27 April 2011 – Nomination Day.

Had the the Singapore Democratic Alliance [SDA] / Socialist Front [SF] team contesting Tanjong Pagar Group Representative Constituency [GRC] not been disqualified, all the 87 seats will be contested. Anyway, 82 out of 87 seats to be contested isn’t so bad either, and the best part is I finally get a chance to vote for the first time in almost 40 years of my life.

I don’t really care about what the incumbent has to offer, since they are more of the same – either more groomed scholars, more generals and rear admirals who have never fought wars or some obviously mediocre people who just make the numbers to ‘ki chiu’ (raise hands) and pass the seemingly ‘always sexy’ laws the incumbent party pushes. Thus, I am more interested in which are the best people the opposition is fielding and where they will be contesting, beginning with the existing MPs from the minority parties. (I used the term ‘minority parties’ because the term ‘opposition parties’ create the misconception that these parties have no vision of their own or that they oppose for the sake of opposing only.)

The biggest surprise this nomination day comes from the Workers’ Party. Mr Low Thia Khiang (current MP of Hougang Single Member Constituency [SMC]) will be leaving his stronghold to Mr Yaw Shin Leong and leading a team of heavy weights to contest in the Aljunied GRC. I have half expected this to happen when it was Mr Low was quoted on the papers saying that that he will be making the greatest decision in his life. While I am apprehensive of this move, I wish Mr Low, Miss Sylvia Lim, Mr Chen Show Mao, Mr Faisal Abdul Manap and Mr Pritam Singh all the best in their battle ahead. It was both a bold move and a daring gamble. I wished I lived in Aljunied so I could vote for you guys for your vision of a First World Parliament. Even though I can’t vote for you, rest assured that there is at least one more Singaporean here cheering you on.

Mr Chiam See Tong of the Singapore has also left Potong Pasir SMC to his wife Lina Chiam to contest in Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC. It is clear this will be the last fight for this admirable old warrior. My heart goes out to him when I saw how frail he was on one of the photos. It almost looked to me as if he will just collapse anytime. Yet as I looked at him, respect rises from within and tears well up in my eyes. I had to rub my eyes so no one noticed I was going to cry. This man seems intended to burn his life to the very end for the greater benefit of nation and people. You have my utmost respect Mr Chiam, because you have done all these without any great reward of money. In another country, you probably deserved much better than some of the so-called top caliber the incumbent has to offer. Do the people a favor and get us some real accountability from Wong Kan Seng instead of the lip service he has given us.

The Singapore Democratic Party [SDP], which is generally considered a fringe party and a portrayed as a bunch of crackpots by the main stream media, has sent its strongest team to Holland-Bukit Timah GRC as expected. Vincent Wijeyshinga, who was recently thrown into the limelight for his sexual orientation, will team with Mr Tan Jee Say, Mr Ang Yong Guan and Miss Michelle Lee. Personally, while the people who bothers to read my vitriol knows for a fact I strongly opposed to the abolition of Section 377A, and I have written strongly against the homosexual / pink lobby – I object to making Vincent’s sexual orientation an issue in this election. It is my considered opinion that this matter is deliberately brought up in an attempt to draw both the pink lobby and their opponents out into open debate over the matter of sexual orientation and Section 377A all over again. The least the SDP team deserved is to be heard. I appeal to both sides of the debate to shelve this dispute and not allow it to over shadow the issue of the YOG overbudget and also the objectionable statements Mr Vivian Balakrishnan’s made in Parliament on the matter of Public Assistance.

Mr Desmond Lim of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) was unfortunately drawn into a 3-cornered fight with Miss Lee Lilian of the Workers’ Party in the Punggol East SMC. I do not know Mr Lim at all, and I do not necessarily agree with his actions before he left the SPP which ends in a fallout with his former mentor Mr Chiam. But I have come across people who jumps to Mr Lim’s defense when I criticise him, and I have heard some rather positive comment about the man. As such my impression of the man tends towards positive. On the other hand, I have met Lilian in person – a jovial and very friendly lady whom I will be glad to call a friend. It is tragic that the votes between this two minority party candidates will be split and it will reduce their chances of winning, but I hope more votes will be drawn from their incumbent opponent and even if he wins it would be less than half of the SMC. I can only say I am ‘glad’ I am not a resident of Punggol East SMC because I would be torn between voting for Mr Lim, a man I have come to respect; and Lilian, who is a friend.

The Reform Party [RP] will be contesting two GRC and its secretary-general Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam will be contesting in West Coast GRC, one that has not been contested for years. That came as the other surprise to me when it was announced a few days earlier, as I was some what expecting him to go to Radin Mas SMC to follow in his father’s foot steps. I will give Mr Jeyaratnam the thumbs up for contesting in West Coast, since that would at least shut up some of his critics about him riding on the coat tails of his father’s fame and legacy. At least he now shows these armchair warriors that he is his own man. As for the RP’s team in Ang Mo Kio, I hope this team get even more votes than the WP in the last election to show Lee Hsien Loong just how much we are sick of the PAP’s elitist attitude and lack of accountability.The RP however, need to get its act together. All of these mass resignations and defections is not doing them any good at all.

