PAP's New Strategy - will it work?

[scroobal]

Bro, this is rock solid PAP territory and has been avoided by he opposition and thus walk-overs. KJ and RP had no other areas and forced into it. It therefore has been staffed by the most boring of PAP ministers. Now we have 3 and Arthur Fong is certainly out.

During PE, the PAP stalwarts in this place moved solidly behind Tan Cheng Bock.

Heard a bit of gossip which might explain the decision to have a full timer in West Coast GRC. Below is the listing of who is in West Coast GRC. I am hearing that it is likely that there will be a "surprise" Lim Boon Heng type event in West Coast GRC.

Arthur Jen Fong
S Iswaran
Lim Hng Kiang
Foo Mee Har
Lawrance Wong Shyun Tsai

 

[aurvandil]

It is always most entertaining to watch when it happens unexpectedly.

Bro, this is rock solid PAP territory and has been avoided by he opposition and thus walk-overs. KJ and RP had no other areas and forced into it. It therefore has been staffed by the most boring of PAP ministers. Now we have 3 and Arthur Fong is certainly out.

During PE, the PAP stalwarts in this place moved solidly behind Tan Cheng Bock.

 

[Dreamer1]

Yes I see it now. It is clear you are the one who will make a difference! Please stand for elections in 2016 so that these opposition neophytes can learn how to wrestle with the PAP machinery.

If PAP did not lose George Yeo,can you imagine what sort of cocks they will be singing today,instead of we are sorry we made ,mistakes,etc,because of 2011,we moved into PAP trying to buy votes from you from PAP taking your vote for granted,which is better?

 

[watchman8]

I used to force my mum to consider PAP but she was very uncomfortable and came out with similar reasons. As far as she is concerned, PAP gave her certainty in comparison to the past that she knew. Her generation all do not want to take the gamble. Every time there was strike in the US, UK etc or even earthquake, I got a telling off. As far as they are concerned, the PAP if given the opportunity can control earthquake.

But when the ponding started, she began giving excuses.

Many people from that generation are truly grateful to PAP. But something seemed to have happened with the increasing use of iPads. Gradually, you will find that within weeks of getting the iPad, the seniors will start to question more and soem changed their minds on PAP.

I noticed this gradual change amongst my relatives and neighbors.

Tan Cheng Bock running against TT also has a more profound but subtle effect on the senior generation. TCB is well respected, and by him coming out to contest with TT directly and almost beating TT (if not for the other 2 jokers), it incepted the possibility that perhaps something is really wrong within PAP.

 

[zhihau]

I noticed this gradual change amongst my relatives and neighbors.

my old woman was asking what the hell was TSK doing when he was made the Speaker of the Parliament and he kept pretty quiet and much to himself, merely responding to the other of his colleagues occasionally :o:o:o

 

[Sinkie]

The only new strategy that will work is more money, more subsidies, more rebates to Sinkies.

 

[kukubird58]

The civil servants will become more neutral as more seats are lost by dominant party. It has happened in many countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. Things will fall into place as the opposition becomes stronger.

hahaha....don't just echo without using brain lah.....
why is the civil service not neutral???
is there a directive that said that civil servants must vote for papee????

 

[eremarf]

You are now out of moderation and that restriction has been removed automatically.

Thanks!

I'm also an Aljunied WP voter (although I'm vaguely more aligned with SDP ideas). I have some thoughts about some people's demands for the opposition to have ideas or even be policy wonks.

But I bumped up against the 500 character limit for a new account. Hmmm. What should I do? Post it in bits and pieces I guess?

So I'm back. Here's what I was writing yesterday...

Political parties here seem very resource-strapped, except for the PAP. You see this in WP - I have friends who volunteer at WP, and everyone (politicians and party cadre and volunteers) is just devoting time to grassroots work rather than devising national policy because they have only limited resources and have to prioritise. SDP have been the most wonk-ish of the oppo parties (starting in 1994 with Chee's "Dare to Change", and they've been just brilliant recently) - and see how much traction they get with the general electorate. PAP can rely on the state apparatus to do the heavy-lifting wonkwork but other parties can't. The status quo is weighted against oppo parties, so I agree with the guys wanting to improve the voice/status/legitimacy for the oppo parties first (up to 30 seats? Seems uncontroversial?). That seems like a necessary first step before they can muster more resources/donations/support.

