Reforming the obsolete political system remains a key challenge for the next generation
From our Correspondent
In a recent speech, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong highlighted 10 challenges for the next generation of Singaporeans. (read article here)
They range from maintaining high economic growth to social issues such as minimising urban congestion.
As expected, SM Goh did not mention anything about the inherent flaws in Singapore’s political system. In fact, he quoted “strong political leadership” as one of the factors “favorable” to the future generation.
SM Goh did not elaborate further on his definition of a “strong political leadership”. Perhaps he is referring to the current political system which allows the PAP to enjoy a virtual monopoly in Parliament by winning repeated general elections.
Yet, the one-party state which was consolidated and perpetuated after the demise of the Barisan Socialis in the mid 1960s is the biggest weakness in Singapore’s political system in urgent need of serious reform.
As we can see clearly from the recent Temasek fiasco, a government dominated by one single party cannot be expected to check on itself without any political pressure from alternative parties.
A commission of inquiry should have been set up in the first place to investigate the disastrous losses suffered by Temasek and GIC, but it wasn’t.
Though Singapore conducts general elections held every 5 years, formidable hurdles are put in place to guarantee the victory of the ruling party and the exclusion of the opposition from Parliament.
The GRC system and its flagrant abuse leading to rampant gerry-mandering enables the ruling party to pre-empt any “opposition strongholds” from emerging.
The mainstream media is completely controlled by the ruling party thereby ensuring that citizens are kept ignorant about their political rights and activities of opposition parties.
The police is used to stifle political dissent. There were reports of opposition leaders and activists being harrassed by the secret police in the past. Draconian laws were put in place to keep the populace on its toes at all times.
The ruling party remains tightly controlled by an octagenarian and his inner cliche who shows no signs of retiring from the political scene for good. The 82 PAP MPs in Parliament are mostly yes-men who seldom dare to deviate from the official party line.
The recent “reforms” initiated by the Prime Minister to allow more alternative voices in Parliament is merely a farce to appease the growing disgruntlement on the ground with the ruling party’s continued hegemony.
No matter how many NCMPs and NMPs the ruling party allow in Parliament, they will still be in total control of the government with a comfortable two-thirds majority.
How can the next generation of Singaporeans vote out the ruling party legally through the ballot box and reform the entire system to foster the emergence and development of a true, competitive multi-party democracy in Singapore with the odds stacked against them? Are we going to live under the shadow of the ruling party forever?
For all the economic growth and development, Singaporeans will not be the real masters of their destiny so long they have not redeemed the ownership of the country which remains in the hands of a selected group of elites with no inkling whatsoever to the hardships faced by the masses.
Singapore is rich enough to lose billions of dollars in failed investments and still has “ample financial resources” left according to SM Goh. However, its citizens face a grim and uncertain future. With no social safety net to speak of, most Singaporeans have to depend on their CPF for retirement which are often depleted from financing housing loans for over-priced public housing.
Why do Singaporeans who have one of the highest saving rates in the world not able to save enough for their twilight years? Why must they work and work till the day they collapse and die? Do you want to live your entire life slogging day in and out just to make a living in order to contribute to our GDP growth?
The ruling party will never reform a system which has served it so well. Neither will they change their dictatorial style of management as long the same old fogeys are in charge.
The era of “government knows best” is gone. Even the Malaysian Prime Minister has acknowledged it himself. We do not need a nanny state costing taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money to maintain to keep telling us what to do.
Singaporeans deserve the government we have because we have been putting up with the nonsense the ruling party has thrown at us patiently for half a century. It is time for a change now or our future generations will face more intractable problems than we already have now.
To reform the obsolete political system which has made us a laughing stock of modern democracies in the free world, we must first boot out the ruling party through the general elections, but without a credible alternative waiting in place, we may have to put up with the status quo for many more years to come.
