "racial enclave" within their own working environment. It is no surprise that we observe some banks or business entities being filled by employees with the same country origin. It has become so absurd that we start to see job advertisement put up in public space to have race or country origins or "Singapore PR", worse, to boast about their present working environment is dominated by their "own people" from the same country! And this actually happens right in our country!

When such things happened and reported on the social media, those usual suspects who cry foul about Singaporean First as "Xenophobic" have suddenly suffered strange disease of muteness. They have simply lost their voice and we have not heard from them calling these advertisement as "Xenophobic" or "Singaphobic"?  It is totally illogical for Singaporeans to be discriminated right in their own country! No citizens in the world, will become second class citizens and get discriminated by FOREIGNERS in their own countries. I guess these "human rights activists" who cry "Xenophobic" too often, should get their perspective right in the first place and stop taking that self righteous stance. There is nothing more righteous than good reasoning, fairness and justice.

In order to understand the whole problem of globalization, we must first understand the basics of ultra-capitalism. In the traditional teaching of "Free Market Principles", ultra-capitalism dictates that it would be BEST for the capitalist to have totally free mobility of labour and free mobility of capital funds so that they could maximize their profits wherever opportunities arise.

It would be easy to understand this ultra-capitalism concept by looking at the simple economic equation of production:

GDP = Labour Input + Capital Input+ Land + Technology + other factors of production (eg. raw materials)

It is not difficult to see that if we want GDP to grow indefinitely, we could just keep increasing labour and capital. This is exactly what PAP government is trying to do. They are trying to grow GDP at all cost by increasing labour, thus population and capital via luring MNCs.

The problem is, Singapore is just a little red dot with limited land space. We couldn't possibly increase the labour, thus population size indefinitely without resulting in more crowded living space for all Singaporeans. We should also be very mindful that we should not just increase GDP for the sake of GDP growth itself. The ultimate aim should be providing Singaporeans better jobs, better wages, better living standards and quality of life but definitely not higher inflation. But are we getting these in spite of higher GDP growth? What we are experiencing is that 80% of Singaporeans suffered from the cost of such ultra-capitalist method of growth, in terms of higher inflation and depressed wages, while only top 10 to 20% of Singaporeans benefited from such development. This is obviously represented by the ever increasing income disparity in Singapore.

I have renamed my FB Name to Goh Meng Seng SingaporeanFirst to indicate a new phase of my life in response to the various ridiculous happenings going on in Singapore under PAP rule, which allows us to be robbed of our dignity as a citizen, as well as subjecting ourselves to major discrimination by a huge foreign population allowed in by PAP. It will be a new era of Singaporean First Alliance for me from now on.

I have created a FB group Singaporean First Alliance and the following is my declaration of purpose:

As a small country, it is inevitable for Singapore and our citizens to feel the full impact of Globalization. It is inevitable for us to bring in more foreign workers, be it talents or otherwise, to supplement our workforce which will face contraction due to aging population caused by low fertility rate.

However, we must always remember that for whatever policies the ruling party of the day make, it must be solely for the benefits of our citizens. Thus, Singaporeans' interests must be the FIRST PRIORITY of ALL policies made by the government.

1) We are against the over-liberal FT policy which has compromised not only the wages of Singaporeans but also job opportunities for Singaporeans.

2) Foreign Labour from Third World developing countries can afford lower pay because of their lower cost and standards of living in their home countries but Singaporeans have to bear FULL impart of the higher cost of living for them and their families in Singapore. Cheap labour substitution by companies should be prevented by legislative and administration means by the Government.

3) We are just a tiny little island and any big influx of foreigners will definitely push up our land and property prices which will in turn inflate our rents and eventually prices for all goods and services. We are against mindless population targets set by the ruling party PAP which will eventually cause high inflation and push up our cost of living in Singapore.

4) We are against of the aggressive population target set by PAP because this will cause great strains on all public services starting from public transport, public housing to public healthcare.

5) We are against of the 6.9m population target because most of the foreign immigrants we are taking in are from Third World countries which have the very third world mentality and attitudes which are very different from ours. This will inevitably cause cultural frictions which may be a potential source of social tensions or even unrest if it is not managed properly.

6) There may be people who would accuse us of "Xenophobic" or even "Extremist" but we are not. We are just Nationalistic amidst the waves of Globalization and massive influx of foreign migrants, to defend the dignity, jobs and rights of our citizens, brothers and sisters of all races.

7) On the contrary, we view PAP's liberal FT policy as extremism and ultra-capitalist that only takes care of the interests of big MNCs, GLCs and business interests but disregard the welfare, well being and interests of our citizens. Such policy has only helped to suppress wages of citizens and compromise citizens' job security and well being, aggravating income distribution in spite of high GDP growth. Such strategy of Growth at ALL COST coupled with a weak labour law and union have made most Singaporeans suffer the high cost of growth while a minority of people, including foreign MNCs, GLCs and business owners, to enjoy the fruits of growth.

