The Hougang By-election Conundrum

The Hougang by-election conundrum has been capturing the attention of perceptive Singaporeans for some time, if not for anything, at least for the antics of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to see how long he is going to hold out in calling for a by-election in Hougang SMC which has become vacant as a result of the expulsion of the Workers' Party MP Yaw Shin Leong by the WP for extra-marital affairs. By right the by-election should be called as soon as possible within a three-month period, but it is not surprising to discerning Singaporeans that PM Lee saw it fit to put it on hold sine die. He said he would take into account all relevant factors and these include Hougang residents' well-being, issues on the national agenda and the international backdrop that "affects our prosperity and security".

Let's examine to see if PM Lee is not saying all these things with a tongue-in-cheek to try to justify his untenable arguments to put off sine die the holding of the Hougang by-election which he fears would be a Waterloo to the PAP. It is axiomatic that Hougang residents' well-being will be served if an MP is elected in the by-election to represent them. At present they are under-represented in Parliament. What kind of issues can there be on the national agenda that could not comfortably accommodate the holding of an important by-election? By no stretch of imagination can the international backdrop that "affects our prosperity and security" have the significance of dissuading us to hold a by-election, except to use it by the powers that be as a plausible pretence.

The consensus among discerning Singaporeans is that PM Lee and his ministers lack credible confidence in winning the Hougang SMC in a by-election under the present circumstances against a WP candidate. The former Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang has made sure, through his years of nurturing the constituency, that it will be a safe seat for a WP candidate. The adoption of a "New Normal" in Singapore politics by the PAP following their poor showing in the last General Election in 2011 has not enhanced the reputation of the PAP in the eyes of discerning Singaporeans, So the PAP leaders, especially PM Lee, are worried sick that a Hougang by-election will not only be a reprise of the PAP debacle in the Hougang SMC in the last GE but worse still if the margin of defeat is increased which is not impossible considering the unhappiness of the Hougang electors who are obviously pissed off with the antics of PM Lee in delaying the by-election. PM Lee may be under the illusion that he is adored by all Singaporeans, especially the Hougang residents. This inglorious defeat, if it happens, may possibly be regarded as a referendum of disapprobation of the PAP by discerning Singaporeans. PM Lee will ignore this development at his peril.

The lesson to be learnt in all this is that the more PM Lee procrastinates in calling for a Hougang by-election the greater will be the repercussion.

A Stand-up Comedian

A stand-up comedian performs by standing before an audience and telling jokes putting his audience in stitches. Whether the comical performance of Acting Minister Chan Chun Sing (aka Kee Chiu in social media) of Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports at his ministerial community visit to Jurong Spring Ward in Jurong GRC resembles that of a stand-up comedian is not difficult to imagine. Let's examine what he said about ministers' pay at this gathering. Pay is not an issue for the team in government when asked whether the expected pay cut in ministerial pay would make ministers less motivated. He does not think they come here for the money but to provide a better life for the next generation. One of the reasons he stepped forward was because he knew he was joining a team that was not here for the money. The key is to find the right balance and money should not be the one factor to attract them which also should not be the bugbear to deter them.

Well said but perhaps with tongue-in-cheek. Acting Minister Chan Chun Sing was in fact trying to say that PAP ministers, including himself, are selfless politicians dedicated to the service of the people not because of the money and certainly without any thought of ennriching themselves. If they become multi-millionaires in the process, this is a just reward that Singapore taxpayers owe them for their so-called dedicated selfless service to the people. They are such talented and indispensable species that they consider their salaries must be commensurate with the top earners in the private sector. Their profession of selfless service to the people must be taken with a large pinch of salt. So Acting Minister Chan Chun Sing could be expected to speak with tongue-in-cheek to defend an untenable position. Perhaps the recent Straits Times crystal ball gazing that he could be the future prime minister could have caused a little swollen-headed on his part for him to rant about PAP ministers' selfless service.

An article on 22 July 2011 on this website titled "Are the 3rd generation PAP leaders really not self-serving?" (still available on this website) extolled the first generation PAP leaders like Dr Goh Keng Swee and S. Rajaratnam who really served the people without thought of money drawing modest salaries. Lee Kuan Yew led by example as the then prime minister but he later degenerated into a mercenary politician. In fact he was instrumental together with the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong for the introducation of the present astronomical pay for the ministers in 1994. The point is if the first generation PAP ministers could be so noble and selfless in serving the people without enriching themselves with taxpayers' money, why is it so difficult for the third generation of PAP ministers to follow the selfless example?

