Tks bro ... dat means GE can be held any time the PAP want as long as they get the puppet president to dissolve parliament .......
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Breaking News: Erections Are Coming. Erections Are Coming.
- Thread starter ahleebabasingaporethief
- Start date
Tks bro ... dat means GE can be held any time the PAP want as long as they get the puppet president to dissolve parliament .......
66%: Mai lah! Feel uncomfy without something being rammed in my back side every now and then! *hee*hee*
Not necessary lah. They already have their own "stooge brigade" for erection counters. Only support staff have to be trained.
They already had one training session in NOV/DEC 2008 as reported in our 154th. Remember?
Heard June holidays. Will wait and see. But opposition and Netizens better be prepared.
Start spreading the news....as they say. Be prepared!
June? Looks like they are really scared that in 2011, LKY could be dead by then. If they don't fear 2011, why let rumours of a 2009 one be dispersed into the public domain?
I mean, either they purposely did it, or that LHL is so incompetent that he cannot control rumours from coming out of PAP HQ. But it wouldn't be surprising if it was the latter- if it weren't for the additional fact that LKY is still around.
The MIW and kakis were quite discrete. It was after their mornign walk or jog.
I was sitting on the next table, pretend to plug in my headphones and bop my head to music except there was no music. I just read my papers and listened. June 2009 lah
The opposition will probably be ready. I'd bet there will be many intensive meetings in the next few days in the evening time.
Money? Of course it is all about money. You think it is about the heart?
Do you know like, in Kim Seng, they "en bloc" out the old people who paid finish their flats. Then never tear down but lease to probably FTs to earn rental! And the old people now have to take another loan to finance their "new" but smaller pigeon holes! Hahahahahahahaha
See! Screwed you!
Do you know like, in Kim Seng, they "en bloc" out the old people who paid finish their flats. Then never tear down but lease to probably FTs to earn rental! And the old people now have to take another loan to finance their "new" but smaller pigeon holes! Hahahahahahahaha
See! Screwed you!
yeah i remember now ... they renovate the old flats nice nice & put in trendy furniture & rent to FTs ...
somemore in central district kim seng, while citizens have to move to outlying areas with transport problems ...
If your ward does not have a walk over.....
i always treat such monies as tax rebates.
after that i still vote for oppositions, if i can get to vote..!!
wake up your bloody idea you oppositions mofos !!
meaning economy will be off the cliff after GE........ fuck the MIWs[/B]
Yes pls fuck them properly this time around.
TOC Opinion: Snap Election for early March?
Tuesday, 13 January 2009, 10:22 pm | 784 views
Choo Zheng Xi
In an earlier article, I highlighted how the Integrated Resorts’ dim prospects were an important factor that could lead the People’s Action Party (PAP) government to call snap elections early this year.
I’d like to point out several other indicators that have since strengthened my belief that an election sometime in early March is likely. Before that, I should appropriately caveat that neither myself nor my sources cited in this article are making any claims to absolute certainty.
A little bird told me
As unlikely as a snap election sounds, two recent conversations made me reconsider the prospect in greater depth.
A friend of mine (let’s call him Source 1) is in contact with PAP grassroots personnel who told him that party flags and banners have been ordered from China. This could be an indicator that they are being prepared for an impending election.
A second source who is actively involved in PAP organizational work told me that things were ‘heating up’ on the ground. When I pressed him on specifics, he was initially reticent but eventually relented: ‘Look at their internet activity. All the MPs in Aljunied have a Facebook page, and almost all the P65 MPs.’
Conjecture or possibility? Let’s test the theory.
Mortality and economics
Two external factors bolster the snap election hypothesis. One of these is unpredictable, the other less so.
The founding father of the PAP, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, still wields strong influence in the party and has long been associated with the country’s success. After systematically retiring the Old Guard who founded the PAP with him, Mr Lee is the paramount symbol of the PAP’s permanence.
Mr Lee’s style of politics is synonymous with the PAP brand: a brutally tough, unapologetic, suffer-no-fools attitude that Singaporeans fear, if not respect. This grudging respect, however, is not hereditary. On the shoulders of second and third generation PAP leaders, the mantle of these qualities are increasingly grating, and have been criticized as arrogant, insensitive, and elitist.
Mr Lee is already 86 years old. Last December, he had a pacemaker implanted to remedy irregular heart rhythm. The question on the minds of many Singaporeans, but which few dare to voice openly, is this: how long more can he live?
Certainly, this will weigh heavily on the minds of the PAP, who will not want to go into an election without him in such uncertain times.
Slightly more predictable is the negative economic climate we are heading into. Globally, phrases like ‘the worst recession since 1929’ and ‘global downturn’ have been used ad nauseum. Retrenchments are likely to increase dramatically in the years ahead, and economic growth is likely to slow.