8) In fact, we are far from being Xenophobic as we are concerned and against the unethical modern slavery that has been practiced by some industry and businesses on low or unskilled workers from the Third World country. We are against of such modern slavery in Singapore which not only bring shame to our country but compromise wages of our Singaporeans in these fields as well.

9) We demand FAIR WAGE for ALL, including foreign workers with priority given to Singaporeans First. We understand that if we do not enforce FAIR WAGE for Foreign workers, our local Singaporean workers will be displaced by CHEAPER foreign labour.

10) As our national race strategy is to prevent the formation of "Racial Enclaves" in housing and such, we have observed that "Racial-National Enclaves" of foreign labour have formed in various sectors and industries. This has gone unchecked when the foreign migrants have started a quiet but deliberate effort to employ their own race or national origins for job openings when they have gained control of the hiring power within their organizations or companies. This is in effect an unhealthy development of Economic and Job colonialization by these foreign workers. This must be stopped. Any company in Singapore that do not employ at least 50% of Singaporeans will have little reasons to stay in Singapore as their presence will not benefit Singaporeans at all.

11) Last but not least, we may welcome these foreigners to work along us or even become Singapore citizens eventually one day, but we must maintain that these foreigner should realize that they are guests while we are the hosts. They should respect and obey not only our laws but also our cultural practices and way of life. Foreigner should integrate into our core, learn the ways of our multiculturalism harmony and tolerance instead of trying to impose their own values and way of life upon us. 

The self righteous Human Rights activists as well as PAP people will definitely try to throw labels like Xenophobic on such movement but I have only one simple defence, do they kick out their own family members so to let their friends stay in their house?

Singapore is the only land Singaporeans have to call home. It is only right for us to demand our government to take care of our own citizens and defend our rights and dignity against being treated and discriminated as second or third class residents on this land. These self righteous Human Rights activists should stop their own delusion but open their eyes to the real happenings around them, start to acknowledge truthfully the absurdity happening in Singapore that compromise our citizens' rights and interests.

If all fail, call me Xenophobic if you want; it is only right for me to fight for FAIR treatment and against mindless ultra-capitalist liberal FT policy.  If you can't see the abuse and trespasses of our citizens' rights and interests, so be it. I am just simply Nationalistic.

Goh Meng Seng

Electoral System Under Scrutiny

Recently five empty ballot boxes used for 2012 Presidential Elections were found idling in a school compound. The newly promoted Minister Chan has replied in parliament to brush it off as a non-issue as these were not "controlled items" anymore. That is utterly nonsense.

Maybe the Minister has not gone through any elections since he was "uncontested" during GE 2011 and he didn't know how the whole electoral process is carried out. But I am surprised no one, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE in parliament has challenged him on such nonsensical claim by pointing out the obvious contradictions to what the actual electoral process is about.

Let me run through the process in counting centers to illustrate this point:

1) After the polling is closed, all ballot boxes will be transported to the relevant counting centers. No polling agents nor counting agents are allowed to escort the boxes. This has been raised by Tan Jee Say. This should be improved and agents should be allowed to escort the ballot boxes.

2) When the ballot boxes reached the counting centers, they are separated into different precinct level for counting. A typical counting center will have six precincts, meaning, six separated tables for counting with different supervisors and counting agents.

3) The number of total ballots for each precincts was not announced before counting. This should be improved because the Election Department should have such data since it has been computerized. This is the make sure that the number of votes cast should equal to the number of votes counted.

4) After counting, they will submit the vote counts for the main supervisor to tally. There after, they will announce the vote tally.

5) If there is no objections, the Election officials will put every single thing, including counting documents and ballots BACK into the SAME BALLOT BOXES and sealed them up. This is done because it would be easy for future checking if there is any electoral dispute on the results. These boxes will then be sent to be stored at High Court Vault.

6) There is no other carriers used in the whole process. Thus, logically there SHOULD NOT BE EXTRA BALLOT BOXES lying around if this stringent process is followed thoroughly.

Thus, unless Minister Chan can show us that the whole counting process has been changed, there is absolutely no reason to believe that these boxes are discarded instead of "extras".

P.S. Add-on:
I am not saying anybody is lying because the electoral process has been changed over time. eg. Last time we used to have metal boxes with locks instead of paper boxes.

But any changes made to the whole process must not compromise the integrity or the perception of the integrity of the electoral process.

The reason to preserve ALL critical material used in the electoral process because if there is any dispute after the elections, investigation will have to be made and even boxes could be evidence or clue to what actually happened.

