Tag: Hougang By-Election

Afterthoughts – Hougang By-Election

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Hougang voters celebrating
Photo of Rebecca Chin

Congratulations to the Workers’ Party [WP] and Mr Png Eng Huat for winning the seat of Hougang Single Member Constituency [SMC]. Mr Png has beaten his opponent by a majority of 5,237 votes. While the WP’s majority is reduced by 1548 votes, only a pathetic 145 (less than 10%) went to his opponent. For the ruling party’s candidate, it was like failing the exam a year ago and then doing just as badly in the sub-paper a year later. Has he actually been doing his home work? For starters, stop shamelessly saying that Hougang has fallen behind because of the opposition. If you really cared for Hougang as you have claimed and have any conscience left, the very least you can do is to resign from the very party which has deliberately punished everyone (even your own supporters) there for the past 20 years. Otherwise, there is no point even if you are capable of weeping yourself a new river in Hougang.

The courageous voters of Hougang have decided resoundingly to maintain the status quo of 6 WP Members of Parliament [MPs]. By electing Mr Png Eng Huat, they have not only resounding rejected the ruling party’s attempted character assassination, but also demonstrated that they accept (if not necessarily approve) how the WP has handled the indiscretion of Mr Yaw Shin Leong. Like I have mentioned, the WP deserved points for their political courage in expelling Mr Yaw from the party and going back to the people with a new candidate. As far as I am concerned, the outcome of this by-election simply indicated to me that when a political party diligent served the people and champion their causes, its candidates will always trump what those of the ruling party no matter how hard the ruling party’s leaders try to drag them through the mud. In this case, not only had the mud-slinging failed dismally, the very person who was the most enthusiastic at it has clearly been left in the mud pool himself. Just leave the scrutinising of the opposition candidate to the voters, alright? The ruling party can quit regarding the electorate with such low regard and contempt. We are NOT daft at all!

If there is one thing that made me remember this by-election fondly, it would be the rally at Hougang on May 22nd, 2012 (Tuesday). While I admired the WP speakers who stood in the rain until the rally’s end, what was more touching was the events that transpired among the rally attendees. A friend said that the elections always bring out the worst in people, but I beg to differ. In this case it has brought out the best!

There is courage – an old lady with two umbrellas kept them closed and stood in the rain along with the WP speakers. (For those who would fault her for not sharing her umbrellas, touch your heart and ask yourself whether you would share your own umbrella.) There is also a kampong spirit – people sharing their umbrella with those (even strangers) who didn’t have one, aunties tearing their plastic bags into 2 and giving it to others and some men taking off their shirts to shelter old folks and kids. And finally, there is also determination – where a family of 5 was observed gathering under a small umbrella. Many of the attendees that night stayed in spite of the rain and this was reported on social media fondly by those who were present.

What transpired that evening tells me that we can aspire to have a different Singapore. We can have a caring, non-elitist Singapore that cease to operate in a cold, selfish, calculative, ruthless, repulsive and inhuman logic where the people are made to believe that certain interests must be given priority. It shouldn’t be a Singapore where we believe that the people fell behind because of “their own fault”. Can you imagine that those with umbrellas kept to themselves and leave those without to suffer the rain because… “just who the hell asked them not to be prepared anyway”?

We Singaporeans can be better than that! That is perhaps why capable people who left Singapore never want to come back. Frankly, regardless of how many $4-million Singapore Day were organised overseas, no one would ever come back to a home that has turned into a hotel, and a country that is run like a corporation. While it is my regret that I wasn’t personally there to observe all that transpired at the rally that evening, it gave me the strength to drag myself to Hougang 2 days later in spite of my running nose, a nasty cough and a nagging back ache. Two other colleague went along with me, and one of them was similarly inflicted by the flu bug.

I was thankful the skies remained clear until the rally ended. After hearing them speak, I am convinced that Mr Pritam Singh, Mr Chen Show Mao and Mr Low Thia Khiang would have given any of the ruling party’s leaders a run for their money on a one-to-one stand up debate any time. Though it might appear on the main stream media [MSM] that the WP’s MPs were constantly rebutted and “beaten” in Parliamentary sessions, it merely convinced me that we need to further reduce the ruling party’s majority to put an end to these verbal “gang-rapes” that opposition MPs are subjected to in Parliament. Meanwhile, allow me to take this opportunity salute Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr Low Thia Khiang for having survived all those years when there were just two of them in Parliament. Special honor should also be given to JB Jeyaratnam, the first opposition MP since 1968. They have stood high with courage in spite of the jeers they received. Special mention should also be given to Anson, the birthplace of Singapore’s democracy.

MP-Elect Mr Png Eng Huat, I hope you will serve the people of Hougang faithfully and with all your heart and all your might. For it will be unforgivable if you or the WP let them down after bringing out the best of Singapore at the Hougang field next to Block 837 on the evening of May 22nd. It will also be as good as letting the rest of Singapore down. Good luck and all the best, sir!