True, PM Lee Hsian Loong has shown some compunction and tried to mitigate the people's wrath by appointing a Ministerial Salary Review Committee to look into ministers' salaries and recommend suitable cuts. People say this is just a wayang because the Committee's recommendations for cuts are not deep enough to satisfy the people and can best described as cosmetic. The recommended annual salary for the prime minister is still set very high at $2.2 million which is five times the annual salary of US$400,000 of the American President Barack Obama. The recommended annual salary for a junior minister is set at $1.1 million which is more than two times the annual pay of the American President. Presumably, the comical Acting Minister Chan Chun Sing will be getting this amount and it will take a lot to convince the people that he is not in it for the money. Anyway, ministerial salaries will once again certainly be a hot button topic in the 2016 General Election.

Serving the People or Self-serving?

PAP leaders are the first to assert vehemently that they are in politics to serve the people. But are they really or is it because of the astronomical salaries they pay themselves out of taxpayers' money? They can holler till the cows come home but few, if any, of the politically-conscious Singaporeans will swallow that they are in it for altruistic reasons.But then they can come round to say that majority of Singaporeans have returned them to government at every election. That seems to be a conundrum as in the last General Election (GE) in May last year 60.1 per cent of the electorate who cast their votes voted for the PAP. This was despite the massive disillusionment about the PAP in the run-up to the last election. The erratic mood of the electorate had even stumped the predictability of the psychologists. But the next GE in 2016 may see a greater watershed performance by the opposition parties, especially the Workers' Party (WP) .

When the Ministerial Salary Review Committee under Mr Gerard Ee was formed after the GE, the initial response of discerning Singaporeans was one of scepticism that it could really recommend drastic cuts of ministerial salaries considering the composition of the Committee. "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" which saying aptly sums up what the Review Committee could do or was willing to do. With due respect to them, if they recommend too drastic a cut of the ministerial salaries they probably fear that they will incur the wraths, if not displeasures, of the PAP wallahs. It will be less onerous facing the wraths and displeasures of the ordinary Singaporeans.

Can Mr Gerard Ee and his committee honestly say that the recommended annual salary of $2.2m for the Prime Minister, which is five times the annual pay of US$400,000 of Mr Barack Obama, the American President, is a fair charge to the Singapore taxpayers? Or the recommended $1.1m for the junior minister, which is more than two times the annual salary of the American President? The accusation that the ministerial salary revision is merely a perfunctory cosmetic exercise of the Ministerial Salary Review Committee is never too far-fetched. To all intents and purposes this is now a fait accompli and since the recommendations have been accepted by the Prime Minister and his government, there is virtually nothing that the disgruntled Singaporeans can do now to reverse the process except to wait patiently for the next election in 2016 to show their dissatisfaction. The ministerial salaries will once again be a festering topic in the next GE.

Singaporeans are not unfamiliar with the highfalutin figure of Ms Grace Fu, Senior Minister of state in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. Apart from being highfalutin, she appears to be also narcissistic. She was reported to have audaciously said that when she entered politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor for her. The more considerations for her were the loss of privacy and personal time, public scrutiny and career disruption. She further said:"I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one considering political office."

It was not surprising that her adverse comments swiftly went viral and there were around 1000 critical comments from netizens. She tried to salvage the situation by claiming that she had been misunderstood. There is a Chinese saying: When a word is spoken even a four-horse carriage finds it difficult to chase.(一言既出，驷马难追).

Ms Grace Fu has not proven herself to be exceptionally outstanding in her work. If anything , she comes across to the public as a run-of-the-mill type and not any talent to be crowed about. She should consider herself extremely fortunate to be appointed a senior minister of state and should not behave like a spoilt child just because of a minor pay cut. Considering the humongous salary she enjoys, if she has any compunction she should be serving the people and not be self-serving. A very good example for her to emulate is the inimitable selfless Workers' Party MP Mr Chen Show Mao who gave up a lucrative profession to serve the people of Singapore as an MP. He is what I would call a true patriot. Mr Chen Show Mao is not only an exemplar for Ms Grace Fu to follow but for the whole PAP leadership as well.

Finally, Ms Grace Fu could gracefully choose to go back to her former profession if she thinks that it would satisfy her ego.

The SMRT Debacle

The name SMRT has become synonymous with chaos and confusion as evidenced by its worst breakdown in its 24-year operating history in train stations across Singapore last night. Thousands of commuters riding home during the evening rush hour were plunged into total darkness as trains on the North-South Line suddenly lost power and ground to a halt. The chaos and confusion that followed were so unprecedentedly atrocious that it was incredible that they could happen only under the inept management of SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa. No words could describe the dire sufferings of the commuters in the stifling heat of windowless carriages where the air-conditioning had also failed. It was indeed a nightmarish and traumatic experience for the commuters.