Thus, if there are more than one box in a precinct, all boxes must be preserved and kept until it is sure that no contest or dispute on the results warrant any recount or investigation, then these boxes will be sent to incinerators together.

This concept is about keeping the evidence of the first scene in any criminal investigation.

What the Minister has said is totally illogical because it would mean that critical evidence like the boxes would be "declassified" and throw away even before there is certainty that no investigation or dispute raised. That is absurd.


It is only logical to consider these boxes as controlled items even after vote count because it could create unnecessary doubts on the electoral process if there are boxes lying around that would give rise to suspicion of frauds. 

The Electoral Process must not only be done properly but it must also be SEEN to be done properly. Thus, all processes must be taken with great care. The addition suggestions I have made here must be considered seriously:

A) Election or Polling agents from both sides must be allowed to escort the transportation of ballot boxes.

B) Before the counting starts, counting agents and observers must be told about the ballot cast in the respective precincts. Total vote cast for all precincts must be declared as well. This could be done with the help of modern technology. This is to make sure that the possibilities of frauds will be minimized. 

This is a serious matter as it has great impact on the perception of the whole electoral process and the legitimacy of the people being elected in every elections. This is especially important when the last Presidential Elections was so closely fought and the vote difference between the elected candidate (Tony Tan) and the first runner up (Tan Cheng Bock) was just a few thousand votes.

An independent Parliamentary Inquiry Committee consisting of both ruling and opposition party MPs  should be set up and called to investigate about the matter instead of relying solely on statement made by the PMO which was the department in charge of the Election Department. A separation of power should be constructed to exercise true checks and balances of such important matter that concern the integrity of our electoral system.

Goh Meng Seng

P.S. Some said that the counted ballots should be contained in new boxes instead of old. I disagree. This is because if there is a any dispute later on, investigation will be made and all details of the electoral process will be scrutinized. Old boxes contain such details and it should be preserved.

Half Way Bell Check on SG Political Parties - WP Part II

It is always difficult for me to write an assessment or critique of Workers Party not only because it has apparently the largest "Internet Troopers" on New Media who would readily curse and swear at people who criticize WP but on top of that, I was once a member of its CEC.It will be a kind of internal struggle within me but since I have set to be truthful to myself and to the words I write, what have to be done, will be done accordingly. It is for the greater good of learning for our constant evolving and emerging democracy in Singapore.

It was exciting for anyone who have worked decades for a better development of democracy in Singapore to know that opposition party WP has finally "made it" to break through the stranglehold of the GRC system which was deemed as the "impenetrable fortress" of PAP heavily guarded by its ministers. I was no exception to such excitement. However, barely six to eight months right after such historical breakthrough, reality started to set in for WP.

WP fought GE2011 with a rather "sexy" slogan "Towards First World Parliament" which actually lacks philosophical and ideological depth but it works and they won. At first look, it doesn't really  matter as long as they could win seats. However, things to fall apart when parliamentary sitting starts.

What is WP's Policy Ideological Stance?

First of all, it seems WP has flip flopped on its stance on Million dollar Ministerial Salary. It tries to use some technical terms like MX-9 without a full understanding that their approach will end up similar to PAP. It is a kind of embarrassment for WP trying to show that it has "alternative" and different from PAP but ended up like a side-kick of PAP instead. I really wonder whether WP has done a thorough internal policy exploration and debate or not before it went on to parliament to present its stance.This is especially important when its new maverick MPs try to "show off" their "intelligence" by embarking on a path that result in the upheaval of present policy stance, due diligence must be made.

The most horrified thing to happen in parliament is WP's stance on 6.9 million population direction. It just gave a "discount" to PAP's 6.9 million to 5.9 million. It is another glaring attempt of WP trying to show it is different from PAP by having some pseudo "alternative" without really understanding the real issues around them. Plucking figures from the air isn't going to show much credibility on WP's policy front. Their proposal is in effect, a 15% increase from the present population figures and I wonder if they really think Singapore could cope with a further 15% increase in population or not.

Apart from all these, the most unbearable thing to see is WP going into parliament to raise municipal issues of cats, dogs and bird droppings. Have they run out of idea or policy matters to talk about in parliament?

All these could be excused, said WP apologists, because WP MPs are new to parliamentary culture and policy debates. But I would remind them that WP SG LTK has over 20 years of parliamentary experience and Sylvia Lim is not new as well. They should have provided the needed guidance to their "green colleagues".

It is also important to note that WP lacks real team building and shared core political values. Well, we can't expect much from opposition parties at this stage because most of the time, even for TEAM A of the opposition party, it is only assembled at the very last minute. Most important of all, for some odd reasons, you don't really see the WP MPs giving active support to each other in parliamentary debates. Communication and intense policy discussions among key members is a very important way to get political stance clear and everybody stick to it instead of flip flopping during public forums and parliamentary debates.

