Singapore Democratic Party Jurong East Stadium Rally – April 29, 2011

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I rarely write admirably of the SDP or Dr Chee, because ever since Dr Chee took leadership of the Singapore Democratic Party’s [SDP], I held him responsible for causing a setback in our democratic progress for 15 years. Maybe it wasn’t justified but I am entitled to my opinion.

Thus, I went to the SDP rally at Jurong East Stadium without any expectations. I went because the least I can do for them is listen to what they have to say, and also to listen to Tan Jee Say and Dr Vincent Wijeyshinga in specific. I must say even though the turnout was not as spectacular and electrifying as that of Hougang last night, I am glad I was there – because I was there to witness the rebirth of a political party.

Let me explain what I meant by the SDP’s rebirth – because it was orderly and I didn’t see any SDP members pulling any crazy stunts. At the end of the rally, it was announced that someone has come from Sembawang to present Dr Chee Soon Juan a garland. I was half expecting a scuffle and yet another fiasco when I saw the SDP party flags waving. I thought Dr Chee will attempt to step up to the stage and create a scene. He didn’t and received the garland below the stage. I breathe a sigh of relief and later read on Facebook that when asked, a clearly mellowed Dr Chee had replied (and I paraphrase): “I am not allowed by the law to speak.”

One might consider his reply as a whimper, but to me it annouces the SDP’s return to the local political scene as a sensible party with a bang! My friends and I discussed over supper the reason of the SDP’s change in behaviour, and we speculated that they did a post-election evaluation and noticed there was at least 8% of spoilt votes in Sembawang Group Representation Constituency [GRC] in the last election. They probably also reviewed the response to their activism on the social media and realised just how much that damaged their image and their cause. All of these may have caused the SDP come to terms with the futility of that course of action and mature accordingly.


Danny the Democracy Bear

Anyway, again I was too distracted to pay a lot of attention to what the candidates said on stage, but I’ll bring up some of the points I have heard. If I remembered correctly, Tan Jee Say mentioned he was taken to task by People’s Action Party [PAP] leaders for suggesting to use 60-billion dollars from our reserves on a National Regeneration Plan. The PAP tried to have us understand that $60,000,000,000 is no small change. Indeed, it maybe no small change but could anyone really tell us just how much reserves is there is for us to decide just whether this is going to take a large chunk out of the reserves? In fact, does the PAP even know how much reserves there really is in the first place? I certainly recalled that even ex-President Ong asked and never got an answer. The PAP said that the reserves gave us comfort and confidence, but can you be confident when someone tells you there’s a safety rope around your waist so you can do a bungee jump now when you cannot even see or feel and touch that rope? Really, I would rather hug a larger version of Danny the Democracy Bear for comfort in my time of crisis.

It was the first time I heard Vincent Wijeyshinga spoke (if one does not count what I saw on video) and I must say it was a very rousing speech. I understand that many people would be asking what is the point of a rousing speech. Many would ask whether the speaker can deliver and to show them the beef.

Allow me to sidetrack a little… I noticed that some of the people got bored and walked out when Teo Soh Lung spoke. In fact, I even noticed people walking out of Chen Show Mao’s speech last night. It was not that what these speakers said have no grounds or good reasons. In fact, Teo Soh Lung was making a promise to her potential voters what she would do as a Member of Parliament [MP] – from donating half of her MP allowance to the party and community, and questioning her opponent on why our education policies have turned Singapore into a ‘tuition nation’.

My point here is, a rally speaker should not attempt to ‘reason’ with those present. Reasoning should be done with armchair warriors like me typing away on a keyboard, or in a forum where there is interaction between participants. But when speaking in a rally, a speaker rouses those who are present. I am not expect a Hitler but at least I expect an Obama. A rally speech should be so filled with political talk that when the speaker is done the people present get so fired up and inspired that they felt they are invincible and walk out of the rally ready to take down Godzilla with their bare hands.

Mr Low Thia Khiang and some of the Workers’ Party speakers were able to do that. Teo Soh Lung certainly couldn’t but Dr Vincent could. I find myself agreeing with many things he said and the crowded responded and rallied like never before. I can’t judge whether the SDP could deliver on their promises nor can I say whether there was any bite in what they said. But, I walked away remembering some of the things Dr Vincent said – like how the PAP talks about the value of money, but refused to talk about the YOG over-budget. Not to mention how a town council lost several million dollars of sinking funds in bad investments. If I am not wrong, he even threw in a joke saying that there are 6 zeros in million but when you lose that money you get 7 zeros. It took a while for me (yes, I am not that smart) to get the joke what the extra zero signifies. I walked away remembering all these, and it rekindled my anger over the lack of humility and accountability from the PAP.

