Sad news just in:: SDP has just withdrawing from the by-election

[SgParent]

The SDP is, in effect, disallowing the PE electorate from exercising their democratic right to vote for the candidate or party they support. This is not "democracy".
It is match fixing. Democracy is when people and parties are free to contest on their platform of competing ideologies, policies and ideas and the electorate judges and votes accordingly.

When the contestants include a monopoly that has absolutely control just about everything, there is no free competition to talk about. Period.

What's left is just cannibalism among the much smaller players. You'd call that democracy? I'd said it's artificial competition.

 

[Sideswipe]

As I mentioned on an earlier post, you are applying 6 % across the board. Likely that those areas where Opposition has the highest %, they are not likely to have a high vote swing. As an extreme example, if your % win is already 94%, is it likely you will get 100%. The same happens in the commercial world, the higher your market, the greater chance is your market share likely to fall. As to the question whether with 44 to 45 % share, will the Opposition win one-third of the seats, the answer is yes. WP had shown it in GE2011. Their vote share was around 45% of the total votes and they won around one-third of the seats they competed in.

WP won 25% of seats. 4 GRC 4 SMC contested. 1 GRC 1 SMC won. 46.6% valid votes won. the WP results differ a lot from a low of 40% in some seats to the Hougang and Aljunied.

i doubt 45% of Opposition votes can get 1/3 of seats. if you look at the election results in other countries, 50-55% of votes will always give you 2/3 of parliament under FPTP.

 

[elephanto]

Well said.

Actually nobody can argue against this highfalutin ideal called 'unity'

minus all spin or intepretation, life goes on ...

My own take with regards to NSP & what not, there are the misguided ( dun say Desmond Lim deluded lah ) and there ae the humble ( with a lot to be humble about in truth ... ).

And finally, there is the humbug and the humku .....

More to the point, it will be instructive to be educated on the behaviour of a relatively young hearlander township electorate if the GE'11 is reenacted for them : PAP ( from lawyer to doctor ) vs WP (LLL) vs DL (SDA)

Kudos to Meng Seng on a parting note, I am sure he thinks himself more esteemed than the calibre of LLL ( we already know what GMS think of Png Eng Huat's quali ) but it seems this time in his analysis, he did not pass disdainful remarks against his perceived lesser lights. Keep it up, Meng Seng !

 

[Fook Seng]

The idea is there. These are the responsibilities that opposition people will taking on themselves eventually. And if there are other people, they will be even more inexperienced than all the names already mentioned.

What experience are you talking about? In government? They are all inexperienced, including PAP's new ministers.

 

[metalmickey]

The new people have to be in the average better than the present lot. The present politicians are the ideologists but the job of running the country may have to come from a newer batch, not just professionals but people who can really move things. The present lot become the spiritual backbone of their parties, the magnets to pull in new people. If they dream of being the PM, they better change their career now. Same with the PAP. Any in the present lot who wishes to be PM in 2030 will need to compete fiercely with several others and it will be very unlike today - to to be just appointed. May also vary term by term.

Well if people dream of being the PM, they better change their career now, yes. But if they don't dream of being PM, would you say, they shouldn't dream of being the opposition leader? It's not customary in Singapore for people to dream of being the prime minister. Yes, I have no doubt that the first one dreamt of being the prime minister. The second one knew that he was a seat warmer although he was probably surprised to have warmed the seat for that long. Ong Teng Cheong and Tony Tan turned down the chance to be a seat warmer - they didn't want to be seat warmers. The third one was born to be a prime minister, and we don't really know if he dreamt of being the prime minister, or if maybe he's sick and tired of the idea of being prime minister. I don't know who the heir apparent is (which is shocking since the 10th anniversary of LHL is not far away) but I have heard names like Teo Chee Hean and Chan Chun Sing tossed around.

There are a lot of papers locked up and they haven't yet been opened and examined. Prime ministers are big guys who have biographies written about them. So far the only person who's written a biography on Lee Kuan Yew is Lee Kuan Yew.

So the question is: who in Singapore really dreams of being the prime minister? And a related question is: who in Singapore who is not part of the elite but is part of the opposition really dreams of being the prime minister? Or are they just a bunch of guys who think that they're revolutionaries, who dream of being revolutionaries but when the role of prime minister unexpectedly comes, start thinking, "whoa"...

In a way yes PAP new ministers are inexperienced, but the way that this system has been set up is that you don't have people who are truly inexperienced to be prime ministers. If you look at the experience of the top PAP people coming in, just do some research on what Grace Fu was doing before she entered politics. You can complain about top military people becoming ministers, but at least they have an experience of being generals before they get to become ministers / minister of states.

