Tin Pei Ling or Chen Show Mao should be in Parliament?

Despite what Lim Boon Heng, that minister who has been without a portfolio for some 15 years, has said, the PAP’s slate of new candidates are a dud. At least as far as I am concerned. I can’t remember any time in the past where the scraping of the barrel by the PAP was so pathetic.

And the signs are already there. Of course, the media is sugar-coating the dud candidates the PAP is selling. Desmond Choo? Desmond Lee? Tin Pei Ling? Seriously? When one starts to talk about one’s own sob story in order to gain sympathy, you can be sure the barrel is really empty.

And it is this: With a complicit and compliant media, these duds are being sold and marketed as people with the genuine stuff. And riding piggyback on senior members into Parliament. This itself is ironic. I mean, if they have the genuine stuff, why would they need to coattail on others?

I am really concerned that someone like Tin Pei Ling, whom I presume hasn’t had even 10-years of working experience, is going into Parliament via the easy and convenient back door.

At the same time, someone like Chen Show Mao may not be in Parliament at all. Chen is expected to be on the WP ticket for the elections. The man’s credentials are second to none – studied at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Rhodes scholar, fluently bilingual, and with experience in international mergers and acquisitions, and he also sits on the advisory board of the Singapore Management University.

PAP's Tin Pei Ling - not even 10 years of working experienceNow, Tin Pei Ling and Chen Show Mao. Which do you think should be in Parliament? I mean, seriously.

Every opposition party’s new candidates have to go through the baptism of fire in a contest at every election. Chiam See Tong fought twice before winning, and since then, he’s had to fight each of the six elections – and win them all. A total of 8 elections.

This is what leaders should do. This is what each and every MP must do – fight in an open contest, and not hide behind coattails and worse, say if they get into Parliament they want to “understudy” the senior members.

For such a large sum of money, it is incumbent that each MP contest and win each and every election – just like what Chiam and Low have done and will have to do in this election as well.

It would be really really sad and bad for Singapore if someone like Tin Pei Ling is slipped into Parliament without a single vote cast in her favour, while those like Chen Show Mao, Sylvia Lim or even Low Thia Khiang do not get in.

Indeed, the dud slate of candidates the PAP is offering – and if each and everyone of them gets into Parliament – puts Singapore in a precarious position, moving forward.