The latest tally for the coming Punggol By elections shows a 4 party contest, 2 heavy weights and 2 nonsensical characters. The heavy weights: Lee's minion who will very likely win since after all it is Lee Kuan Yew's island anyway and the other heavy weight is the Workers Party's representative, a woman.
She too stands an excellent chance since they are what Lee once described as their "responsible" opposition. What this means in Singaporean parlance is this, they are opposition but at the same time they are not.
In other words they will give the impression they are an opposition but at the same time, make no efforts to mount any real threat to our Lee Kuan Yew. So she has a good chance of winning since a vote for her is almost like a vote for the Lee's PAP anyway.
All this I understand. But what I don't understand is what in Heaven's is Kenneth Jeyaretnam doing there anyway. He knows he has not the slightest chance in the world of succeeding. No one knows him anyway, although they knew his father. But he is nothing compared to his father. He has done nothing. He has nothing in common with the people and the people owe him nothing at all.
To top it all, he doesn't make sense. Please see this video http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/87054.html
When asked why he is entering the fray when he knows he hasn't a chance in the world, he says in the West 18 parties have contested state elections. What he apparently doesn't appear to know that in such countries there is proportional representation, not first past the post as in
In the
In fact someone should go up to Kenneth and explain to him that he has no chance, not now, or in the next 20 years of ever getting anywhere. Lee has, unlike his treatment of his father who had some substance, completely ignored him. I am not surprised. He appears to think that simply by going house to house and speaking English to the residents of Punggol East to solicit votes is the way it is done. He is simply wasting his time and money, which would have been much better spent in paying a political advisor with some grey matter up there to tell him what Singapore politics actually is.
The other spoiler who has no chance in the world is Desmond Lim of the unknown Singapore Democratic Alliance. In his case he is probably a paid government agent deliberately deployed to break up the votes to ensure either a Workers Party or PAP victory. Just look at his total lack of the English Language or an ability to articulate himself. This is the pathetic sort of opposition candidates you have in Lee's first world
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 4375
3 comments:
In the 2006 election, Desmond Lim is part of the SDA team that received 31.3% of the votes against PAP 68.7% in Pasir Ris-Ponggol GRC.
He is the only REAL opposition participating in this by-election.
The other 2 oppositions, one is a "responsible" opposition, another is an attention seeker. $16,000 is a small price to pay for losing the deposit.
Gopalan, your absence from Singapore has made you out of touch.
Being an ex-workers party guy you should know that WP is run by PAP. In current Singapore, PAP understood that they can't keep everybody happy neither they could continue threatening people and control the frustration.
WP is assigned to control and provide a FAKE leadership to these people.
Kenneth has done right thing by fighting the election, at least this will be an eye opener to the people as lot of people started understanding these fake dynamics.
For any hope in Singapore's democracy to be alive, WP needs to be dealt first and people must make sure no more WP fake head count in parliament.
Being Indian and from minority race in broader sense you should encourage people of your race to stand behind KJ rather than WP who is only working as pacifier to unhappy Chinese population.
If you understand the dynamics of parliamentary democracy, minority don't necessarily need to win elections but in many complex ethnic democracies minority plays a crucial role of king makers.
To Anonymous who said
"Gopalan, your absence from Singapore has made you out of touch."
I am fully aware that WP is merely a front of the PAP. It is obvious you have not been reading my blogs. But even so, the people percieve WP to be opposition and that is enough for the moment. Once elected they would raise questions on PAP policies, and even if the questions are not those you may want them to ask, at least they are questions and they are present in Parliament in larger numbers. Hopefully as more get in, they may be emboldened to ask prying questions such as the rule of law, freedom of expression and other important issues. But above all the people percieve them to be oppostion and sometimes, perceptions are far more important than facts.
David Ben Gurion was asked why he was satisfied with little piece of desert offered to him by the United Nations before the vote in 1948 for partition and Isreal. His answer righlty was "Half a loaf is better than none". I think his remark is equally true in these Punggol East by elections for those hoping for freedom.
As for Kenneth he has no chance at all. His only consequence is to spoil WP's chances. This serves no purpose.
Let me put it this way, a fake opposition in this case is better than no opposition at all.
As for my being Indian and therefor I should stand for any half Indian as Kenneth is, is not an issue I would want to pursue.
And finally, even though I may be writing from California and have been away from Singapore island for some considerable time, from what you said, depsite my absence, it would appear I know quite a bit more about Lee Kuan Yew's island than you do.
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