So the point is that opposition government ministers are people who are CEOs of big companies which are not affiliated with the PAP - how many of them will you get? Or they are people who were top civil servants but defect. Not many people in those two groups. OK, my guess is that somebody like Tan Jee Say dreams of being prime minister. Who else is there?

 

[metalmickey]

Re: Not So

hehehe...
my primary goal has always been fixated on getting rid of the two thirds majority the MIW holds in Parliament. and let's be honest, much as we change the Ministers at the front, me thought it's the dinosaurs in the back room need to be given a kick or two in their arse :p:p:p

Let's put it this way. Once you have gotten the two thirds majority, the PAP percent of the popular vote is maybe 53, 54%. If it stays there forever, maybe well and good. But most probably it will not.

Another big swing, at 49%, and the PAP will lose half the seats. Another big swing, and opposition parties will have enough seats to form a coalition government among themselves without having to involve the PAP. In any case, the old system of smooth but unexciting succession plans will have been permanently dismantled.

Currently, we are at 60%. Remember that 75% to 60%, a swing of 15 points, took only 10 years.

My question is: is there anything about the leadership qualities demonstrated by our friends in the oppositiion that makes you extremely confident for the future of our nation?

 

[zhihau]

Re: Not So

My question is: is there anything about the leadership qualities demonstrated by our friends in the oppositiion that makes you extremely confident for the future of our nation?

as long as the civil service runs, the daily functioning will go on. it's the ability to handle geopolitical issues that bothers me

 

[metalmickey]

Re: Not So

as long as the civil service runs, the daily functioning will go on. it's the ability to handle geopolitical issues that bothers me

Well the people you are voting in will be the bosses of the perm secs, who are the civil service. I asked a civil service friend, "why are there so many problems in Siingapore?" and he told me "well I wish that people from the different ministries would talk to each other more often. We thought that populatiion was going to grow to 5.5 million in 2020 but we screwed up and it's already 5 million now" So the PAP guys also have a bit of a communication problem among themselves. So think about what happen when future incidents of "opposition unity" are played out in that meeting room in Istana, yah?

 

[3_M]

It is not sad news. It's a huge blunder.

The SDP is, in effect, disallowing the PE electorate from exercising their democratic right to vote for the candidate or party they support. This is not "democracy".
It is match fixing. Democracy is when people and parties are free to contest on their platform of competing ideologies, policies and ideas and the electorate judges and votes accordingly.

The SDP has a compelling political visions and ideas. Unlike the WP, it has the guts to speak up and should be more than able to compete in the marketplace of competing political visions, ideas and ideologies vis-a-vis other parties. It has squandered the opportunity to do so.

The proposed candidates have wilted from the party's culture of beliefs, convictions and iron clad resolve. They have shockingly wilted under the thuggery of the platoon's worth of WP's astroturfers, Chinese chauvinists and race bigots. In effect, the proposed candidates see themselves as even lousier candidates as compared to LLL.

This is something I could never imagine would happen. When you join a political party, you would have known about the party's culture and ethos. Surely, those proposed candidates must have known about the ethos and iron clad resolve of the SDP prior to joining it. Withdrawal will not bring the party any plaudits. It will earn the party even more criticisms and contempt from the WP platoon's worth of astroturfers, the WP's Chinese chauvinists and the WP's "Guess the race" racial bigots

You can expect Chinese Chauvinist Low and WP's Princess Megawati Sukarnoputri to treat the SDP and other political parties (except the PAP) with even more contempt from now. The moment they have enough candidates to deploy, they will simply bulldoze, like what they did in the SDA's Punggol East, into any "territories" as they see fit.
.

I am all for MCF but surely it not the fault of WP if SDP chooses not to participate. Moreover if WP can bulldoze their way, then it the voters who allows them to do so. U can't say it unfair.

 

[ray_of_hope]

Even before the contest proper could get underway the hard left has been defeated by its own rhetoric and the cowardly chickening out of the SDP, which was foreseen. The hard left would be frothing at the mouth if WP should win and RP gets 1-2%. hahaha

 

[liangshan]

To be honest, if SDP had not ruffled WP's feathers for the past few days, I doubt RP and SDA would have gone ahead with running for bi-election. RP Kenneth submitted similiar proposal to WP and didn't get a response. WP's silence towards SDP seemed to have made RP more determined to join.

 

[Liquigas]

Even before the contest proper could get underway the hard left has been defeated by its own rhetoric and the cowardly chickening out of the SDP, which was foreseen. The hard left would be frothing at the mouth if WP should win and RP gets 1-2%. hahaha

If really you are a genuine Oppo supporter, you should direct all cannon fire at the greatest enemy which is the PAP and not at other Oppo parties. Have to say you are not steady lah!

 

[metalmickey]

To be honest, if SDP had not ruffled WP's feathers for the past few days, I doubt RP and SDA would have gone ahead with running for bi-election. RP Kenneth submitted similiar proposal to WP and didn't get a response. WP's silence towards SDP seemed to have made RP more determined to join.