The most embarrassing contradiction and glaring fumble that exposed WP's apparent lack of Democratic ideology is the Vote Buying Saga in one of its HDB upgrading voting exercise carried out in its Aljunied Town. Lucky Draw for voting yes. Isn't this similar to PAP's strategy of vote PAP for HDB upgrading kind of pork barrel politics? Apparently WP only pays lip service to Democracy and attack PAP for vote buying just to gain votes. But when it comes to its own little management of a town, it would even go a step further by using privileged information of voters' preference (because it is not a secret ballot) to carry out its vote buying exercise!

Integrity, Transparency, Accountability and Competency

The unfortunate YSL adultery saga is the first major blow to WP. But apparently, the impact is very limited as the two by elections in Hougang and Punggol East have demonstrated that voters are unfazed  by such scandal. But up till now, due to WP's abrupt dismissal of YSL after keeping totally mum about the rumors, most Singaporeans will not know the truth at all. The truth may mean little to most people but the way WP handles this issue gives a glimpse on the opaque way WP deals with matters. It is unfortunate for an opposition party like WP who fights on the Democracy principles of Transparency and Accountability would end up tripping itself all over them. The only face-saving act was to sack YSL in double quick time when more evidence surfaced on the media to show that YSL has erred in his personal life.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in any field but apparently WP doesn't see it as a problem, even if it means suffering embarrassment when Pritam was exposed right in parliament. Apart from all these, there is also a small little drama of Secret Squirrel Saga happening right in the middle of Hougang By-elections which directly questioned WP Png Eng Huat's integrity when it shows documented WP internal CEC minutes that Png was listed as one of the potential NCMP candidate as contrary to what he has claimed. 

But these aren't the greatest evil yet. Town Council management and WP's managing agent FMSS seems to its biggest problem so far.

Town Council management used to be WP's Comparative Advantage against all other opposition parties but apparently it is loosing its plot over this field. First of all, the initial appointment of FMSS as its MA raise eyebrows. We have attacked PAP for giving out contracts and goodies to cronies but in the end, we find WP doing the same in its own backyard. So it seems that being FIrst World is to learn from PAP's First World bad practices in dealing with public contracts. But at the very least, when the Brompton bike saga blew up, PAP took actions against its errant civil servants.

WP's TC management was put in doubt for various issues:

1) For some reasons, the Independent Auditors didn't want to sign or comment on AHTC's account. This is rather unusual and we don't know why up till now. WP didn't offer any explanation at all and such opaque management style is really worrying.

2) WP blames some of its TC management problems to PAP's AIM. Although PAP's AIM saga involved politically motivated transactions, but apparently, from published documented emails, WP is supposed to have a smooth hand over since 2011. This was reiterated by WP's Sylvia Lim that there was a smooth transition. So it is quite puzzling to hear WP back tracking and blame on PAP for its own incompetency.

3) The most intriguing and disappointing happening is the Hawker Ceiling Saga. Here again, after it is apparent that there must be something wrong with FMSS management of the TC, inconvenient truths are just swept under the carpet. Accusations made against FMSS key manager insisting of additional payment was brushed aside while unsolicited quotation to the hawkers by its subcontractor was explained as "private deal"! It is really mind boggling  and when you thought LTK is going to do some serious investigation on this issue, a sudden twist happens and everything is quickly swept off and WP just pretends nothing happens. It is a typical incident that exposed doubtful integrity, non-transparent and total lack of accountability on WP's part.

4) Dubious sacking of TWO pregnant women by FMSS within a year has put serious doubts on WP's political standing. Some have argued that FMSS is not WP but we must always remember that FMSS only serves WP's AHTC and WP is the boss that employed this management agent. If the MA it employs has bad management practices that contradicts the party's political philosophy or ideology like eradicating discrimination of women, single women, pregnant women etc, then it has the political moral authority to correct FMSS. But so far, nothing heard from WP on such standing.

Despite of all these failings hitting hard at the basic fundamental core values of WP's Integrity, Transparency, Accountability and Competency, I guess most die-hard opposition supporters and WP people would still pledge their support for WP. This is a big silver lining for WP. However, there might be a small group of well educated middle ground voters who will have their confidence shaken by all these happenings. But I guess this group will be quite insignificant, taking the two by-elections into account.

Political Ground Movement & Engagement

WP remains as the only opposition party which has the most consistent political ground engagement on the front. It is a strong tradition that keeps the party moving, consolidate and provide ground activities for their activists. At the same same, it also provides an important revenue source to pay rent for the party HQ.

WP also has the advantage of controlling the TC in which provides a platform for it to organize various activities for residents, like Durian Tours etc. On top of that, they have consistent door knocking and block parties.

These are tested and proven to be effective political work that will help to fortified their gains as well as opening up new frontiers.