Employment statistics and first quarter growth will only be released in March, while the budget debate will conclude on the third of February. It would come as no surprise if the budget includes substantial handouts to boost consumer confidence.
Retrenchments are likely to be brutal after Chinese New Year, as bosses usually put off breaking the bad news until after festivities are out of the way. This will be reflected in first quarter growth statistics at the beginning of March.
Ideally for the government, it will want to call the election while the pleasant buzz of a generous budget is undisturbed by a raft of bad statistics.
More tea leaves
Events of recent months seem to support my second source’s claim that things are ‘heating up’ at grassroots level. I’m hard pressed to remember the last time the Prime Minister made a personal appearance at a constituency New Year countdown to press the flesh.
The government’s phased liberalization of the rules governing political videos could be the final plank in their strategy to establish a beachhead in cyberspace. Already, the Young PAP Facebook presence is impressive.
Despite the strong push by internet activists to completely repeal restrictions on political films, the reality is that the PAP has the most to gain from the liberalization. To call the election before the opposition has built up a comparable internet presence would make good strategic sense.
Again, I make no claim to clairvoyance. I’d be happy if TOC readers could write in with tip offs or views about when an election will be called and why.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009, 10:22 pm | 784 views
Choo Zheng Xi
In an earlier article, I highlighted how the Integrated Resorts’ dim prospects were an important factor that could lead the People’s Action Party (PAP) government to call snap elections early this year.
I’d like to point out several other indicators that have since strengthened my belief that an election sometime in early March is likely. Before that, I should appropriately caveat that neither myself nor my sources cited in this article are making any claims to absolute certainty.
A little bird told me
As unlikely as a snap election sounds, two recent conversations made me reconsider the prospect in greater depth.
A friend of mine (let’s call him Source 1) is in contact with PAP grassroots personnel who told him that party flags and banners have been ordered from China. This could be an indicator that they are being prepared for an impending election.
A second source who is actively involved in PAP organizational work told me that things were ‘heating up’ on the ground. When I pressed him on specifics, he was initially reticent but eventually relented: ‘Look at their internet activity. All the MPs in Aljunied have a Facebook page, and almost all the P65 MPs.’
Conjecture or possibility? Let’s test the theory.
Mortality and economics
Two external factors bolster the snap election hypothesis. One of these is unpredictable, the other less so.
The founding father of the PAP, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, still wields strong influence in the party and has long been associated with the country’s success. After systematically retiring the Old Guard who founded the PAP with him, Mr Lee is the paramount symbol of the PAP’s permanence.
Mr Lee’s style of politics is synonymous with the PAP brand: a brutally tough, unapologetic, suffer-no-fools attitude that Singaporeans fear, if not respect. This grudging respect, however, is not hereditary. On the shoulders of second and third generation PAP leaders, the mantle of these qualities are increasingly grating, and have been criticized as arrogant, insensitive, and elitist.
Mr Lee is already 86 years old. Last December, he had a pacemaker implanted to remedy irregular heart rhythm. The question on the minds of many Singaporeans, but which few dare to voice openly, is this: how long more can he live?
Certainly, this will weigh heavily on the minds of the PAP, who will not want to go into an election without him in such uncertain times.
Slightly more predictable is the negative economic climate we are heading into. Globally, phrases like ‘the worst recession since 1929’ and ‘global downturn’ have been used ad nauseum. Retrenchments are likely to increase dramatically in the years ahead, and economic growth is likely to slow.
Employment statistics and first quarter growth will only be released in March, while the budget debate will conclude on the third of February. It would come as no surprise if the budget includes substantial handouts to boost consumer confidence.
Retrenchments are likely to be brutal after Chinese New Year, as bosses usually put off breaking the bad news until after festivities are out of the way. This will be reflected in first quarter growth statistics at the beginning of March.
Ideally for the government, it will want to call the election while the pleasant buzz of a generous budget is undisturbed by a raft of bad statistics.
More tea leaves
Events of recent months seem to support my second source’s claim that things are ‘heating up’ at grassroots level. I’m hard pressed to remember the last time the Prime Minister made a personal appearance at a constituency New Year countdown to press the flesh.
The government’s phased liberalization of the rules governing political videos could be the final plank in their strategy to establish a beachhead in cyberspace. Already, the Young PAP Facebook presence is impressive.
Despite the strong push by internet activists to completely repeal restrictions on political films, the reality is that the PAP has the most to gain from the liberalization. To call the election before the opposition has built up a comparable internet presence would make good strategic sense.
Again, I make no claim to clairvoyance. I’d be happy if TOC readers could write in with tip offs or views about when an election will be called and why.