Related articles:
>> The Royal Kingdom of Singapore by Gunfighter
>> Debunking the myth of the “constructive opposition” by Eugene Yeo
>> Dismantling the myths of the PAP system by Fang Zhi Yuan
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silvir24 on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 10:26 am
Ooo… This articles is soo good! I particularly like “fogeys” & “octagenarian”.
It addresses exactly the very things i fear, the intense dissatisfaction & the lack of credible alternative, thus dooming us to status quo for many years to come.
I very much like this question: “Why do Singaporeans who have one of the highest saving rates in the world not able to save enough for their twilight years?”
Go on… tell me why? Cause we are being milked dry.
Give us a roof over our heads, food on the table, and u own our lives. Is that justification for what u are doing to us?!
silvir24 on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 10:47 am
We do not even have the liberty of happiness.
We are supposed to celebrate cause u tell us to celebrate. Force us to hang flags, and tell us to be proud of our country. Tell us to be grateful for all that you have done for us. Tell us to celebrate your incredible success for bringing Singapore to where it is, regardless of the cost to us. It’s your celebration, and thus we have to celebrate.
I will not sacrifice my liberty for you. I will not accept that u have a right to sacrifice my needs & my wants in your rampant chase after economic success. I will not accept your claims that your economic success at the price of me, my family, my friends, my people is justified. I will not perpetuate this farce in which u glory in your success achieved from the exploitation and oppression of our people. I do not believe your claims that you have given us a roof over our heads, and food on our table, so we should be grateful & shut up. I believe in a world where as long as i am willing to work hard, I will be able to provide a shelter for my family and food on the table. I will not believe your lies that this is a privilege/opportunity which you have given to me out of the goodwill of your kind heart. I will believe that this is a right which i have earned for myself, which you have not given freely to me. I will continue to believe that there will be a day when the spirits & hearts of the people will break free from this prison you have forced upon us, and we will recapture our liberty & our happiness as our right and not yours to distribute in miserly handouts!
Fairplayplease on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 10:47 am
People forget their own “USE-BY” date of expertise and relevance in a tumultous turbulent environment. The same old ways and political institutions TOTALLY UNREPONSIVE TO EVOLVING REALITIES guarantee us a fast route to extinction -WITHOUT THE HELP OF EXTERNAL ATTACK.
This country is disintegrating and going backward and politics at the top has the mindset of ‘SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN” mentality IS THE TRUTH REALITY.
Great Asia on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 11:42 am
we must first boot out the ruling party through the general elections,
- So how? Replace them by monkeys and kangaroos?
but without a credible alternative waiting in place, we may have to put up with the status quo for many more years to come.
- Precisely, credible alternative is what we need to address first. During the Han dynasty, they spent more than 80 years to prepare themselves in order to fight the barbarians from the north.
Fairplayplease on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 12:12 pm
Singapore has no dearth of talent. Some of the critical voice here shows clearly those araldited to the seat of power is JUST NOT THE MONOPOLY OF WISDOM.
The critical voices here is offers a glimpse of a real tip of the ice-bergs that a lot of brilliant minds exist in our society waiting silently to come forward given the opportunity and climate of political change if these renewal forces sweep in.
I am confident that they are brilliant young people out there in this clever country who will come in at the right time and re-shape this country’s destiny for the better.
We are looking for a responsive and adaptive leadership that will give Singaporeans hopes – not hypes and discredited dogmas irrelevant to global change in politic, law, and economy.
We will change and YES WE CAN AND WILL.
Neil Bishop on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 1:25 pm
Let’s assume that the PAP will never tolerate opposition parties. What would we want to change about Singapore while leaving the PAP in power? I would go with two major changes:
————————————————————–
1. A Culture of Accountability
The Auditor-General and his/her department needs to be truly independent to the point of the constitution being amended to ensure that this is so.
The newly empowered AG would be required to report on an annual basis on the value of the reserves, GIC and Temasek, with some redactions allowed for particularly sensitive issues.
Any year that saw a decline in values would see a commensurate decline in the salaries paid to the PM, SM, MM, Minister of Finance and other appropriate ministers. If LKY believes that pay reflects performance then let’s measure that performance before making payments.