Really, I am not expecting (and certainly do not like) any mudslinging or our politicians to play really dirty and be down right personal like those in Taiwan. But this was a rally speech I am expecting.

Keep up this good work, SDP! As a Singaporean, I welcome you back into the political scene.

Workers’ Party Hougang Rally – April 28, 2011

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I must say I am shocked by the crowd at the Workers’ Party [WP] rally in Hougang. The field is just a few minutes short walk from Hougang MRT Station along the North East line, and even before I reach the actual position, the few of us – including my friend’s old mother who came without any free food – had a hard time getting into rally ground proper.

At the rally site, we joked that many of the people at the rally are just kaypohs (aka nosy parkers) since among the 7 of us, 4 came from areas where the Workers’ Party do not directly contest. I didn’t stay for the whole rally because I don’t want to leave when everyone is leaving as I have no faith in the ability of the MRT system to be able to take the load, neither do I want to let a taxi driver earn some easy money by calling for a cab.

I arrived late at around 7:40pm and left at 9:30 so I only heard a few people speak. Loud cheers went up when Mr Low Thia Khiang arrived, and more cheers went up when he introduce his protégé – Mr Yaw Shin Leong. My friend tried to cheer for Mr Yaw but he couldn’t get it going and I understood his intention since while Mr Low deserved our cheers, we can’t only cheer for him forever. That is perhaps something the Workers’ Party should work on.

Anyway, I managed to hear Miss Lee Lilian, Mr Yaw and Mr Chen Show Mao speak. Mr Chen spoke in several language, even greeted those present in Malay and Tamil. If I had any doubts that this is a son of Singapore, my doubts went out of the window. The crowd itself and my camera was quite a distraction so I didn’t remember everything that the candidates said.

One thing I did catch however, was Mr Yaw (I think it was him) imploring those who came from other constituencies where the WP is contesting to vote for the WP. He mentioned that it is rather disheartening to see a large turnout at the rallies many times, but the votes always came out otherwise. I sincerely hope that this won’t happen this time round since the stakes are so high. Even so, I am heartened by my fellow Singaporean’s increased political awareness. My concern is that the turnout at Hougang today may cause some voters to be taken in by the PAP’s scare mongering (i.e. of a so-called ‘freak result’) and vote for the PAP instead on May 7th. That would have created another kind of ‘freak result’, one in which the PAP gets a clean sweep in spite of its past few years of mismanagement in certain areas. So vote wisely, Singapore. Vote boldly. As Chen Show Mao says: Don’t be a cowardly lion!

The pictures I took at the rally doesn’t do the crowd present any justice. I should have taken a picture of the crowd standing behind me when I was leaving. Do note that that area behind me was empty when I arrived. By the time I was leaving I could see nothing else except people. It was an amazing night and I sincerely hope that our democracy is finally taking root and sprouting flowers of spring.

By the way, I got myself a blue Workers’ Party umbrella as a souvenir. Yaaaay!

Random Discourse – Nomination Day

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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.

Random Discourse – Workers’ Party Manifesto on Public Housing

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Finally browsed through Chapter 8 – the Public Housing portion – of the Workers’ Party’s [WP] 33-page manifesto. While I had to admit that the WP meant well by suggesting that the housing prices be pegged to median incomes, as a current lessee owner of a HDB flat with a vested interest in the continual appreciation of its value, I am duly concerned with the impact of such a move on the value of my flat.

That has really nothing to do with Mah Bow Tan’s fear mongering, because my common sense tells me that if their plan goes through it is almost certain that there will be some depreciation in the value of resale flats. After all, wouldn’t there be a reduction in demand for resale flats as first time applicants (except for those who are desperate enough to pay a high premium for a resale) would be enticed to purchase only new flats instead? Or perhaps the WP is betting on the fact that since Permanent Residents [PRs] can only get a resale, they would be the ones keeping the prices stable? But wouldn’t that drive PRs to private properties?