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The Itch To Write: That spirit, the HOUGANG SPIRIT!
dk.sg: The day after Hougang By Election

Current Affairs – Hougang By-Election

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Crowd at the Workers Party Rally 22-5-2012 in spite of the rain
Photo obtained here

The hottest news this month has got to be the Hougang By-Election. This was the result of the Workers’ Party [WP] Expulsion of Yaw Shin Leong, who was the previous Member of Parliament [MP] of Hougang Single Member Constituency [SMC]. Whatever I had to say about the WP’s handling of Mr Yaw, I have already written it down in an old post here. The only thing I had to add on is that even though I didn’t like how the entire matter was handled, I would still give the WP points for the political courage to put its future in Hougang on the chopping block by coming back to voters with another candidate. I can’t really say the same about the ruling party when I consider the failures of a few ex-ministers who suddenly retired only last year – and probably enjoying their pensions.

I chuckled when I saw Desmond Choo’s slogan – “Always there for you”. Indeed, the ruling party has always been there for Hougang. It has always been there to ensure that the lives of Hougangers are as miserable as possible in a vain hope that Hougang voters will repent their decision for the past 20 years since Mr Low Thia Kiang was elected as the MP of Hougang in 1991. Lest we forget, before the General Elections [GE] last May, an ex-candidate of the ruling party who lost twice to Mr Low Thia Khiang even had the gall to call Hougang a slum. It doesn’t matter that on the HDB’s website, the resale prices of HDB flats in Hougang SMC weren’t very much different from those of Aljunied Group Representative Constituency (then under the ruling party) across the street. I cannot imagine why anyone who pay that kind of money for a HDB unit in Hougang had it been a slum!

Even if Hougang had been a slum, it certainly wasn’t the fault of the WP that Hougang has fallen behind in terms of facilities and upgrading. Mr Low Thia Khiang has said as much and those who had attended the rallies would have some idea what the WP had tried to do, only to see those requests rejected when the flats are older and should have higher priority than some of the newer flats in a constituency won by the ruling party. Simply put, it is not only the WP voters of Hougang that were punished for exercising their democratic rights, even those who voted for the ruling party were similarly punished. Is it a surprise that votes for the ruling party had constantly diminished in Hougang over the last 20 years? After all, why would anyone vote for a party that holds him in contempt even though he did not vote for the other side? It also goes to show that not only did WP serve the people, it is also doing something right that the voters found it worthwhile to keep the WP candidate elected in spite of the pain!

As the campaign progressed, I sometimes wondered whether it was Desmond Choo who is contesting for Hougang, or the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Teo Chee Hean. After all, Mr Teo appears to have the most to say about Mr Png Eng Huat, the WP’s candidate for Hougang. He started his attacks on Mr Png by suggesting that Mr Png wasn’t the best man WP has to offer because it was Mr Gerald Giam and not Mr Png that was selected for the position of Non-Constituency MP [NCMP].

Frankly, the fact that Mr Giam was selected as NCMP wasn’t because he was the best, but because he was young. The leaked memo clearly showed that to be the case as it stated that the Secretary General (Mr Low) and Chairman (Ms Sylvia Lim) “explained the situation and to impress upon Eric Tan the critical situation WP faced in the future regarding leadership renewal.”

As such, sending Gerald Giam as NCMP into Parliament was a sound strategic decision by the WP’s Central Executive Committee [CEC]. In fact, when we consider that the WP had no ministers which coat tails new blood can ride on to sneak into Parliament, this was the best way Gerald Giam can receive his baptism of fire and hone his debating skills in Parliament. His dismal performance during the ministerial pay revision debate would have taught him some valuable lessons. Just like training soldiers, the best training is to put them in the most realistic combat situation. It is horrendous that having been a high ranking navy officer previously, Mr Teo had forgotten that.

It was such a lame, cheap shot at Mr Png’s qualification as a candidate which shouldn’t have been given any consideration. If Mr Png actually have to dignify that with a reply, he should have simply pointed out that Ong Ye Kung would be an even better candidate than Desmond Choo because if I remembered correctly, Mr Ong was touted to be minister material and he certainly won more votes in the previous election as a candidate in the ruling party’s Aljunied GRC team! It would have been way better than saying that he had never been interested in the NCMP position. I was simply disappointed that Mr Png not only fell for such a cheap trick, it further created another opening for Mr Teo to question his integrity. I won’t bother to talk about that, since it is up to Mr Png to defend his own integrity and honor.

Anyway, had I been a resident of Hougang who is able to vote in this by-election, the decision is a no brainer. What the PAP is doing is almost like Chinese opera, where the party – as the government – plays the “White Face” (the bad guy) while Desmond Choo plays the “Black Face” (the good guy). It is nothing but wayang and there is simply no reason whatsoever to vote for a candidate from a party which caused all the pain and agony in Hougang in the first place. That’s not forgetting that the ruling party has complete dominance in Parliament. In a certain way, it is more than just one party dominance, it is a one party dictatorship. Had it not been the opposition’s historical break-through last year, it is unlikely that the ruling party would have put more effort into acting upon our feedback where it has for years pretend to listen to them. In short, the ruling party would have ignored us had the electorate “not stuck the spurs into their hide”.

There is simply no reason to pull the spurs out right now when we should have dug them deeper last May.

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