Written by Our Correspondent
Embarrassed by its own ineptitude, incompetence, and impotence
during the last few years, PAP spin doctor Chua Mui Hoong has been
called upon again to whitewash the disastrous performance of
the PAP during the recent parliamentary”debates” on the Budget
which is all “sound and fury”, but nothing of substance to show
of.
In other democracies, the lawmakers will debate first before the
Budget is finalized and put to a vote. In Singapore, it is the
other way round – the Budget is announced and then the MPs pretend
to “debate” on it. Isn’t this a “wayang”?
Even with literally no opposition to speak of in Parliament, the
PAP ministers and MPs appear to be completely clueless and out of
touch with public sentiments on the ground.
In a lengthy commentary titled “Gently, gently does it with
political opponents” published in the Straits Times today, Chua Mui
Hoong tried desperately to sugarcoat the PAP MPs’ juvenile mistakes
by portraying them as “gentlemen” to take the heat off them.
(Source)
If you haven’t realized, this is part of a well-thought,
comprehensive strategy over the years to shift the style of
political engagement in Singapore from a “confrontational” to a
“constructive” one for the simple reason that the present PAP MPs
cannot stand up to scrutiny and will be demolished flat by eloquent
speakers like the late J.B. Jeyaretnam and Dr Chee Soon Juan in
Parliament thereby piercing through their fake aura of
invincibility forever in the eyes of the people.
Remember that one old man kept reminding Singaporeans that his
ministers and MPs are the best talents in Singapore and therefore
deserving of the highest pay in the world? How can they justify
that when they can’t even deal with an opposition MP in
Parliament?
Chua’s article is no more than PAP propaganda to paint a
positive picture of them as “gentlemanly” politicians and to
further reinforce the erroneous public impression that politics
must be conducted in a civil manner minus the confrontation.
Take for example the following choice of words used by her:
1. Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam is a
gentleman.
2. Instead, it was gently, gently does it when he
sipped his water, walked to the lectern and began his
speech at 1.52pm. When he sat down an hour later, the House
applauded. Even MPs most critical of the policy – Mr Low and the
PAP’s Inderjit Singh – were smiling.
3, Ministerial responses to the opposition have been
remarkably benign this debate. Mr Lim Swee Say for
example did not react to Mr Low’s obvious dig that the labour
movement was squeezing workers to be ‘cheaper, better, faster’.
Instead, he coolly explained the pressures caused
by global competition…..
4. Less patronising, less heat, more light.
Gentle rebuttals based on facts, without giving
ground on fundamental values. Old wine in new bottles? But
specially packaged to appeal to a young
generation.
Ms Chua should cut that crap – she does not speak for the
younger generation of Singaporeans who yearn for a genuine debate
and not half-baked “wayangs” as such.
For the past five decades, the PAP has been using only
repressive measures to destroy their political opponents such as
the use of ISA to detain them without trial, use of ruinous
defamation lawsuits to bankrupt them and laws to prevent them from
reaching out to Singaporeans.
Let us recall some infamous quotes made by its paramount leader
Lee Kuan Yew, courtesy of leewatch:
“Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on
knuckle-dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt
you, try. There is no way you can govern a Chinese society.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas, 1997
“If we had considered them serious political figures, we would
not have kept them politically alive for so long. We could have
bankrupt them earlier.”
- Lee Kuan Yew referring to opposition MPs Chiam See Tong
and Low Thia Kiang, Straits Times, Sept 14 2003
“I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for
mercy.”
- Lee Kuan Yew on J. B. Jeyaretnam, as reported by Devan
Nair, 1981
And let us not forget the mother of all quotes by his son Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong:
“Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia.
We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition
members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is
the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time
thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters
votes, how can I solve this week’s problem and forget about next
year’s challenges?”
- Lee Hsien Loong during a pre-election speech,
2006
With due respect to the three opposition MPs in Parliament, they
are hardly good orators or formidable political opponents to begin
with and even then, the PAP ministers can still “gabra” and screw
up big time like multi-millionaire Minister Lim Swee Say using a
lame fable of a “frog” to counter Mr Low Thia Kiang’s criticisms of
the labor movement:
“We never give up……. We are deaf to all these
criticisms…..So instead of telling us that low-wage workers are
having problems, why not be part of the solution?”
Does Ms Chua really consider this type of answer a “gentle
rebuttal”? Mr Lim would have been crowned as the clown of the year
had he made those remarks in the United States or United
Kingdom.
Politics is all about passion, committment and confrontation.
That is the way it is in the rest of the world. If the PAP MPs
cannot take the heat, then they should get out of the kitchen!
The PAP ministers are the highest paid politicians in the world!
Surely they should be able to articulate themselves well and hold
their ground when challenged by the opposition?
Ms Chua should seriously go and watch the parliamentary debates
of the U.K., Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong on
Youtube and see how the opposition lawmakers take the ruling party
to task.
Watch how DAP MP Tony Pua grilled Malaysian PM Najib over his
plan to introduce GST, the Hong Kong legislators heckling Chief
Executive Donald Tsang for not helping the poor or Taiwanese
President Ma Ying-Jeou being jeered and taunted by DPP MPs over his
inept handling of the Typhoon Morakot disaster.
Only in Singapore do we see such gross ineptitude being
labelled, repackaged and spun as “gentle rebuttals” by the
Singapore media, described as a “trusted” source of information by
Minister Lui Tuck Yew
- Temasek
Review
March 5, 2010
