It is baffling why Tin Pei Ling is getting more attention than the other new candidates introduced. I dare say she is probably the most talked about person, and has more attention online than all the cabinet mini$ter$ put together.

Frankly, I didn’t really cared about the candidates that the Tali-PAP have introduced. Why do I want to care about more of the same shit? Had her name not flooded my news feed on Facebook, I wouldn’t give a damn about her either. Anyway, my first comment when I saw her picture was this – Singapore is not Japan, the Tali-PAP is not the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), and PM Baby Lee certainly isn’t Koizumi Junichiro. After all, while Koizumi had sent his party’s pretty candidates as ‘election assassins’ against his opponents and win, Ms Tin probably would have not stood a chance if she ran alone in an Single Member Constituency [SMC]. In fact, it makes one wonder if she would stand a chance even against aunty Lina Chiam. Let’s not forget that this is not 1976 so stop comparing with the respected ex-Speaker Mr Tan Soo Khoon already.

I wonder what goes on in the mind of the those who made the decision to field her. After all, it reflects poorly on those who made the decision to chose Ms Tin as a candidate. No matter good she is, there will be a perception that in part she received the call because of her husband’s connections. If those who chose her thought that she could pass scrutiny, they may have overestimated her ability. Worse of it all – which many netizens felt – they may not have cared if she could pass scrutiny. To quote one of them, “Tin Pei Ling looks suspiciously like the PAP’s way of giving Singaporeans the middle finger.” I am not surprised if it is not too far from the truth, and probably we haven’t seen nothing yet because they might even make her a mini$ter.

On the other hand, there are those who pointed out that the over-reaction is unnecessary. Consider countries like Brazil or Venezuela, where it is not surprising for beauty queens to contest in elections. Or even in Italy or Japan, where a porn star / AV actress managed to win. While these voters may still question whether Ms Tin has the political acumen to be a candidate, they do not really care whether she’s a ‘sweet young thing’ or not. I felt the reaction to her is because that Singaporeans are not only particularly annoyed with the certainty that she will enter Parliament as part of a Tali-PAP GRC team, but over the fact that some good opposition candidates (such as Sylvia Lim) may possibly never made it into Parliament thanks to the thrice damned and accursed GRC system thought out by a dog-mother snake.

I’ll leave it to the other cyber-carrion eaters to pick Ms Tin apart for whatever other reasons they can think of – for e.g. too young, no substance, showing off, or acting cute. Personally I object to some of the things done to drag even the other aspects of her personal life through the mud – such as the attempt which suggests that she broke a previous relationship with another man and be with her husband for political reasons. If the Straits Stooge Times were to accuse anyone of ‘gutter-journalism’, let me remind everyone what it have done to Josie Lau and her team when they attempted to take over AWARE in 2009. Even before the whole affair was over, we knew more about the personal and private life of some of these people – the kids they have, where they worked, their spouse, the church their worshiped in etc. As such, I find it rather hypocritical of Siew Kum Hong to speak in defense of Ms Tin, when he sided with the side that brought the matter to the press in the AWARE affair. Seriously, where the hell was he when the local media drag the privacy of private citizens through the mud? Oh… he was helping Dana Lam and frankly I am not sure how much we know about her.

Mar 6, Hong Kong – Citizens march in protest

But I digress… A friend showed me an old article in 2007 on the Tali-PAP site and I do not really like what I read. On what basis can she justify that the poor have not gotten poorer? I doubt her perspective has changed in the past few years, and I wondered how is she going to position herself in the position of the people and serve them with this kind of perspective? That’s not forgetting a recent video where she said that healthcare costs is ‘low and manageable’. Seriously, was she aware of the hoops of fire we need to jump through to attain Khaw Boon Wan’s ‘$8 bypass-operation healthcare nirvana’?

I believe it was Mini$ter Ng Eng Hen ‘Eng Eng’ who said that the party isn’t looking for ‘Yes Man’ when they select their candidates. So far Ms Tin has failed to show us that she is anything but. In fact, while some Tali-PAP backbenchers would at times speak eloquently and even passionately (such as Lily Neo) against certain issues, when have they voted against or even abstained when their votes are counted? Frankly, all this talk about serving the people are empty promises to me, when Tali-PAP MPs would vote for policies that are forced down our throats.

Post 80’ers lying on road in protest

I also recalled that one of the Tali-PAP ‘old birds’ – can’t remember who, since I can’t find that article – who said that the online flaming of Ms Tin isn’t helpful and it will deter young people from coming into politics and to serve the people. At the age of 27, Tin Pei Ling would classify as one of the “post-80’ers” [八十后]. As far as I am concerned, I personally don’t think she is too young to dabble in politics since it is a trend in this part of Asia – in Hong Kong in particular, and even in China for the young to step forth and fight for greater equality and better future for themselves.

Globalisation and unfettered capitalism rapidly marginalises not only the ageing, but even the young. The entire economic climate has been made worse by ‘Quantitative Easing’, in which the U.S. simply just print money without any backing and export its inflation to the rest of the world. The young are looking at a bleak future in which they would find it almost impossible to obtain a roof over their own heads, and also to bear the ever increasing burden in the form of high costs of living while wages remained stagnant or even depressed just to stay employed. But compared to those in Hong Kong who needs to lay down on the road in their political struggle (in the recently protests on March 6), Ms Tin’s political path is a paved, unobstructed 4 lane expressway. At least she didn’t have to go on the streets and brave water cannons or the truncheons of riot police compared to some of her contemporaries in other parts of the world. Stick and stones may break my bones, Ms Tin. If someone needs to speak up for you over all these nasty comments, then go back to your comfort zone and stop trying to amuse us.

All said, it is my considered opinion that it is not Ms Tin who need to see a trauma specialist. But rather Singaporeans in her ward who needed one because she would get a free ride on Senior Senile Mini$ter Goh’s shoulders into Parliament and earn at least $15,000 a month, while many fresh graduates would have to struggle with getting a starting pay of $2,500. That reminds me of someone who actually scoffed a year back when a fresh graduate talked about how he has been struggling for almost half a year or more looking for job because he can’t obtain even that starting pay on Plurk. Personally, I have no idea why this person would think that requesting for a starting pay of $2,500 would be too much, when a new HDB flat would cost $350K, and it would take up $1000 a month just to service the loans!

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