Intra-party Dynamics

On the surface, Mr. Low TK seems to hold a tight ship. However there are signs that all are not well.

First of all, it is the matter of ethnic balance. The departure of Sajeev and Fazli, both candidates of WP in GE2011, has shed some light of the perceived "Chinese" image of WP. Some may argue that these are just exceptional cases but that is not all. WP tried to woo "minority members" by holding some talks specially for Malays but the attendance by non-party members was pathetic. It has tried to appease the Malay community and its members by promoting some of them to cadre members. It has also "elected" more Malays and Indians into its Youth Wing CEC. But the fact still remains, its recent "helicopter co-option" of three "elite" members into its CEC has further tilted the racial balance within its top leadership.

The situation may aggravate if these members have seldom participated in any Hammer sales or door knocking. It is quite unusual for WP do a "helicopter co-option" of CEC members more than 1 year after its OPC. I remember back in the early days, they tried to co-opt a Malay lecturer but failed because the reason given was, WP should respect the will and votes of the cadres... well even when it is a good potential Malay candidate. Of course, the Malay lecturer left the party thereafter.

Apart from that, it is fascinating to observe LTK being "over-ruled" subtly in the Hawker Ceiling Saga. He has openly declared that he want to find out who asks FMSS contractor ATL to send the quotation to the hawkers. But subsequently, he retracted his stance by saying there will be no more investigation done. Although LTK has stepped down as Vice Chairman of the TC but he is still the SG of WP and member of the Board of TC. When there are issues arising from the TC which will put bad publicity and doubts on the party, he will need to step in to clear it up. Thus, it really makes me wonder whether he is still in control of the party at all when he has to do a U-turn like this publicly.

Many view the co-option of the three CEC members as "good development" but I would see it as a signal that there is intense tension within the CEC so much so that LTK has to use co-option as a means to tilt the balance to ensure stability within. But such co-option will create more quiet discontent among cadres and party activists especially so when it is perceived as "elitist" without considering the party's culture of "merits" based on participation of ground work like Hammer Sales and Door Knocking. It will disillusion them that WP is becoming too similar to PAP's management. It is not a good sign at all.

There has been long standing rumors about factional friction and even "fight" within WP but I would say that it would be foolish for anyone to rock the boat when all of them are sitting on its tip.

How is WP Performance so far?

Very disappointing. This is not just my assessment but some WP ardent supporters and even members who have put it plainly to me.

Chen Shao Mao has been "over-sold". He is the only one with "International Perspective" but he lacks depth in understanding issues in Singapore. This is why he could only go on lofty ideas but hardly any beef or insights on specific local issues. He may have well prepared speech delivered in parliament but as a lawyer, his debating skills is really agonizing. Although I don't like LKY at all but I have to agree with his observation of CSM, he is disappointing and cannot debate properly. It is a necessary but insufficient strength to recite a prepared speech properly in parliament. You need to be able to debate about it as well.

Then we have the maverick smart alec type, Pritam Singh. There is nothing wrong if you want to use somebody's else articulated points and this has been done quite frequently in parliament. But the only decent thing to do is to credit the source or raise it as "I have read this point from a blog....etc". But if you try to make it sound as your articulated point, then you lose your plot and integrity as well. Not to mention how he went on to conduct the "Vote Buying exercise" in his ward for HDB upgrading poll which is really a brutal and cruel way of diminishing the very democratic values his party is supposedly fighting for. Of course, his fumble over publicly saying that WP will be ready to be PAP's coalition partner in a post-GE2011 forum is really premature. The worst part is his role in the Ceiling Saga which he responded with that kind of smart alec attitude.

LTK is right that at present, WP is not ready to be the government yet. You may not need "elites", top lawyers or top scholars to form government but at the very least, you need people with REAL International Perspective and REAL Understanding of policy issues with indisputable integrity first before you can move forward to become ruling party. Apparently WP is very weak in this aspect. Sylvia Lim may be proficient in Legal issues while YJJ has good points in education policy, but that are about all they have. It would be very dangerous for WP to become ruling party with more of the likes of Lian and Huat. Nothing personal and nothing to do with "paper qualifications" but running ministries will need people with better ideas in policy matters. Learning from other countries is not a sin, but not knowing the issues and where to find solutions, will be devastating.

Conclusions

WP will definitely continue to win popular votes and more seats in the coming elections. Their ground political activities and engagement is superb and will allow them to gain more seats. However, that is purely not enough for a political party to win seats but unable to deliver in parliamentary debates or proper running of TC. It is just not enough to become a "social club" kind of political party where the party focus more on social gatherings and activities rather than serious policy discussions and deliberations.

Although it claims that it is not ready to be government, but it has to start somewhere, to groom itself to be a real alternative to PAP. It has to get its acts together, be it administrative running of its TC, policy debates in parliament, strengthening of their core values or just plain common sense.