I also agree with sgparent about US politics being a duopoly and what that implies. Basically the people don't have much choices. Green Party and Libertarian Party and Justice Party were also in the presidential run, but look at how much news coverage (and hence votes) they got. All of them were not asked to the presidential debates (Jill Stein of GP even got restrained by police for trying), because the moneyed interests who run the debates and the media and donate the money don't want free competition in politics. They've bought both the Reps and Dems. The excessive influence of money - via political donations, lobbies, revolving door, etc - in American politics is beginning to make it undemocratic. Essentially the people have no stick to wield against their political leaders - who else are you going to vote for anyway? Most voters end up being party-loyal because who's the alternative - is there one? - so each party only has to outcompete the other - doesn't matter if both are getting really lousy and subsidising businesses and banks while cutting social spending. (I'm not being completely cynical - Americans can reclaim their politics by getting more involved outside of the frames set for them by the powerful, e.g. grassroots movements like Occupy, etc)

Back to Singapore again - well our voters are being called "sheep" here. I've pondered this on and off over the years. My thoughts are quite undeveloped - but my questions now are:

1. Is this inherent? Won't there always be a baseline of people who don't care or know about politics (in a sophisticated way)? Is this a problem? Is circumventing the "sheep" better then (i.e. don't be democratic?!)? Churchill didn't think so - democracy is the worst system except for the rest - he said.

2. If it's not inherent - do some societies have less "sheep" than others? Why? Is it culture e.g. civil or grassroots activism, or education? Or something else? Do they end up with better politics?

I'm with Churchill on democracy (i.e. I don't believe the PAP will always be benevolent dictators as they were in the early days when they funded social programs tremendously - housing, education, infrastructure - which led to explosive growth, c.f. Krugman's paper "The Myth of Asia's Miracle"). Even if there are (it seems) necessarily a proportion of the electorate who will be "sheep".

But I'm curious whether anyone today is thinking radical thoughts like "circumventing the sheep is better". Or if people think "sheep" can be converted to more political animals?

 

[eremarf]

hahaha....don't just echo without using brain lah.....
why is the civil service not neutral???
is there a directive that said that civil servants must vote for papee????

I used to be in the civil service (MOE), 2006 to 2010. It's not neutral at many levels.

One problem is that civil service leaders don't make recommendations they think are good for society. They make recommendations their bosses want to hear, which is ultimately what the minister wants to hear. I think we've got the roles of top civil servants and ministers mixed up. Ministers should define the end goals, but the civil service should produce the technical answer for it.

Civil service is also not neutral when we have a revolving door between civil service and political office or GLC jobs. Civil servants have incentives to cooperate with the dominant political party - because the dominant party controls and gives out political office and GLC jobs. This is usually not a problem - but it is when one party is so firmly entrenched they control such resources.

Finally, at the lower echelons of the civil service, bosses can be blatant in calling for support for PAP. My friends in teaching told me about this over GE2011 and PE and BE. Another friend in Singapore Poly told me a student forum on new media in politics was blasted by top admin for inviting only Nicole Seah and Sadasivan (ex-NMP) without inviting any PAP person to provide "balanced" views.

Well, so to sum up, normal civil servants are people like us - they're not generally biased, but they do receive some pressure to support PAP from on top. Top people recommend/challenge too little, and obey too much from the party (the civil service should be independent enough to speak up for what policies it thinks is best for solving problems in society, even if politicians don't want that solution). And they challenge too little, partly because of incentives to cooperate, but also because of friendship and working relationships built over decades of PAP rule, and also because this is our culture - of a technocratic elite who "know better" governing the rest of us.

(Well, some ex-civil servants have started speaking up, e.g. Ngiam Tong Dow, Yeoh Lam Keong, Donald Low, etc but by-and-large we have a strong culture of current civil servants not commenting in their personal capacities on society problems. Witness how Nat Con was accompanied by letting civil servants comment on areas they're not currently working on? Which is bizarre - does the civil service serve the public, or the elected representatives? Usually these coincide - but what if they perceive a conflict of interest - shouldn't they be able to speak up in that case?)

