It’s difficult not to notice the recent political “Tsumanis” that been hitting Singaporeans lately. We just had an election on May 6th 2006. Nothing that is to happen in 2007 was raised (obviously) by the PAP during the election. Everything was squeaky clean. The most memorable thing about the May elections was the PAP attack on the integrity of James Gomez, and …. Mr Brown’s Mee Pok Man. Sad.
Shortly after the elections was over, and the PAP returned to power (66.6% of the vote), I received a notice from the HDB to pay up for my lift upgrading program. Ha! What a joke! Why didn’t they get me to pay before the election? (Rhetorical question. no need an answer)
Then… 6 months after the elections, PM Lee announced in Parliament that the GST would be increased by another 2% to a total of 7%. This couldn’t come at a worst time. In fact, on 20th October 2006, a jobless man (who had apparently been trying to find a job, but couldn’t) jumped to his death on an MRT track, leaving behind his wife and two children.
The economy is good they say. But dunno why the ground don’t echo the same sentiments. This was followed by another Train suicide on 30th October 2006, just barely 2 weeks after the first incident.
I think the PAP mis-calculated, and thought that people would let it slide, and not make a commotion over it. No such luck there, thanks to the commotion on the blogosphere. Actually, the PAP also had Wee Shu Min to thank for the uncharacteristic resurgent feeling of animosity towards the government and elite scholars/administrative officers when she blatantly derided a middle age manager for being a whiner and chided him to “get out of my elite uncaring face”. You see, Wee Shu Min is the daughter of PAP MP Wee Siew Kim, an MP from the Prime Minister’s ward, no less!
The resulting furore caused by Wee Shu Min on the Internet was nothing short of ballistic, causing Wee Siew Kim to apologise and speak to the press not once, but twice on it. The first statement was one of continued arrogance, that he didn’t blame her daughter. The guy deserved it. Shortly after the ruckus continued, Wee Siew Kim was forced to apologise to the victimised blogger for her daughter’s insensitive behaviour and comments. So far, the PAP’s tenor of its first 6 months in government was not smooth at all. And after the huge press coverage on the disadvantaged and the resulting unhappiness, the PAP government finally realised that this situation needed fixing.
After another 3 months, the PAP government formally announced the 2% hike in GST on February 15th 2007. And, with the efficiency expected of the PAP, the government announced a slew of assistance programs to go alongside the GST increase, so that the impact on the poor would not be so great.
But….I think the damage had already been done.
To add insult to injury, just barely 1 month after the formal announcement of the raise in 2% GST, the PAP government announced that they would be increasing the civil service and ministers’ pay, to bring it closer to the private sector.
I have my disagreements to this pay increase, but won’t discuss it further, as it has already been discussed quite a bit by many. A particularly good commentary on this is from Yawning Bread.
These political tactics are not new. Its not rocket science. You have 5 years to govern before an election must be called. You make the most unpopular decisions first, hoping that by the time it comes to the end of the 5 year term, the people would have forgotten, and the sweeteners you pile on the populace just before the next election would work it’s magic. But, what was extremely apparent to me this time round, was the unusually high amount of discussion continuing on the Singapore blogosphere.
If anything, I would imagine the pain of the wounds would take much longer to disappear. The electoral populace is also changing rapidly. We have many young Singaporeans growing into eligible voters. Young and vocal. Some of the verbal sparring that goes on can sometimes be very eye opening.
As with any grouping, there are always people who agree, disagree, people who sit on the fence and people who don’t give a damn either way. Out of these, you will also find people who are rude, malicious, out with an axe to grind, as well as good straight folks.
This is where my fear lies. If what I’m seeing is indicative of many of our young adults, I fear for the future of Singapore. They are argumentative, fiercely opinionated and disrespectful of our elders.
Don’t get me wrong. While I don’t particularly like some of the things I percieve the PAP to have done to date (upgrading, salary increases, victimization, etc), I am still very thankful to it for a good and clean government. There are gems in the government, people like PM Lee, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, Mr. Khaw Boon Wan, and in the civil service (I recently had…{ok. today} a “turn-about” conviction of Mr. Philip Yeo), retired Mr. Ngiam Tong Dow. These are people I believe who have given their very best to Singapore. (There are more… Just don’t know them yet)
The audacity of our young has somewhat shocked me. I recently heard a story recounted by a businessman friend of mine, who was out to hire an IT engineer. He met with one whom he thought was particularly promising (based on his CV). This chap was 3 years out of NTU, had some Systems Integration experience. He turned up late for the interview, his phone rang numerous times during the interview, and he made no effort to apologise nor turn off the phone. My friend called him up again a week from the initial interview to speak with him again, only to be told that he “wasn’t interested”. When asked why, he said “Your company is too small. Theres no prospects for me here. I want to work for a company who can offer to pay me big bucks and to be a manager”.
Man! This young arrogant chap is barely 3 years out of uni, and speaks with such pitiful arrogance. I interviewed another one just the other day. On the other extreme. Lazy and unwilling to put in the effort. When he realised that I was quite the task master, he said the job wasn’t suitable for him.
Mr Philip Yeo himself is embroiled in such an encounter with a young Singaporean. I used to think negatively of this man, until I chanced on Aaron Ng’s blog after reading this morning’s Straits Times report. I now see a side of Mr Yeo, that was never ever represented fairly in the papers. All that was reported was sensational news on him losing his temper, telling an MP to resign, taking a grad student to task, etc. It never showed the kinder more human side of Mr Yeo, which came across vividly in his interactions with bloggers on Aaron’s blog. Mr Yeo, is to date (in my knowledge at least) the only senior government official who has the decency to chat with bloggers in a completely unrestricted, un-policed, un-chaired and un-unchaperoned blog. Taking questions and providing answers.
But… I have seriously digressed. The point I was trying to make was that with such a major change in our young electorate, as well as the unbridled (at least till now) politically unpopular decisions by the government recently, we may see a further significant slide of the votes to the opposition during the next election. If the PAP stays un-bothered by this, and attempts to weather this new dimension of the blogosphere and a politically more active young electorate by doing nothing, it may find itself in a fix very soon.
Technorati Tags: PAP, Politics, Philip Yeo, Singapore, Craftsman
The only complain I have is the rather exorbitant ticket price. To bring in our family, we paid about S$43. Oh well, I guess they need to charge world class prices to provide a world class facility. Well done NTUC!