Even if WP is really like what Pritam said, wanting to be a coalition partner of PAP, it will have to make sure that it has the people with necessary learning and exposures to become ministers.

What WP needs to do at the moment are:

1) Strengthen its internal political education process. It is just not enough to fill up members' time with Hammer Sales, Door Knocking and various social gatherings (temper dinners, Christmas party and such). A political party like WP will have to start political education to keep its members and activists deeply rooted in policy stance, political ideology and beliefs.

2) It must start to set its standards of good governance starting from TC management. It is totally unacceptable to allow its MA to create unnecessary political embarrassment and incidents that contradicts the party's political standing. WP must be the one which lead and guide the MA in management principles and not the other way round. It has to act as the boss of FMSS instead of allowing it to pull its nose around. Keep it under control.

3) It has to change its cultural mindset and change the perception of Malay and Indian communities if it wants to stay relevant to National political platform. Sense of Fairness and Justice is human inborn nature and you couldn't fool people all the time.

4) Integrity, Transparency, Accountability and Competency are easy slogans to shout about but definitely a heavy burden to practice. As an opposition, WP cannot lose the "Moral High Ground" by using the argument "PAP also like that" to justify its shortcomings. Worse still, learning those "legalized" but marred with all sorts of "conflict of interests" methods to run its daily business will definitely not give us any confidence at all. It has to set it straight and enforce a mechanism to get things right. Shying away from potential scandals and embarrassment by sweeping inconvenient truths under the carpet isn't going to help them grow. We are not asking WP to be filled with saints but basic integrity is a necessary ingredient to survive in Singapore politics. Just admit there is wrong if things really went wrong and promised to correct the situation. Supporters will understand and forgive people who are ready to learn the better ways but will not tolerate the lack of integrity. It is how you manage scandals and crisis that matters, not merely why they happen matters.

5) WP will have to keep its unity intact. Any signs of infighting or power struggles will definitely reduce voters' confidence tremendously. The lesson of SDP's internal struggle way back in 1990s is an important lesson for WP. While unity is important, WP cannot be run like a machine under dictatorial rule. It must learn to respect diversity of views and ideas, allowing its members, including future potential candidates to learn how to deal with public space and messaging. Curbing members' meaningful participation in internet forums, blogs and new media to express themselves of their various political and policy views will do more harm in their grooming. Instead, WP should ban or discouraged its members from involving "Internet Brigade" which aims to flame, troll or suppress critiques from commenting on its shortcomings. A political party that truly believe in Democracy and Freedom of Speech would encourage RESPONSIBLE SPEECH, discussions and discourses instead of encouraging or set up Internet Brigades to flame, troll, disrupt and suppress other people's freedom of speech.

The next step of democratic development for Singapore is to deprive PAP ABSOLUTE POWER in parliament, to cut its seats to less than two third of parliamentary seats. Thus, last but not least I hope that WP could work with all other opposition parties to achieve this aim instead of embarking on its predatory path of "I walk my own path" kind of mentality and start to prey on smaller parties by going all out for multi-corners fights to wipe them out.

WP has to realize that it has many shortcomings and it alone, may not achieve "greatness" in any sense. It will still need cooperation with other opposition parties to push on meaningful political, democratic development for Singapore.


Goh Meng Seng

Half Way Bell Check on SG Political Parties - PAP Part I

This is approximately the MID Term point of the present parliamentary term if you believe the next General Election will be held in 2015.

Before I start to write this article, there are three interesting Political News and happening in Singapore:

1) One of the most promising political star in SDP, Dr Vincent Wijeysingha has call it a quit over LGBT issues.

2) PAP has announced its latest promotion of ministers. Chan Chun Sing has been promoted while Tan Chuan Jin has unexpectedly missed out of this promotion exercise.

3) WP has announced the new co-option of three members into its CEC. One of them was a candidate in GE 2011 while the other two are relatively new "elites". One of them is a lawyer while the other is an Associate Professor lecturing in NUS.

4) For NSP, after half a year of neglect of their website (yes, no updates, not even on CEC information), they have started to act. However, some curious things I have observed. The Secretary General Hazel is missing in action for all NSP recent activities, so is her husband Tony Tan. Even for important press statement, it was issued by Nicole Seah, the second aassistant secretary, not Hazel. On the other hand, Apparently, the newly co-opted CEC member cum Head of Media Team is missing from the CEC list as well.

These are the four main political parties (sorry for the exclusion of the others, including SPP, DPP and others) that I am going to examine at this Half Way Point.