How is the WP going to assure those who have currently overpaid for their flats and still servicing their loans to accept such an arrangement? Even while the impact maybe very little to me since I bought mine more than 10 years ago (though I am still servicing my loans), I am quite sure many of us will like to know how much this move would really cost current property owners. The WP must do more by give voters the specifics so they can understand that this bitter pill they have to swallow is all for the long term well being of future generations of Singaporeans. Otherwise it would be be difficult for some voters to support this plan. Basically, we need to know whether the potential financial losses we will suffer will just be biting this bullet for the short term [一时的痛] or whether it would become a never ending pain on our chest [在我们胸口永远的痛]. To put it in an analogy, some people maybe able to accept getting slashed and bleeding for a short while, but it will require far more convincing to have people accept the need to amputate an arm or a leg even if they are told their lives depend on it. If WP wants to tell me that neither a slashing or an amputation is going to happen, convince me! I am all ears.

~ * ~

Next, let me move on to the convoluted rubbish that Mah Bow Tan has been spewing lately. If he stopped after talking about the prospective losses that current home owners may suffer, that would have been good enough since that would have divided the electorate. People with vested interest would have jumped out to condemn the WP and the damage would have been done. But he went rambling on to the point that it is now becoming ludicrous. At times, there is seriously no need to exaggerate but of course the People’s Action Party’s [PAP] modus operandi is to make it sound so bad that we all get confused.

The vitriol and diatribe against the WP’s housing proposal in specific exceeds everything else that the government has thrown at the opposition. Has the WP’s proposal seriously harmed some ‘core interest’ some where? If it is true, I am not sure nor convinced that these ‘core interest’ are in the best interest of Singapore or Singaporeans.

From what I have gathered, Mah has called the WP’s housing proposal as ‘irresponsible’ and he suggested that for the WP to be able to pay for it, the WP would either have to cut spending in education, health care or defence. He said if the WP isn’t doing any of that, it would then have to raise taxes or dip into the reserves. He even suggest that the WP has an insidious, sinister and ulterior motive here by ‘reminding’ us that the WP had opposed the Elected President [EP] scheme and that so-called Chief Valuer which determined the price of the land is under the EP’s office.

He might as well have suggested that we should not think of the WP logo as a hammer, but that of a big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood *HoOOOoOOOOwl*. In spite of my exceptionally low opinion of Mah, I gave what he said some thought over the past few days, and these are some of the things I have thought about…

First of all, the government has given out 3.2 billion in a so-called ‘Growth and Share’ package, put S$4 billion that it had drawn earlier for the Resilience Package back into the past reserves and yet spent another 3.4 billion ‘longer term social investments for households’ this year. I am quite sure even though this maybe a one time windfall, is the government telling us that in other years, it doesn’t have any money which can be used to finance what the WP is proposing? If Mah is going to complain that by doing so it means the government would have no money for these packages and social investments, I wondered whether he has considered that when the people no longer need to slave their ass off paying for their pathetic little HDB flat, they would not only have more savings in their CPF, but also disposable income (because rentals will fall and thus slow down the increase in cost of living). Once that happens, it would have negated the need for one times hand-outs, or even Eldercare fund and Medifund top-ups. In short, it may probably be a zero sum game…

Secondly, Mah even gone so far to suggest that the WP’s plan is as good as raiding the national reserves. I sincerely wondered how is he going to substantiate any of that, since no one even know the exact details of the arcane mathematical formula (allegedly based on market conditions and valuation principles) used by this Chief Valuer to determine the value of the land in the first place. Mah would have us believe the land is really worth so much simply because he said so! That’s not mentioning that from what Mah had said it gives me the perception that the reserves is like some vampiric machine sucking our life blood into a nutrient pool. We are told that this nutrient pool is kept for the good of us just in case of hungry days. But many a time even during those days we are told to look at it to satiate our hunger – much like Cao Cao has told his troops to quench their thirst by looking up at the plums [望梅止渴]. Sincerely, if he wants to talk about raiding the reserves, talk about the million of dollars he is receiving every year. Last I checked, the ratio of their pay to Singapore’s GDP per person is *gasp* above 40. I take that to mean that if monthly median income is measely $2,500, the minister would be earning at least $100,000.

Even if I were to believe him, wouldn’t that mean to say that there is no way we can ever determine just how much national reserves there is in the first place since land prices can fluctuate. So how does he know whether the reserves are getting raided in the first place when the land’s value isn’t already fixed? In fact, at one point of time I thought we had a ‘perpetually growing’ national reserves since land prices can only go up as population growth and economic demands increase. I laughed that silly thought off as quickly as I thought of it.