January 2009
Why there mustn't be an election this year
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A week ago, I was speaking with a journalist in a major newspaper –- quite a senior person too –- and one thing he/she said struck me: Watch out for a general election in the middle of this year.
It's not something I consider impossible, but the certainty with which that view was expressed took me by surprise. A while later, I wondered, and I wished I had asked, whether this was the individual's own view or something that was an open secret in the newsroom. I suspect these things aren't private opinions, but something that comes out of an office consensus, based on tidbits of information journalists get in the course of their work.
As many Singaporeans would know, a general election is not normally due until the end of 2011, when the five-year term of the current Parliament, elected in 2006, runs out. Although elected in May 2006, the current Parliament didn't sit until November 2006, and since there can be a delay between the end of one Parliament and the holding of an election for the next, it is even be possible for the next election to be pushed all the way to early 2012.
Why would anyone even contemplate holding an election this year? That's assuming there is any truth at all to what I heard, and really, at this stage it is no more than a "a little bird told me" kind of story. I cannot stress this enough.
Obviously, the economy is the key. Bad news is pouring in from all sides and everywhere. The World Bank expects global trade to decline 2.1 per cent in 2009, the first contraction in 26 years. Toyota says it is suspending production for 18 days to bring inventory in line with lowered sales. Woolworths in the UK went belly up. Even Shenzhen reported tens of thousands of enterprises closing as demand evaporated. Chinese migrant workers are going home early for the Spring Festival because there's no work to keep them occupied.
Closer to home, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2 January 2009, issued a statement outlining its view of prospects: It "expects the Singapore economy to grow between –2.0 per cent and 1.0 per cent in 2009." Just two months earlier, the ministry had said it was expecting the lower end of the range to be minus 1.0 per cent. That is now out of date.
The fourth quarter's flash results make dire reading. "Advance estimates show that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the fourth quarter contracted by 2.6 per cent over the same period in 2007," the ministry said. This was an intensification of a trend seen in the third quarter, which was 0.3 per cent down from a year earlier.
Comparing fourth quarter 2008 with third quarter 2008, real GDP fell 12.5 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The third quarter GDP itself had shrunk 5.4 per cent from the second. We're skidding down, down, down.
If indeed 2009's GDP contracts 2.0 per cent, it will be the worst year since 2001, when it returned a negative 2.4 percent.
But 2001 was also the year in which the People's Action Party (PAP) obtained an ahistoric 75 per cent of the vote in a general election. Analysts have generally ascribed this to a "flight to safety" behaviour among voters, when confronted with economic anxiety.
If the journalist's view is correct, might the PAP be thinking of an encore?
But what is the point of going for 75 per cent? Wasn't the 66.6 per cent that the PAP got in the 2006 election good enough? It gave then 82 of 84 elected seats. The opposition only managed to win two single-member constituencies, the same as in 2001.
No doubt, if an election is held, the PAP would say they need a strong mandate to make the necessary decisions to take Singapore out of a recession. And it will be all rubbish. They already have a strong mandate, and they have never flinched from taking tough decisions even when they had much slimmer majorities (think: early 1960s).
Behind such rhetoric, one can easily see that the only possible motivation is that of eliminating the opposition altogether, seizing an opportunity to crush and demoralise all of them, and monopolise power for the next generation. Calling a vote would reveal all their undemocratic instincts. This at a time when the city-state is faced with far bigger issues.
* * * * *
There is one other possibility that might argue for an early general election: It would be too risky to wait till 2011 or 2012. That might be the case if the economic crystal-ball gazers see a prolonged downturn, with widespread layoffs and no quick recovery, resulting in Singaporeans conceivably poorer by 2011 than they are now.
As I have argued before, one of the biggest dangers that the PAP faces is the loss of its legitimacy when its economic credentials are shown to be suspect. A prolonged period of economic distress presents such a danger. A failure to deliver ever-rising prosperity is their Achilles Heel.
If an election is called, and it is not due to greed for power, but instead due to this reading of our economic future, then it is really bad news indeed. That somewhere in the economic war room, our government leaders have no confidence that Singapore will remount its growth curve in one or two years, and that the pain will last all the way to next election year at least.
So, while I'm all for the fun of an election, I really hope my journalist friend is wrong. There are no good reasons for holding a poll. Only two horribly bad ones.
© Yawning Bread
Why there mustn't be an election this year
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A week ago, I was speaking with a journalist in a major newspaper –- quite a senior person too –- and one thing he/she said struck me: Watch out for a general election in the middle of this year.
It's not something I consider impossible, but the certainty with which that view was expressed took me by surprise. A while later, I wondered, and I wished I had asked, whether this was the individual's own view or something that was an open secret in the newsroom. I suspect these things aren't private opinions, but something that comes out of an office consensus, based on tidbits of information journalists get in the course of their work.