Post-LKY ERA


The context of present situations is Post-LKY ERA. What will happen or how things will develop with the final phase of POST-LKY ERA in the making? It is clear by the day that the days that Singapore will live without the physical presence of LKY will come soon. Transitions into such era or even into change of ruling power have been discussed openly and intensely recently. The fundamental questions are:

1) Will PAP break with the passing of LKY?
2) Will PAP lose power after LKY pass on?
3) How will the political landscape change with the passing of LKY?

LKY has stepped down right after GE2011 along with Goh Chok Tong. There are common whispers that he did it in order to use his last influence to clear out the main internal challenge posed by the "GCT Camp" to his son's rule. This is just like old kungfu show that the old master uses his last political breathe to save his disciple from the great opponent, killing both the master and the opponent altogether.

The recent promotion exercise is also seen as a bid to look for someone "acceptable" by the Lee camp to take over as Prime Minister once the present PM Lee steps down. Apparently, Chan Chun Sing and Heng Swee Kiat are the front runners while some people think that Lawrence Wong may be the third contender.

Many people say that Heng Swee Kiat is "intelligent" guy and he should be the PM. But I beg to differ. LKY wasn't the smartest (as compared to Dr Goh Keng Swee) among his peers back in the 1960s, neither was he the most charismatic (as compared to Lim Ching Song) but he became the PM. Leadership cannot be built upon intelligence alone. Dr Goh Keng Swee might be the smartest guy among his peers but he lacked the charisma, especially public speaking skills, to be Prime Minister. Intelligence alone is only a necessary but insufficient condition for Prime Minister-ship. As for Chan Chun Sing, I cannot imagine us, Singapore, to have a Kee Chiu General to be our Prime Minister.

In fact, I think Tan Chuan Jin, who has been left out of promotion this time round, has the few critical criteria to become the next Prime Minister. He is a "thinking" minister who can make amends to his positions from time to time to suit changes in various situations. Although it is unfortunate that he has to face a couple of crisis in these couple of years which he may not have handled exceptionally well, but from my observations, he can make necessary reflections and adjustments quite responsively instead of sticking to stagnant stance like former MND Mah BT who kept insisting on his HDB pricing strategy and policy even though many people have shown him that his HDB policy is really screwed.

But nevertheless, whoever tries to become the next Prime Minister under PAP will definitely find himself in the worst position in history. PAP is after all, a "sunset party" and what it has relied heavily upon, the total monopoly of power and assurance of winning elections on every seats have diminished. It will find itself more and more difficult to recruit talented people to join them because they can no longer fulfill their promise easily as there will no longer be a "sure win" elections even under GRC system.

In view of that, it would naturally be a regression down hill development for PAP into mediocrity as it can only attract second or even third rate candidates in subsequent GE. 

PAP: Epoch Change? 

Apart from such development, on numerous occasions, PAP leaders have reiterated that they have changed and will make efforts to revamp their various policies. Most important of all, they are saying they will listen, starting with "National Conversation".

The government controlled (yes, it is a direct physical control via Press Act, giving government management ownership and huge voting rights) SPH and Main Stream Media (MSM) have hailed PM Lee's recent policy announcements made in his National Day Rally as "Epoch" changes made but is that really so?

Well, to continue to work towards 6.9 million population is anything but Epoch change. Having just a tiny tweak to their multi-million dollar ministerial salaries to yet, multi-million dollar ministerial salaries isn't really big change at all.


All these are more like Public Relations exercise rather than any serious game changer kind of policy shifts. Look, calling their tweaks in healthcare policy as "Universal Healthcare Insurance" scheme is just a bad attempt to hoodwink Singaporeans. Giving more HDB grants doesn't change the fact that their pricing mechanism is the key primary problem of spiral prices that have made asset inflation out of tune with normal inflation and salary increments for the middle-lower class. 


The bare truth is, Singaporeans continue to face the fundamental problems caused by PAP's reckless population planning which causes runaway asset inflation, runaway healthcare cost coupled with inadequate hospital beds, break down in public transport system especially for MRT and not to mention the constant flooding due to over-urbanization and Marina Barrage which was created to cope with higher water demand.

Most importantly, apart from the horrendous 6.9m population policy, their tweaks at Housing policy, healthcare and transport policies aren't exactly anything revolutionary at all.

This is especially true for HDB housing policy. Minister Khaw BW has tried his very best to deliver his promise of delivering 13,000 flats or so for this year but what he did not realize that housing problem is a long term stablizing problem. First and foremost, we need a total revamp of the wrong concept of taking HDB flats as an "investment". HDB is a home, not an investment. Secondly, we must make sure that HDB price inflation should not be higher than income increment trend. This will need a total revamp of the pricing mechanism. Third most important point is that HDB land pricing should not be used as a forever input into our Reserves. There is absolutely no reasons to pursue an indefinite growth in Reserves.

Has PAP turned the tide?