Thirdly, I suddenly remembered when ex-President Ong Teng Cheong (the only President not given a state funeral) asked to be given the the details of how much reserves there is, he was rebuffed and told that it will take 52 man-years to do so. Now I understand why no one can do that for the ex-President. In fact, I even believe whoever told the ex-President that it can be done in 52 man-years must be frakking joking. After all, when the value of all the unsold land is yet to be determined, just who the hell can work out just how much reserves is really there to tell the President? Perhaps we should ask President Nathan if it bothers him that actually there is no way to know whether the reserves has grown or shrunk. In other words, just what exactly is the point of having an EP at all?

Either way, I wouldn’t go into talking about how little was paid out to obtain the land in the first place. Neither would I even go into explaining that this so-called subsidy is really nothing more than a discount (and thus the losses the HDB suffered is not real but hypothetical). But I would like to remind Mr Mah a simple fact – there is no use telling those who can’t even afford a HDB flat in the first place that its value would always be increasing in the years to come. Please wake up to the reality that some young people are already asking, “What exactly is the point for me to work so hard, and yet that house seem so distant and out of reach?” The Singapore Dream is dead! One can even tell some of these young people are angry, and all this talk about ‘asset enhancement’ is more akin to asking man adrift in the open sea to drink sea water to quench his thirst.

Really, stop treating us like idiots. Is there a predicament here preventing the government from being more transparent on how the land slated for building HDB flats is priced? If not, I am forced to believe that the government simply hold the people it claimed to serve in contempt. I am also forced to believe that the public housing scheme is nothing more than an scheme to siphon off our hard earned money into the national reserves for the GIC and Temasek Holdings unaccountable investments.

Recommended Reads:
InsanePoly: Vote for Change

Random Discourse – Workers’ Party Manifesto on Public Transport

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I couldn’t find time to write lately, not because I am busy but rather due to my bad time management. Fortunately I didn’t manage my time so badly that I had to skip the “BBC Bloggers evening” (held at Pierside, One Fullerton) organised by Dunbar-Jones & Associates on April 19th. The primary objective of this event was of to introduce the Asia Business Index which BBC had put up. There were 9 others bloggers (such as Mr. Tan Kin Lian, Donaldson Tan from New Asia Republic and friend Darryl Kang) invited to meet with Jeremy Hillman and Francesca Unsworth of BBC in an exchange of insights and perspectives about Singapore and region.

The 9 other bloggers invited are definitely better known in blogosphere or social media where I am a nobody. I rarely get more than 500 hits a day and that only a good day after I get listed on Singapore Daily! Thus, I am actually surprised that I was even invited at all. I am greatly humbled after the free and cordial exchange of views with many of those present. Of course the bulk of the things discussed surround the upcoming General Elections since Parliament was dissolved that same day. A few of the bloggers present have given me many new perspectives of certain matters (such as certain opposition figures) and they made a big impact on some of my views. Some even gave me suggestions on how I can further improve my blog.

The views shared at the event inspired me to write this post even though I have yet to read up the manifesto or the election promises of various political parties. Fact is, I haven’t been actively catching up with the news lately – thousands of news articles in my RSS had remained unread. Even so, I noticed that the Workers’ Party [WP] is on the receiving end of bulk of the flak from the ruling party – in particular over the housing policy. In my opinion, the WP gave as good as it took, if not better. Combined with the shabby performance of cabinet ministers like Lim Swee Say on Mediacorp Channel 8, along with the fielding of new candidates like Tin Pei Ling and ex-Chief of Army Ah Beng Chan Chun Sing, much of the ruling party’s aura of invincibility has been diminished, if not shattered.

I will leave the matter of housing to a latter post since that is a more complicated issue, and also because I need to cool off as I personally considered the People’s Action Party [PAP] to have betrayed Singaporeans as far as the promise to provide affordable housing is concerned. I am sick of the lame excuses Mah Bow Tan is giving to justify a policy that enslaves the people and siphon off our money into a national reserves for the unaccountable investment purposes of the GIC and Temasek Holdings.

