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"A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor" Frankli
n D Roosevelt .
Singapore has a new President. Congratulations Mr President, Tharman Shanmugaratnam and the first lady. You have the mandate score of 70.4%. The party is not ready for you as our PM but the people are ready for you as our President. As what one observer wrote earlier, that Tharman is a bigger brand than PAP itself.
This is a blessing for oppositions now, because PAP will have a difficult task to fill two anchor minority ministers with Iswaran still under CPIB probe and Tharman resigned from PAP. Big sacrifice on their part.
Had Tharman become our PM as what the voters wished, then oppositions will sit out for a few more seasons.
Unfortunately for the opposition supporters in this PE, they don't have a better choice and even Ng KS scored better at 15.72%. My observation is that Tan KL 13.88% did not prepare for his bid well in advance and yet his qualification as a candidate further questions the standards set for PE but we can say they vet the technicalities while the public judge their characters.
Social media works both ways. It can win you fans and also haters so any political candidates, influencers or corporate leaders must be very careful with their finger tips and delete or send that post with second thoughts. Especially controversial ones, because The internet never forgets. You'll have to spend years and much resources to scrub clean your online footprint or the ghosts from the past will haunt you even after death.
That said, you need a very good Comms team to handle your publicity, branding and especially speeches. Train yourself to be ready for this. Actors do this a thousand times for their scripts. I've worked first hand with many MediaCorp actors in the past decades and the veterans are very professional behind the camera. Some don't have high education but they continuously learn to upgrade and one even carried a thick dictionary to check on pronunciations and meanings of words. They practise their scripts during meal breaks before the camera rolls so we see their best performances on screen. I've also handled some politicians on their studio recordings at MediaCorp and even veterans can fumble with the teleprompter. It is a frightful experience for the average person hence some candidates even declined to be on national TV.
"We must realise that Allah has created us imperfect, so he does not expect perfection from us. But he does expect us to try our best."
Quran
One should take their aspirations seriously. If you're seeking a political career then polish yourself because success does not come once every 5years. The old saying 台下十年功台上一分钟。It takes a decade of hardwork below the stage for just one minute of fame on the stage.
Aspiring politicians should take this seriously because the votes will show and publicity is just 50% of the work.
Finally. Are we Singaporeans too judgemental? We have an opinion on everything, strong ones too. If we continue to hold such high moral standards and judge people with family secrets, skin colour, religion, LGBTQ, gender to some student days misadventures that we all did as a teenager then we may one day find ourselves left with no candidates for any leadership positions. None, and you'll be asking, "is there no one else better!?" Which is what we just experienced.
Because everyone has a secret somewhere or made a mistake before and we should look past their private lives to support those who are capable, has the management and leadership skills and problem solvers than a squeaky clean, polished image, with a stack of certificates but absolutely no EQ nor leadership and worse, a coward who drops the ball when crisis hits.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
Matthew 7:3-5
This is the 21st century, we should also support gays, females and minorities or atheist if he or her has the leadership to lead and delegate the right team to get things done. Judge less, we're no saint either.
"Never judge people by their past. People learn, people change and people move on."
Gautama Buddha
Peace out,
Jonathan Tee