How successful is PAP in turning adverse public opinion against it? Some people opined that although PAP didn't really make great changes in these key areas but it has managed to convince and woo middle ground skeptics. I am not so sure that the middle ground could be so easily woo over.

This is especially so when PAP's crisis management skills are rather bad. This is especially so when the HAZE broke out, they couldn't even get their logistics right to deliver the masks on time as promised. Not to say about the weather warning mechanism is totally out of date and serve no purpose in safeguarding citizens' lives. Not for the HAZE warning system, neither for heavy rain and flood warning system.


If PAP cannot get both immediate crisis management, governance and future forward looking policy direction right, I am afraid that it has started to roll down the slippery slope of mediocrity. Pure lack of competency and Vision for the future will be PAP's undoing for the next GE. PAP used to provide basic fundamental competency at daily management and administration of the various systems in Singapore. At least, train doesn't break down that often, flooding doesn't occur that often as well, neither do we have constant crunch on hospital beds as well as public buses and train. I am afraid that all these basic competency has been replaced by complacency.

PAP has never been good at crisis management. I remember during the crisis of Silk Air 185 crash incident back in 1997, the then Transport Minister Mah BT was so stressed up that he actually blew his top on reporters. Now that we have all sorts of small and big crisis from time to time, ministers just acted in a reactive manner. They are just treating problems in isolation instead of taking a more holistic approach. In Chinese, we call that "脚痛医脚，头痛医头“, literally mean when the leg pain, just treat the leg, headache, just treat the head. It seems that their ability of "Helicopter View" has crashed landed.

I suspect PAP has got its priorities all wrong right from the top. Growth at all cost is still the master guiding principle. The push for 6.9m population plan is one glaring example of such "strategic thinking".

To make matter worse for PAP, its GOLDEN MANTRA "Whiter than White" has been put in serious doubt by various incidents. Integrity and Morality are something MORE than legality. What seems to be "legal" may not mean it is done with Morality and Integrity intact. 

Apart from the many big and small scandals on TOP civil servants taking bribes, the AIM saga makes PAP looks even worse, putting doubts aimed directly at its core value of "Whiter than White". Well, some may even put Michael Palmer saga as part of this deterioration and erosion of Core Value of PAP but we should not forget what happens to WP's YSL saga as well.

The most important implication of these scandals is directed at the Core Management Principle of PAP : High Pay = Eliminate Corruptions. Well, some may view that as "legalized corruptions" but it doesn't matter now. It would also mean that alternative system or methods should be explored to upkeep a clean system.

It simply means that we can no longer depend on an authoritarian system which pays its political appointees and civil servants high pay to ensure clean governance. The CORE Values of Democracy, Separation of POWERS should be established to enhance checks and balances on the various organs of governance to enhance clean management.

Apart from that, the concept of "conflict of interests" should be instilled and boundaries of good practices should be established. Due to the authoritarian nature of PAP's rule, the concept of "conflict of interests" has never been institutionalized as part of our Rule of Law, if any. With the empowerment of Internet Era, I think increasing demands on transparency, accountability and good governance will naturally raise expectation on what constitutes "Rule of Law" and "good management practices". But it seems that both PAP and WP failed to realize or understand such a shift on popular expectations.

On the other hand, PAP seems to be confused by its own promise of "light touch" approach to public opinions expressed on the internet by throwing spanners, threats of law suits, criminal persecution etc etc on bloggers, cartoonists and activists at large. It would be seen in a very bad contrasting light whereby PAP is lax towards its own morality and integrity while exercising draconian precision attacks on little errors made by citizens. In Chinese, this amount to "宽己严人", i.e. strict towards others while lax towards its own kind.

Conclusion

If PAP is determined to regain some ground it has lost, it should seriously reflect upon itself on all these grounds:

1) Readjustment to their Philosophy and Ideology of Governance, thus really revamp their various policies towards the new philosophical or ideological directions.

2) Improve their competency at governance, including crisis management.

3) There is a serious need to rethink on the issues of Integrity, Morality, Transparency, Accountability and Good Practices. It would mean to institutionalize Separation of Powers and strengthen the Rule of Law by putting more emphasis on issues of Conflict of Interests.

4) Whether PAP likes it or not, the internet or the New Media has become the important Fourth Institution of emerging Democracy in Singapore and it will replace PAP's controlled MSM totally if PAP still have any fantasy about using MSM as its propaganda tool or mouth piece. If PAP chose to revert to its old dictatorial ways of dealing with dissenting voices, it would end up losing more seats and power even more rapidly than it could imagine. It will have to relearn Public Relationship and Media management instead of relying on obedient, compliant media, editors and reporters to save them from public embarrassment. 

Last but not least, I give PAP an E as a ruling party which failed to evolve and adapt to the new reality on the ground as well as the internet.

Goh Meng Seng