This kind of 借刀杀人 tactics is the right way to play politics. More seriously, arguments are not always a bad thing. Maybe one bad incident or two bad incidents should happen in order to teach people a lesson, and make other people learn from their mistakes. If the opposition parties don't know how to co-operate after they have entered power, I'd be more worried.

 

[yellowarse]

If really you are a genuine Oppo supporter, you should direct all cannon fire at the greatest enemy which is the PAP and not at other Oppo parties. Have to say you are not steady lah!

ray_of_hope is a WP IB lah.

 

[zhihau]

Re: Not So

So think about what happen when future incidents of "opposition unity" are played out in that meeting room in Istana, yah?

teeheehee... :p:p:p then Sinkies will have a good dosage of bad governance!

 

[ray_of_hope]

To be honest, if SDP had not ruffled WP's feathers for the past few days, I doubt RP and SDA would have gone ahead with running for bi-election. RP Kenneth submitted similiar proposal to WP and didn't get a response. WP's silence towards SDP seemed to have made RP more determined to join.

What is RP? It is widely viewed as a one-person outfit, with waves of good people having left it just weeks before the last GE.
Do those who left it speak to that one person?

 

[Fook Seng]

Well if people dream of being the PM, they better change their career now, yes. But if they don't dream of being PM, would you say, they shouldn't dream of being the opposition leader?

Being an opposition leader at this stage is not the same as being PM. and we are talking about 17 years down the road. I can make the analogy of Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary leader but knew he was not cut to be the President. The same with Opposition leaders today, to bring in the revolution, prepare the transition and leave it another team of people to run. This has to be a long term plan. I think, some opposition leaders know this but many don't.

 

[Sideswipe]

Being an opposition leader at this stage is not the same as being PM. and we are talking about 17 years down the road. I can make the analogy of Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary leader but knew he was not cut to be the President. The same with Opposition leaders today, to bring in the revolution, prepare the transition and leave it another team of people to run. This has to be a long term plan. I think, some opposition leaders know this but many don't.

it's asking too much for the Opposition leaders to fight the revolution and leave it to another team of people to reap the fruits of their labor. every human action is motivated by self interest above everything else.

Sun Yat Sen gave up the presidency for appearance's sake. either he gave up the presidency or Yuan Shikai's army would annihilate the revolutionaries.

 

[metalmickey]

Being an opposition leader at this stage is not the same as being PM. and we are talking about 17 years down the road. I can make the analogy of Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary leader but knew he was not cut to be the President. The same with Opposition leaders today, to bring in the revolution, prepare the transition and leave it another team of people to run. This has to be a long term plan. I think, some opposition leaders know this but many don't.

Yes, could be 17 years, or could be as short as 12 years. Transition of power is not an easy thing. The system that the PAP set up makes sure that people who get into ministerial level are all quite experienced in some way. When the power transfer to the opposition, then the new prime Minister, is the previous opposition leader. Sometimes this will produce great leaders like Thatcher or Churchill. But other times you get jokers like Tony Blair or David Cameron. (I'm comparing to UK because our political system is UK system).

Then again, experience is maybe not the main issue. LKY only spent a few years being an opposition leader before he suddenly found himself chief minister, and he did an OK job. His son has been trained to be prime minister all his life and - well I leave history to judge him.

The big problem is if our opposition leaders are too much in the "revolutionary" mentality. For many many years their thinking is "how do we bring down the tyrant" and when suddenly the problem changes to "how do I run this thing, how does this system work?" they can get very lost.

There is no "another team of people to run". This is not like the US where if a new president comes in, he will just pick and choose who will be this or that minister. In Singapore, your whole cabinet must be a member of parliament. So the cabinet are all opposition MPs. Maybe those we haven't seen yet. But all of them will be opposition people.

So at the rate that the WP is going, yah we just want to do grassroots now and we don't focus on policy yet. OK for winning 20 seats, 30 seats. Sekali one day you become the government then you know.

 

[metalmickey]

it's asking too much for the Opposition leaders to fight the revolution and leave it to another team of people to reap the fruits of their labor. every human action is motivated by self interest above everything else.

Sun Yat Sen gave up the presidency for appearance's sake. either he gave up the presidency or Yuan Shikai's army would annihilate the revolutionaries.

Yes but our system is very clear. You win an election, you take power. And anyway which army are they going to send in? In Singapore everybody is the army. In a way Singapore system is very good. Yes, some people in the opposition will be kingmakers, and some others will be kings. But as a whole, the opposition revolts, and the opposition takes power. You topple somebody from power, you are the one who has to take over. Right now in opposition politics I hear a lot of the "toppling over" part, but comparatively little about the "taking over" part.