2. End the Gerrymander
GRCs must go. If a PAP member is too weak to win a seat then he or she should lose. Simple as that.
—————————————————————
These two changes would go a long way to preparing Singapore for the challenges that lie ahead. If the PAP is as good as it claims to be then it should not be afraid to make these changes.
Fairplayplease on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 2:23 pm
In every true democracy, they have bills of rights of citizen protection against unlawful harassment, detention or abuse of power of those incumbent in Government, why can’t we Singaporeans get the same judicial fairness? Better still, if we can follow the US example of appointment to the highest court of the land be vetted by BOTH POLITICAL DIVIDE – society will be more respectful and trusting of political transparency of any government in power.
silvir24 on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 2:38 pm
http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2006/yax-615.htm
The above link justifies the need for PAP to form GRCs in order allow for new candidates win elections easily. This is to lure candidates from their careers to join politics.
I have no idea what rubbish this is. But then our government have had a long history of being able to justify anything and everything, even when it does not make sense. Even when we do not agree, we have it shoved down our throats. What makes anyone think that this will change or can change?
Claims are just that. Claims. If they were really as strong and as good as they claimed, they wouldn’t have to resort to repetitive propaganda in hopes that the more we hear it, the more we will believe it.
Fairplayplease on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 4:08 pm
Babies who needs to suck mother’s milk in adulthood wants to lead this country through political storms, warfare and economic attrition of globalisation – how re-assuring of that for Singaporeans. I worry their mommy’s nipple is dried of milk supplies for them. Ah Peks, the “very cheeko-pek” types also need maternal milk, any patriotic moms helping?
STILL NOT FUNNY???
silvir24 on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 4:28 pm
And the easy possibility is still ultimately not enough to lure more milk suckling talents into the political scene. We end up having to pay millions for milk suckling politicians. How disgusting is that?!
amy on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 11:09 pm
“…but without a credible alternative waiting in place, we may have to put up with the status quo for many more years to come”.
This is a catch-22 trap set by pap and I do not believe a word of it. If you say the alternatives are not credible then are you implying that the current ruling elites are very credible?
The alternatives are made to appear weak and not credible because it is suppressed by the forces of the dictatorship. There is no lack to talent in our country and they will surface and be visible once the oppressive forces are gone.
It was pap that said “Do not vote the opposition unless they are better than pap”. And then they go about painting a picture of a useless opposition for everyone to see. Do not be fooled by their trap. So, we must first boot out the ruling party, full stop, no buts.
Fairplayplease on Wed, 5th Aug 2009 12:43 am
One prehistoric desiccated coconut in this forum thinks that an incumbent bunch of long-overstayed caterpillars have their backside araldited to the seat of power.WELL SINGAPOREANS WILL PROVE THIS UNIMAGINATIVE DOG WRONG who is probably smart enough only to do break dance balancing awkardly on its little dick.
The CATERPILLARS barely surviving on clusters are small densely-packed targets pre-selected for easy demolition and extinction in the next election especially those surviving on mother’s maternal milk looking for hoversack ransom of a million dollar but who can’t even show humour by singing a politically correct song when challenged in the smallest of crisis management.
These dumb caterpillars forgot that “TOO MANY IN ONE SEEMINGLY SAFE PLACE IS VERY STUPIDLY DANGEROUS – the enemy just toss one lousy hand grenade and all three or more caterpillars get blown up to pieces. If they spreaded out, the enemy throw 3 or more hand grenades and still may not be lucky to blow up one “smarter” caterpillar to pieces.
After this unruly mob of crying babies have been removed from their mommy’s tits of salvation, a lot of wise men and woemn will appear from nowhere to help and assist the opposition to take over.
mike on Sat, 8th Aug 2009 12:03 pm
this senile minister (SM) is no longer confident by us and is waiting time with all this craps.
in fact, lots of changes in rule and increasing of cost here in singapore are during his time of control.