From what I have read, the WP has allegedly proposed to nationalise the public transport companies in their manifesto. Libertarians and free market supporters will definitely cry foul over the WP’s suggestion. However, I am not here to defend the merit (or the lack of) in WP’s proposal on public transport, though I certainly object to (if not reject) what Lim Hwee Hua said when she dismissed the idea. Let me paraphrase what the minister had said: “to nationalise public transport, it would be ‘a step backwards’ in the level of services commuters currently enjoy. Nationalisation of public transport in many other countries had led to inefficiency”

First of all, there is no direct competition between these so-called ‘private’ public transport companies. It is a known fact that any bus service that runs along MRT lines are removed and neither SBS Transit or SMRT has any bus services competing with each other directly along the same routes. We even read very often on the news that services are planned in such a way to ‘compliment’ one another. While all of these sounds good on paper, no one had considered that the impact of service disruption to the SMRT and the lack of alternative is in itself a form of inefficiency. For e.g. the recent East-West line breakdown for 2 hours about 2 week ago, and a possible attempted suicide last Friday near midnight at Sembawang MRT station has caused a major disruption to the lives of many people. Whenever something like this happened, commuters scrambled to catch taxis or find a bus service that would put them in the general direction of their destination – often at great loss of time and costs – because the transport planners considered it ‘inefficient’ to have ‘duplicating’ services.

The bus service itself isn’t any better. Anyone who has taken some of the bus services like SBS 2, SBS 32, SBS 51, TIBS 61, TIBS 67, SBS 154, SBS 174 or SBS 196 from end to end would wonder whether an inmate of the Institute of Mental Health [IMH] planned the roundabout route which can take one up to two hours to travel from end to end. If it puzzles anyone why I would be complaining about a 2-hour bus trip, that because that’s the same amount of time I took to travel from Hsinchu City to Taipei City when I was in Taiwan in 1993. My rough estimate is that Hsinchu to Taipei would be the equivalent from Singapore to Muar (or less). Now consider the fact that Singapore itself is probably not very much bigger than Greater Taipei. The only bright spot about these long bus rides is that at the end of the day, one might actually discover roads or streets in Singapore that he wouldn’t discover otherwise. Is Lim Hwee Hua telling us that this is actually *gasp* efficient?! I wouldn’t want to start ranting about taxis, since I have ranted enough about it before. (See: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6])

Thus the truth is this: the local public transport companies have a de-facto monopoly and we certainly don’t have much choice nor say about it. With the MRT being the main mode of transport for the majority, the government wants us to believe that it is very well run and a superb world class transport system. Much has been reported about the international acclaim given to our public transport, but does it really matter when everyone you talked to feels otherwise? On the social media front, one only need to include the hashtag #smrtruinslives in Twitter to get a daily feel on how the very people who used it felt. I personal wondered whether a google search with the keywords “Singapore MRT sucks” might turn up even more horror stories.

Beside that, it is public knowledge that the largest shareholder of SMRT is Temasek Holdings (around 54 ~ 55%) while the Singapore Labour Foundation – a stat board under the Ministry of Manpower – is ComfortDelgro’s single largest shareholder (12.2% stake). That simply means, despite the facade of private-owned transport companies, it is actually some what state-owned. In short, we are thus provided a system that has the worst aspects of both nationalised and privatised public transport company. It is a state-owned monopoly where we can do shit about, combined with state-owned companies pretending to be private companies which primary objective is to create value for shareholders (i.e. be profitable). As such, the public transport companies can almost raise fares annually citing an increase in operating costs (rubber stamped by the so-called “Public Transport Council” [PTC]), without any tangible improvement in serivces they provide at all. It begs the question, would the WP’s offer be any worse or inefficient at all compared to what we are really having now? The WP’s proposal is certainly not something Lim Hwee Hua can dismiss with a few words or the wave of Harry Potter’s magic wand.

The fact that we have complained, ranted and whined over this so often in the past few years showed us that the PAP has failed in providing a solution. All the PAP is capable of, is raise fares – i.e. throw money out of our pockets – at the problem even when it has been ineffective. At most, such measures worked only for a few weeks before everything returns to ‘normalcy’. But before that, the main stream media would have overwhelmed us with glaring reports of the purported ‘effectiveness’ and ‘success’ of these harebrained measures.

I must say I have enough of this bullshit, and I am open to any ideas – even radical ones such as those of the WP – other than the ineffective PAP ones which not only failed to solved the problem, but had in fact worsen the situation by increasing the burden of our wallets.

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