Wednesday, 29
October 2008, 10:37 am | 3,149 views
Gerald Giam / Senior
Writer
I happened to sit
next to an older relative at a wedding dinner recently, when our
conversation turned to politics.
My relative wondered
why I had not followed my parents to Australia, and mused that he was
considering moving there too. When I asked why, he cited the fear
of political instability in Singapore.
That remark
surprised me since Singapore
is seen by many to be one of the most politically
stable countries in Asia. We have had no change of government – violent or otherwise –
since 1959.
When probed further,
my uncle said he feared the opposition taking over in a freak
election. I assured him that given the current state of the
opposition, the PAP government will not be under any threat of
losing an election within his lifetime. More importantly, I told
him I trust Singapore voters to be wise enough not to vote a lousy party into
power.
He countered by
pointing out that even when the opposition had fielded “criminals”
and slipper-wearing candidates, they were still able to garner 20
to 30% of the vote.
I explained, from my
limited knowledge of electoral sociology, that in every election,
there will be at least 20% of voters who are hardcore
oppositionists and will vote for anyone who ran against the ruling
party candidate. In Sembawang GRC where I live, 23% still voted for
the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) team sans party chief
Chee Soon Juan, even though it was running against a relatively
strong PAP team helmed by the likable and Chinese-speaking Health
Minister, Khaw Boon Wan. That was the largest margin of victory for
the PAP in that election.
However the gulf
between 23% and 50% — the latter being the percentage necessary to
win a seat outright — is huge. Even in the most closely contested
constituency of Aljunied GRC in the 2006 General Election, the
PAP’s 55% win against the Workers’ Party would be considered a
landslide in most other democracies. Consider the
UK’s Labour Party, which won
the 2005 election with just 35% of the popular vote. Put in this
perspective, the PAP’s 66.6% overall percentage in 2006 was a
blowout victory.
My
uncle admires the PAP for what they have achieved, not just
for Singapore, but
for him personally. Growing up in a one-room flat, and now living
in a private apartment, he has seen a dramatic improvement in his
standard of living over the past 40 years. He reserved stinging
criticism for some of his peers who “live in bungalows” and are
still so ungrateful as to grumble about the
government.
I cautioned him that
past performance is no guarantee of future success, as investors
always say. Just because the PAP has governed well in the past, does not
mean that it will continue to do so for eternity. My uncle agreed
that no country has had a particular party govern
forever.
In
the short term however, he was supremely confident that the PAP’s
recruitment process will ensure that only top-notch candidates are
presented in each election. In contrast, he said, the opposition
was happy to take anyone who had a degree and was willing to pay
the election deposit, even if they had no “track
record”.
“What
is your definition of a track record?” I asked him. Many of the new
PAP MPs don’t exactly have a very long resume either. Nevertheless,
he was sure that with the many interviews they had undergone with
party leaders, coupled with the background checks, PAP candidates
would definitely meet the necessary criteria for political
leadership.
I
asked him if he would consider voting for a non-PAP candidate if he
or she were more “qualified” than the PAP
candidate.
After initially saying
he would, he later reasoned that it would be impossible for an
opposition candidate to be as qualified as his PAP opponent.
Firstly, the PAP’s recruitment process would throw up only the best
men in the country. Secondly, anyone worth their salt, who
genuinely desired to serve the people and
make Singapore a better place would
join the PAP instead of the
opposition.
He
was of the view that a capable person would be “out of his mind” to
join the opposition, and that people who joined the opposition did
so only out of self-interest or ulterior motives. Why else would
someone want to oppose such an “excellent” government? Apparently,
joining the opposition in and of itself indicated a character
flaw.
He
dismissed the possibility that some principled individuals joined
the opposition because they could not see themselves joining the
PAP due to fundamental disagreements with the latter’s style of
governance. He also did not see the price many opposition members
paid for their political beliefs as worthy of much
respect.
Our heated
discussion went on and on. In the end it was time to go home and we
had to agree to disagree.
What the opposition
fails to see
While I was slightly
dismayed to hear these words from an educated senior citizen like
my uncle, I have no doubt that he represents a significant
constituency of citizens who have a “rags-to-riches” story to
tell.
His point of view is
particularly instructive for our
opposition.
From my past
conversations with many opposition members, I get the sense that
many of them joined because they felt a need
to “check” the ruling
party — nothing else. And many of them
think that just because they are not the PAP, and they
shake a few hands and show up on Nomination Day, voters will choose
them over their rivals.
This is a recipe for
defeat — again and again, election after
election.
What
they fail to see is that the “swing” voters (i.e., those who may
vote either way on Polling Day and who effectively decide the
outcome of an election) are largely voting for a party to form the
Government, not individuals who merely snap at the heels of the PAP
behemoth.
Therefore, to win
their vote, the opposition parties have to prove to these voters
that they are competent and honest enough to lead the whole
country, not just their ward, and will not end up flushing half a
century of progress down the
drain.
The opposition has
two crutches that it always falls back on: One, that the unlevel
political playing field created by the PAP makes it impossible to
mount any significant challenge to it; and two, that good people do
not step forward to join their
parties.
These
are both true to a great extent, but it should not stop the
opposition parties from improving themselves internally, so as to
present a more professional face to the voting
public.
People want to hear
different, and better ideas from the opposition on how to run the
country, not just gripes about every little fault of the
PAP.
It is
not unusual that many Singaporeans hold the opposition to a higher
standard than they do for the ruling party. After all, the
opposition has no track record of successfully running a nation,
and therefore has to prove they are twice as good as their PAP
opponents before they will earn the
vote.
It is my hope that
our opposition will shift to a higher gear soon, and that more good
men and women will join them. The next election is due by November
2011. With the economy heading south, it is likely that the Prime
Minister will call for an election much earlier than that (since a
poor economy generally favours the PAP over the
opposition).
Time is running out,
and the people’s hopes are slowly getting dashed. Can the
opposition turn things around and dispel people’s fear of their
success?
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