Workers Party

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These are valid questions to bring up. After all we also raise questions over PAP’s Tin Pei Ling and their Malaysian-born candidates.

A General Election is not to be taken lightly. The complexity of running a modern economy means we have to get the best brains in government.

With an unlevel playing field, persecution of the opposition and repressive laws against political freedoms, sympathy lies with the underdog.

The tide is beginning to turn. To all intents and purposes, Singapore is a one party state, and Singaporeans are increasingly fed up with the PAP throwing its weight around.

PAP newbie candidates who say Singapore is not suitable for a multi-party system have clearly been brainwashed, and already fallen victim to groupthink before they’ve even stepped into Parliament.

When your product is not selling well, you have to make improvements to it or be overtaken by your competitors. Only by introducing political reforms can the once much-admired PAP regain the respect it has lost.

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It is ridiculous that PAP is questioning the motives of a true blue Singaporean who went abroad to work for a long time and now decides he wants to come home and serve his people in a different way. A true blue Singaporean working abroad is as Singaporean as those of us who live at home. Is the PAP implying that he is any less Singaporean as the new Singaporeans like Puthucheary and Foo Mee Har? This is utterly ridiculous. The new generation PAP leadership has just shown that they cannot cope with the pressure on the ground by their baseless and insinuating allegations. Just because Mr Chen did not go through the PAP tea party vetting process does not mean he is any less suitable and has lesser motives than the PAP candidates. But PAP is not very clever as they have just insulted all overseas Singaporeans in the process. Overseas Singaporeans please do take note especially if you are thinking of voting for the party who has just insulted your loyalty.

Very good point about overseas Singaporeans being insulted. Govt has been urging Singaporeans to spread their wings by working overseas and so benefit our economy, and if they now have the courage to serve in the opposition camp, insinuations are made about their motives. Frankly, I prefer such people to newly-minted citizens to be our MPs.

Please, does anyone expect the PAP to fight fair. This is never been in their history and their leader has set the procedent to get rid of any credible opposition at all cost. Ironically the tables has turned on them. Every single new candidate introduced by them is facing what traditionally only the opposition candidates faced, being put under the microscope and examined for any fault to be magnified. I remember opposition candidates being accused of being a bicycle thief, with poor “O” level results and cheat for misplacing a form. Now they feel the heat when their candidates are subjected to their own methods. There might be huge tangible incentives to be PAP candidate and I am sure most do not do it for patriotic reason, unlike the opposition who stand to literally lose everything by openly opposing the PAP. At least now, the PAP new candidates must weight the huge tangible incentives against being scrutinised and have their personal laundry washed in public. Well you will reap what ever you sow.

PAP will win more respect and more votes if they play the game fairly and respectfully. At the moment, despite there being good pple, a bad autocratic system will ruin the country. When that happens, we have no backup plan, only rubber stamping, paper pushing, crap talking MPs to take you down with them. LKY is equivalent to Kangxi, and LHL is like Yongzheng.

It’s really interesting the way the current elections are starting to unfold. For all intents and purposes, I really hope it will lead to a substantial opposition voice in Parliament.

Ultimately, in my opinion, there will never be a political party that will be able to please everyone. Every political party in Singapore has its flaws; it’s simply about selecting the best out of a bad bunch.

Roger, you are spot on when you mention that reform needs to happen. It’ll be horribly shameful though, when the PAP start adopting opposition ideas as their own and claim credit for doing so.

in the early days, the PAP also had very ordinary candidates to stand for election. So the opposition too has to make a start somewhere, isn’t it? Just give them a chance. Haven’t we had enough of the big bully?

Well despite all the “bullying”, you really can’t deny all that the PAP has done a lot for Singapore. I’m not saying that their approach is right; they have effectively indoctrinated the population into servitude, and think that by giving us comfort they can take away our rights. On the whole however, we do still have a comfortable country to live in.

The opposition on the other hand, have no experience running a country. They don’t have any because they were never given a chance; dissidents were locked away and publicly shamed in the press. I wouldn’t want a party with no experience at all taking control immediately.

I would prefer that the change be an incremental one. I would like to see the opposition gaining a significant voice, perhaps maybe 40% of Parliament, and once they have actually proven themselves at the job, take on the majority.

That said, I do agree with many of the views the opposition parties hold, especially with the Workers Party and their abolition of the mandatory death penalty, and come election time, I will likely be voting for them unless the PAP can come up with some significant reform that can impress me.