 

[kukubird58]

I used to be in the civil service (MOE), 2006 to 2010. It's not neutral at many levels.
.........
Well, so to sum up, normal civil servants are people like us - they're not generally biased, but they do receive some pressure to support PAP from on top

hahaha....again u are not using your brain.....
pple can tell u many things...some are true, some are BS..
i have 1 simple question for u....
do u agree that the vote u cast at the polls is secret????
if yes, then i rest my case....
if not then we can start another debate.
Also u are mixing things....when u work in any company, u are expected to support the operations of the company...
hence if u work for the government as civil servant, u have to support the operations of the government.......but that doesn't in any way prevent from u voting the opps at the polls.

 

[SgParent]

Something happened to my reply... damn now I need to write all over again...

That is bleak man bleak. So can I say that you're not really disagreeing with me?

I am not saying that we should not have a plan B. I am saying exactly what you are saying - that you don't really know if your plan B sucks.

It is not bleak. It is a logic choice. Since you'd already know sticking with plan A sucks for yourself and your children, why do you fear about going with plan B?

Once we are in plan B, with enough political choices/competition, you can decide for yourself how you want to do things and then vote for the politician/party that will carry out you wish. And you can be sure the politicians/parties will be eager to offer their solution/track record, to perform, to execute, etc, etc, so that you will continue their employment contract.

Btw I do not see any rebuttal from you about competition that always, always benefits the consumers. "So can I say that you're not really disagreeing with me?"

You said it yourself.

Your attempt to use my own words against me is lame.

No choice does not mean the other party is "master". Did you call your platoon sergeant, platoon commander, CO, etc, etc, "master"? Even when we were under Japanese Occupation, we only called the Japanese, "master", in front of them. We called them something totally different in private.

The context and the sneaky way you'd slipped in "master", makes me wonder about your agenda/motive to stir fear about going with plan B.

 

[eremarf]

hahaha....again u are not using your brain.....
pple can tell u many things...some are true, some are BS..
i have 1 simple question for u....
do u agree that the vote u cast at the polls is secret????
if yes, then i rest my case....
if not then we can start another debate.

I think we just have a different idea of "neutrality".

For you, so long as vote is secret, and civil servants can vote in secrecy, then they're neutral.

For some people, politics involves more than voting. It involves policy making. It involves carrying out policy. All of which happens daily, rather than once every five years. When these people (including me) say the civil service is not neutral, we mean they sometimes serve party interests more than the public interest. (Sometimes there're clashes - e.g. in teaching Social Studies or National Education, how critical can educators be of past policies pushed out by the dominant party? To serve the public well, provide a good education - we should reveal past policy flaws - but that will "endanger" the dominant party's political power today - so it gets suppressed. Or, when the party is arguing for more incoming workers, claiming that it's the best way forward for Singapore, to remain competitive, etc, can the civil service criticise that with technical or technocratic arguments? They're not even allowed to release data to the public!)

So I agree with you civil servants can vote freely at the polls. But I think civil servants don't behave neutrally (w.r.t. political parties) outside of the polls. In fact, civil servants should serve the public rather than any political party (esp when there's conflict of interest).

 

[metalmickey]

Ask the Metal Mickey Mouse to work at least 6 months in the USA or another first world country where he believes a gridlocked Parliament/Congress is an impedance to good governance, and politicians of all stripes and shady backgrounds provide too many distractions for the good of the people and threaten to squander the reserves to buy their votes.

Then come back to SG where our efficient parliament passes bills and legislation 100 times quicker than anywhere else on Earth and nothing stands in the way of the common good, not even archaic and outdated notions like fair play. THEN MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION.

LOL at that comment. I am in the USA.

 

[elephanto]

I think we just have a different idea of "neutrality".

For you, so long as vote is ....

So I agree with you civil servants can vote freely at the polls. But I think civil servants don't behave neutrally (w.r.t. political parties) outside of the polls. In fact, civil servants should serve the public rather than any political party (esp when there's conflict of interest).

UP YOU! Very refreshing series of posts fom you - lear and well argued, unlike the monotonous kukus who belie their imbecility each time they coo....

 

[metalmickey]

Btw I do not see any rebuttal from you about competition that always, always benefits the consumers. "So can I say that you're not really disagreeing with me?"