As many Singaporeans would know, a general election is not normally due until the end of 2011, when the five-year term of the current Parliament, elected in 2006, runs out. Although elected in May 2006, the current Parliament didn't sit until November 2006, and since there can be a delay between the end of one Parliament and the holding of an election for the next, it is even be possible for the next election to be pushed all the way to early 2012.
Why would anyone even contemplate holding an election this year? That's assuming there is any truth at all to what I heard, and really, at this stage it is no more than a "a little bird told me" kind of story. I cannot stress this enough.
Obviously, the economy is the key. Bad news is pouring in from all sides and everywhere. The World Bank expects global trade to decline 2.1 per cent in 2009, the first contraction in 26 years. Toyota says it is suspending production for 18 days to bring inventory in line with lowered sales. Woolworths in the UK went belly up. Even Shenzhen reported tens of thousands of enterprises closing as demand evaporated. Chinese migrant workers are going home early for the Spring Festival because there's no work to keep them occupied.
Closer to home, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2 January 2009, issued a statement outlining its view of prospects: It "expects the Singapore economy to grow between –2.0 per cent and 1.0 per cent in 2009." Just two months earlier, the ministry had said it was expecting the lower end of the range to be minus 1.0 per cent. That is now out of date.
The fourth quarter's flash results make dire reading. "Advance estimates show that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the fourth quarter contracted by 2.6 per cent over the same period in 2007," the ministry said. This was an intensification of a trend seen in the third quarter, which was 0.3 per cent down from a year earlier.
Comparing fourth quarter 2008 with third quarter 2008, real GDP fell 12.5 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The third quarter GDP itself had shrunk 5.4 per cent from the second. We're skidding down, down, down.
If indeed 2009's GDP contracts 2.0 per cent, it will be the worst year since 2001, when it returned a negative 2.4 percent.
But 2001 was also the year in which the People's Action Party (PAP) obtained an ahistoric 75 per cent of the vote in a general election. Analysts have generally ascribed this to a "flight to safety" behaviour among voters, when confronted with economic anxiety.
If the journalist's view is correct, might the PAP be thinking of an encore?
But what is the point of going for 75 per cent? Wasn't the 66.6 per cent that the PAP got in the 2006 election good enough? It gave then 82 of 84 elected seats. The opposition only managed to win two single-member constituencies, the same as in 2001.
No doubt, if an election is held, the PAP would say they need a strong mandate to make the necessary decisions to take Singapore out of a recession. And it will be all rubbish. They already have a strong mandate, and they have never flinched from taking tough decisions even when they had much slimmer majorities (think: early 1960s).
Behind such rhetoric, one can easily see that the only possible motivation is that of eliminating the opposition altogether, seizing an opportunity to crush and demoralise all of them, and monopolise power for the next generation. Calling a vote would reveal all their undemocratic instincts. This at a time when the city-state is faced with far bigger issues.
* * * * *
There is one other possibility that might argue for an early general election: It would be too risky to wait till 2011 or 2012. That might be the case if the economic crystal-ball gazers see a prolonged downturn, with widespread layoffs and no quick recovery, resulting in Singaporeans conceivably poorer by 2011 than they are now.
As I have argued before, one of the biggest dangers that the PAP faces is the loss of its legitimacy when its economic credentials are shown to be suspect. A prolonged period of economic distress presents such a danger. A failure to deliver ever-rising prosperity is their Achilles Heel.
If an election is called, and it is not due to greed for power, but instead due to this reading of our economic future, then it is really bad news indeed. That somewhere in the economic war room, our government leaders have no confidence that Singapore will remount its growth curve in one or two years, and that the pain will last all the way to next election year at least.
So, while I'm all for the fun of an election, I really hope my journalist friend is wrong. There are no good reasons for holding a poll. Only two horribly bad ones.
© Yawning Bread
if the election 'rumour' is true then i truly hope that i get to vote this time
imagine this - i am a 38 yr old male singaporean, born here, served NS, but never voted in my entire life!!!!! (not even the Presidential elections)
reason being: have been staying in Tanjong Pargar GRC all my life (NO competition), and the last time we voted for president, i was not 21 yet
this is true 'democracy', S'pore style, can't find anywhere else :p
imagine this - i am a 38 yr old male singaporean, born here, served NS, but never voted in my entire life!!!!! (not even the Presidential elections)
reason being: have been staying in Tanjong Pargar GRC all my life (NO competition), and the last time we voted for president, i was not 21 yet
this is true 'democracy', S'pore style, can't find anywhere else :p
you probably wouldn't get to vote again if GE was held this June.
It's amazing so many PAP MPs are contented to be walkover MPs without a single vote from the electorate and they talk about serving the peasants.
LKY haven't won a single vote from the peasants for 20 years. Where is his mandate?
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