Happening so soon after the Circle Line debacle, does it not occur to the fertile mind of the Transport Minister, or the PAP Government for that matter, that something is radically wrong with the management of the SMRT helmed by its CEO Saw Phaik Hwa. She was nowhere to be seen and it was up to the Transport Minister to make an appeasing statement from Cambodia where he is attending the 17th Asean Transport Minister Meeting. Under Saw Phaik Hwa's watch, not only were Singaporeans provided with comical spectacles of vandalism of SMRT carriages in their depots on two occasions. In addition there had been frequent disruptions of train services to the utter inconvenience of commuters culminating in the debacle last night. She was quite flippant in her attitude towards all these happenings and the question uppermost in Singaporeans' mind is whether she has not outlived her tenure in her million-dollar job.

The SMRT provides an essential service to the commuting public in moving large number of people from place to place in an efficient manner. The frequency in the number of breakdowns in services does not convey confidence in the commuting public nor does it reflect well on the efficiency or the lack of it in the management. One or two breakdowns should have forewarned the management of possible flaws in the system and that efforts should have been made to detect these defects and rectify them. Complacency seems to be the order of the day and nothing seems to have changed the frequency of disruptions. Let's see if the Transport Minister will be able whip up some urgency to act in the complacent management, especially its sluggish CEO to make a really credible improvement to the SMRT system.

The press conference given by CEO Saw Phaik Hwa today can best be described as an exercise in futility. No amount of press conference will be able to compensate the commuters for their nightmarish and traumatic experience in the latest SMRT debacle.

The Momentous Impact of Aljunied

Judging from the soul-searching that pervaded the PAP convention at the University Cultural Centre on Sunday 27 November, PM Lee Hsien Loong and his Cabinet colleagues are stilll smarting from the humiliating defeat of the top PAP team in Aljunied GRC in the last General Election in May. They lost two heavyweight ministers, a senior minister of state and a prospective political office holder in the Aljunied fiasco. PM Lee has now vowed at the convention that the party is set on retaking Aljunied in the GE in 2016. All very brave words but would history and, more importantly, the enlightened voters of Aljunied allow PM Lee and the party to indulge in this fantasy of retaking Aljunied? The wheel of history only moves forward and PM Lee and his circle of self-acclaimed ministers may find to their dismay not only that they could not recapture Aljunied but may lose a few more GRCs to Workers' Party and the other opposition parties if they are able to muster credible candidates against the PAP. People on the ground are already talking about it.

More startling to the complaisant PAP leaders is the belief in certain quarters, among them some quite prominent, that in the present struggle for political supremacy, the Workers' Party (WP) is portrayed as having similar prowess that PAP had in the turbulent period before it came into power in 1959. The PAP had the solid support of the pro-communist unions under the powerful leadership of Lim Chin Siong. The PAP now has the unions completely under its control through its jocular minister Lim Swee Say. So politically the WP is deprived of this important source of trade union support. But if WP is on the political ascendancy reminiscent of the PAP 1959 political might, there is every possibility the trade union rank and file may shift their allegiance to the WP, maybe not openly, in defiance of the PAP-dominated NTUC leadership.

From his demeanour in the PAP convention, PM Lee Hsien Loong and his Cabinet comrades show no compunction in wanting to snuff out the opposition completely from Parliament. Of course, PM Lee can explain that the opposition can still be represented in Parliament in the capacity of NCMPs. Is this not a travesty as NCMPs are not elected MPs? They do not represent any constituency and have no voting rights in certain aspects in Parliament. It shows the arrogance of the PAP leaders in wanting to assert their political dominance in Parliament to the exclusion of the opposition, especially the WP. This is perhaps what they want Singaporeans to believe that they are practising democracy, which is contrary to their oft professed intention. Is this not a mockery of democracy?

Anyway, a great number of electors are disillusioned with the PAP leaders. Even with the five years before the next election for the PAP leaders to rectify their shortcomings and win over the disenchanted voters, they may not find the going smooth for the simple reason that history is no longer on their side.

Usurping the role of the Host (喧宾夺主）

The Chinese saying :xuan bin duo zhu (喧宾夺主）is more scathing in its Chinese form than its English rendering "usurping the role of the host". And in the Chinese society there could be example of social occasions which ended up with one party accusing the other party or person with this saying. It has an unpleasant connotation which could have a lingering effect on the receiving party or person for quite a while.

The Straits Times and the Media Corp could have, whether unwittingly or not, played the role of portraying our eminent PM Lee Hsien Loong as a usurper of the role of the Indonesian host President Susilo Banbang Yudhoyuno. The Straits Times and Media Corp had been giving prominent daily reports of the speeches of PM Lee at the ASEAN/East Asia Summit in Bali, Indonesia to the diminution of other world leaders, especially President Yudhoyuno. You opened the Straits Times every morning and you could see nothing but PM Lee Hsien Loong said this or he said that and very little of what other world leaders said at the Summit. One could not help getting the impression that PM Lee was the host of the Summit and that he was actually running the show. The Indonesian Ambassador here could not have failed to notice this phenomenon as it was so glaring. President Yudhoyuno could hardly be amused but being a magnanimous person he could not be expected to show any displeasure. But Indonesians have a long memory.