My position is different from yours, but when you say that you don't bother to read what I wrote, I'm surprised that you bother to reply.

My position is that plan B is maybe better than plan A. When you vote in opposition, you either believe that it will make the PAP behave better, or that the opposition is superior. For me the answer to these two questions is "maybe". And contrary to what you said, I am not afraid of plan B. I will vote on it based solely on a "maybe". But I don't like this "maybe".

Competition is not always always better, does not always always benefit the consumers. For me it is only a "maybe". And what I have been going on about is, I want to see this "maybe" upgraded to a "probably".

Your attempt to use my own words against me is lame.

No choice does not mean the other party is "master". Did you call your platoon sergeant, platoon commander, CO, etc, etc, "master"? Even when we were under Japanese Occupation, we only called the Japanese, "master", in front of them. We called them something totally different in private.

The context and the sneaky way you'd slipped in "master", makes me wonder about your agenda/motive to stir fear about going with plan B.

Well now you know what I meant when I said "master". If you don't like a few things I said, there are always ways and means to talk balls, raise questions about other peoples' characters and motives. Everybody who doesn't agree with you on everything is a PAP IB, isn't he? This is Sammy Boy, we normally expect people to be sarcastic, rude, condescending, not constructive. But maybe we could stick to relevant topics?

 

[metalmickey]

If PAP did not lose George Yeo,can you imagine what sort of cocks they will be singing today,instead of we are sorry we made ,mistakes,etc,because of 2011,we moved into PAP trying to buy votes from you from PAP taking your vote for granted,which is better?

I'd prefer they lost a Mah Bow Tan, or a Vivian, or a Lim Swee Say or a Lim Hng Kiang or a Wong Kan Seng. A GRC had to fall and a minister had to go but it was unfortunate it had to be him.

 

[mojito]

metalmickey, heed the words of the wise and beautiful Silvia Lim - Deny the PAP two-thirds majority for 2016. Opposition can then debate and prevent anti-peasant bills from being passed in parliament.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

LOL at that comment. I am in the USA.

I read you very well then. I know your decision will be an informed one, which is why I said I respect your decision either way.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Bro, this is rock solid PAP territory and has been avoided by he opposition and thus walk-overs. KJ and RP had no other areas and forced into it. It therefore has been staffed by the most boring of PAP ministers. Now we have 3 and Arthur Fong is certainly out.

During PE, the PAP stalwarts in this place moved solidly behind Tan Cheng Bock.

Just goes to show how precarious a position the PAP is in. Rock solid PAP ground, yet support TCB. With the clowns going full time in a bid to cover the leaking ceiling with bare hands, lets see how the PAP is gonna drown in 2016. Looks like the next few years will be very interesting.

 

[metalmickey]

Seriously bro, you should vote for the PAP. Don't vote for the opposition if you do not understand what is going on or you do not understand why people are looking to bring about more accountabilit and the reaosn for it.

No, I get it. I've been reading your informative posts about the security apparatus of Singapore. I didn't know about the private investigation thing. It is not trivial, and it is not surprising either.

Let's ask ourselves 2 questions.
1. Will life get better if we vote for the PAP?
Answer: no.

So far we are on the same page.

2. Will life get better if we vote for the opposition?
Answer: maybe

So I'm going to say a maybe is better than a no. That's all I can say. The questions I asked, they are valid. I get the feeling that you are taking me to task for scrutinising the opposition as hard as we all scrutinise the PAP. Well you have to do it. Only then will you know whether you are voting for a "maybe life will get better" or a "yes life will get better" when you cast that vote.

When we take away the PAP's supermajority (which might happen as early as 2016) we will learn a lot about the opposition. So we'll keep watching them too.

I want to be fair and say that so far there have been positive signs. The WP kicking out Yaw Shin Leong before that affair became a cancer was a good thing. Now the PAP have exactly the same thing with Michael Palmer, and we'll see what they'll do. Of course the decision was easy for the WP - nobody really believed that Hougang would be lost. I am not going to make any bets if there will be a by-election on Punggol East SMC, or on the outcome of that election. If Michael Palmer serves out his full term, I'm sure that there will be an argument between the WP and the NSP about who to contest that seat.