The PM is pissed off
In
News Reports on
September 3, 2020 at
12:20 am
I thought I was looking at a refreshed face of a post-GE2020 Government when the Prime Minister started saying that in hindsight, it could have handled the Covid-19 outbreak differently, like take more aggressive steps to secure foreign worker dormitories.
The G must realise that a bit of mea culpa does wonders for its image. For me at least, it shows a government that is secure about its position to be able to acknowledge that there will be “rough edges’’ around its policies.
But the old face of the Government or rather, the PAP, returned quite quickly. It scared me.
But just when I started to feel warm all over, he segued into politics and power, by first laying into the opposition for its queries about the size of the reserves.
I fail to see how questions about the amount is a reflection of a spendthrift or profligate mindset. I would rather he say that the exact amount is a state secret, like keeping our gunpowder dry, rather than impute motives to those who want answers. Just as we trust the Government with the reserves, so should it realise that we would not willy nilly push for a raid. (By the way, there is still the elected President to go through.)
Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh took umbrage at PM Lee’s suggestion that the WP was aiming to use the reserves. The WP was looking at whether or how to slow down the growth rate of reserves.
“There is nothing unusual about this, because the PAP does it, too. How so? In 2016, this House, including members of WP, agreed to include (state investment firm) Temasek Holdings into the NIRC (net investment returns contribution) formula. Does that not reduce the growth of the reserves? It does.
“So the argument cannot be that when the Opposition tries to put that proposal forward, somehow we are engaging in some sort of chicanery to steal what previous generations have toiled and perspired over to bring us here.”
I find the use of the term “mindset’’ troubling, because it shuts down any discussion by imputing agendas to questions and prevents debate from moving beyond first principles. What if someone simply said: “I want to know the amount because I am a citizen who worries about whether there’s any left for the rainy day?’’
I am also troubled with PM Lee’s identification of the PAP model with Singapore past, present and future. It might be the case at the country’s founding because, well, founding fathers everywhere write the country’s constitution, pledge and set up whatever a “new’’ country needs.
It might be true for the years after, with the PAP’s dominance in Parliament.
What I found surprising was how cutting he was about the Singapore electorate, especially those who voted the opposition while still wanting a PAP Government. They were free-riders and it was morally wrong for the WP to use this tactic to get voters to vote for the Opposition, he said.
He didn’t use the term freak election result, but that was what he was referring to when he asked: “At what point does a vote for a strong opposition become a vote for a different government?’’
“Is it really true that one day if there is a change of government, a new party can run Singapore equally well, because it has such good public service, as Mr Pritam Singh suggested on Monday?’’
I, too, fear a freak election result, one that goes either way, all for Opposition or all for PAP. The days of a one-party state are over and rather than chide voters for voting tactically, it might be more useful to decipher what they, as a collective, were trying to say at the polls, instead of scanning individual minds.
The last election tells me that while we want the PAP in charge, most do not just vote the opposition for opposition’s sake. Sure, 30 per cent will be hard core opposition supporters but the middle ground of swing voters look closely at the credibility of the opposition candidates. Less credible candidates will always get pretty short shrift by the electorate. It is for political parties to swing this group to its side. The PAP might not have got the “strong mandate’’ it has asked for in terms of popular vote, but it should be a clear enough signal that the PAP should stay as government.
At the risk of angering the PAP government, I found it strange that the Prime Minister was engaged in partisan politics in Parliament even as he talked about not letting debate descend into the polarization. You can bet that public discussion, both online and offline, will be about his free rider analogy rather than ways to help the country out of the Covid-19.
In fact, it’s rather odd to talk about a two-for-one tactic when the PAP itself flogs the line that it was okay to vote the PAP because there will always be 12 NCMPs.
Did he also consider that people might actually want to cut the PAP dominance down to size because they don’t agree that the PAP is always right? Or that the people think that government is not as good as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra that he referred to?
I am glad he said that he respected the voter’s choice. Yes, the elections are over.
Can the government now get on with the business of governing?
Bertha Henson