Last but not least, would be the National Solidarity Party [NSP]. I left them for last because Steve Chia will be contesting in my constituency – Pioneer SMC. The NSP has grown much at the expense of the the RP, even Nicole Seah used to be a RP member. While Nicole Seah has awed many online, the main point is that it isn’t just Nicole Seah vs Tin Pei Ling in a SMC fight, it is a team fight against Mr Goh Chok Tong. While Nicole clearly outclassed Pei Ling, by being the most outstanding member in her team means she will now take the bulk of the flak from Mr Goh. That might not bode well for the rest of her team unless those other members can find a platform of their own to take on the other members of the the incumbent’s team one by one.

The fact that even the main stream media seems to give Nicole the limelight appeared to be a deliberate attempt to sideline the rest of the NSP teams and candidates which might pack quite a punch on their own. For e.g. the team for Chua Chu Kang GRC with Mr Sebastian Teo, Mr Tony Tan Lay Thiam, Tony’s wife Hazel Poa, Nor Lella Mohammed and Jeisilan Sivalingam. Both Tony and Hazel has written strongly against the housing policies and it puzzles me greatly why the NSP’s secretary-general, Mr Goh Meng Seng, had not field them together with himself to take on the hated Mr Mah Bow Tan in Tampines GRC is beyond me. But maybe that explains why I am an armchair critic while Mr Goh is the secretary-general of a political party. My wish is that Mr Goh could work with the WP and his mentor Mr Low on the matter of housing and teach Mah the true meaning of the word affordability.

I am apprehensive about how the opposition is lined up in challenge to the incumbent and my greatest fear would be a kind of ‘freak result’ in which the incumbent achieved a clean sweep even though many are concerned with the issues surrounding public housing and transport, immigration, jobs and the cost of living. I can only hope my fellow Singaporeans will vote wisely to avoid such a dreadful outcome.

I am quite sure I am already decided who I should vote for, and I am certain not going to bother with a party that remains unrepentant about their broken ‘affordable housing policy’ that enslaves the people. I will not vote for a party which doesn’t know the difference between permanent residents [PRs] and Singaporeans and use them as part of the statistics to tell us for every job a foreigner gets, 1.5 is created for us. I will not vote for a party that has turned my home into heaven for foreigners while it slowly turns into hell for me. I will not vote for a party which has no ideas to solve the problems like public transport, congestions etc other than to raid our reserves – not the national one, but our private individual ones – to the point that when we are old we are all asset rich but cash poor. In my opinion, if one thinks that the minority parties are incompetent, they are better than the incumbent since it is not the fault of the minority parties that we have people living in tents in National Parks. Even if these people are there because of their own foul-ups, where is the helping hand that would help them to their feet? It clearly isn’t even polices of the minority parties that drive people onto the streets and drive them out of their jobs. I do not want Singapore to become a colony again while we become the new aborigines of Singapore… and when that happens we will be worse off than those aborigines. We will be without the associated policies that aborigines in any other country would get as one can certainly not expect very much from a calculative, far right capitalist government where every logic surrounds dollars and cents.

That is also the reason why I have recently decided not to cast a ‘void’ ballot because such a ballot has no direct effect in deciding the winner. Even though every ‘void’ ballot is painstakingly counted, it has no purpose at all other than a statistical one, and also to ensure that every vote is accounted for and no fraud is being committed. In fact, a ‘void’ ballot lowers the margin to win and has the same effect as not voting. for e.g. There are 25740 voters in Pioneer SMC. By right, the candidate which obtains 12871 votes will win. But if 200 people didn’t turn up to vote and 200 people cast a ‘void’ ballot, then the number of valid votes will only be 25340, and now the candidate requires only 12671 votes to win. While this does not really seem like much, imagine what happens when there are a large number of ‘void’ ballots. That means that the winner is actually popular to less than half of the eligible voters. In our case where the incumbent is favored, casting a void ballot is as good as allowing them to win. While I am not encouraging anyone to vote for the opposition simply because they are unhappy with the incumbent, this is how I would decide to vote in the coming election. Some people might not like how I vote, but when the vote is mine – then the choice is mine so I’ll like everyone to mind their own business because I ain’t forcing anyone to vote as I do. But if anyone insist to give me a piece of his or her mind because of my view here, and call me all sorts of names and label me a PAP hater… *stomps feet* I don’t know what to say!!

Finally, I would like to remind everyone not to be taken in by the argument that we are given other voices because we can have 9 Non-Constituency MPs [NCMP] under the NCMP scheme. An NCMP cannot vote no matter how strongly they speak up against issues or proposals. The NCMP scheme has given the minority parties the bark, but it is up to you to give them the bite. If you agree that a one party domination is bad enough, remember that a one party dictatorship is even worse.

Vote wisely.