We now come back to the role of the Straits Times. The public perception that it is the propaganda organ of the PAP Government is never too far-fetched. And the chairman of the Singapore Press Holdings who exercises tight control of the Straits Times and other vernacular newspapers is described as the spin doctor. So to counter the pro-government propaganda that the Straits Times disseminates, there is a proliferation of the social media which provide an alternative source of news to the public. Because what they print is not complimentary to the Government, there is now an intention on the part of the Government to curb the influence of the social media by legislation, although still at a preliminary stage. The Internet played no small part in the PAP's loss of the Aljunied GRC and reduction of the total percentage of the votes garnered in the General Election in May this year.

There is really nothing wrong in PM Lee Hsien Loong's ambition to portray himself as an outstanding politician among ASEAN and world leaders at the ASEAN/EastAsia Summit or in any international forum. But it shows political sagacity that this is done without any tendency of one-upmanship.

A Comical Gaffe by Minister Khaw Boon Wan

The small Himalayan country called Bhutan came into prominence recently when its king married a commoner in a colourful ceremony and brought happiness to his subjects winning the universal acclaim of being the most happy nation on earth. This seems to strike a chord with Singaporeans who wish the Bhutanese well for their happiness which is to many people an elusive element in the Singapore society. However, along came a jocular figure in the person of Minister Khaw Boon Wan who pooh-poohed the universal perception that Bhutan could be the last Shangri-la on earth.`He also denigrated Bhutan that it could not be the happy country made out to be as its people are almost eking out a living from its not very fertile soil. Mr Khaw could not have been more pretentious by his depreciating remarks on Bhutan just from one brief visit to the country. Of course, he could not be faulted for trying to be more critical than the former MM Lee Kuan Yew in disparaging others.

Be that as it may, it could come as a mild shock to Mr Khaw to discover that there is a highly-cultured Bhutanese who goes by the name of PaSsu who could give him a lesson in logical argument in English. Does it surprise Mr Khaw that an ordinary Bhutanese could operate a blog on which he has posted that "this is in reply to National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan of Singapore on his comments made on our country". For a Bhutanese he surprises readers with his fairly high standard of satirical replies to each of Mr Khaw's disparagements of his country.

Saying that he was not surprised when Mr Khaw said that "Bhutan is not the last Shangri-la on Earth" because a friend of his from Singapore found Bhutan only "full of mountains and valleys". The Bhutanese asked sarcastically:"When you visited Bhutan, what did you expect? Those flying mountains you saw in Avatar? or every Bhutanese merrily dancing in designer clothes? Well, you must have at least expected fancier cars and taller buildings but we only have taller mountains (not flying ones) and thicker forest (truly natural)". To Mr Khaw's uncomplimentary remarks that most of the time he only saw unhappy people toiling in the field, worried about the next harvest and whether there would be buyers for their products, the quick-witted Bhutanese quoted a proverb he had heard in school:"Two men looked through the prison window, one saw the mud and the other saw the horizon".

The humorous Bhutanese said that he was surprised that Mr Khaw spent most of his time in Bhutan looking in the fields and was amazed at his ability to figure out whether the people are happy or unhappy just by looking at them. He answered point-blank that if Mr Khaw had gone closer to see the people in the fields, he would have heard them singing and enjoying the social lives which Mr Khaw would not understand. He would have seen a woman with a basket on her back holding arms with several children coming with steaming food and everybody will sit down to eat their lunch, laughing, joking and feeding babies. The people do not worry about the next harvest or whether there would be buyers for their products. In fact, they do not do much commercial farming but do the farming to keep with tradition. When the sun sets, the people leave for their homes where they have a large family waiting for a family get-together.

Well, Mr Khaw, Singapore may be a thriving modern city but what percentage of the people are really happy like the Bhutanese. The people who can be said to be extremely happy are ministers like your kind self who are drawing whopping salaries from the taxpayers' money. So before you venture again to dispense your uncomplimentary remarks about other countries, you will save yourself a lot of public disapprobation if you think twice before you open your big mouth. Or maybe ministers are so thick-skinned that one more criticism does not add further to their dented reputation.

The Bhutanese blog post is titled:"Bhutanese replies to Khaw Boon Wan's 'Shangri-la' comments". It is meant to be an open letter to Mr Khaw Boon Wan if he has not already read it.