Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
Just because you take the minority position that disagrees with a
law, it does not follow that you have the right to flout it. After
all, the legislative body that promulgates laws and regulations has
been freely elected by the population. In a democratic society, you
are obliged to follow the rules of the majority, even if you
disagree with it.
How would you know if it is the
minority position that disagree with a law ?
Has the Singapore Legislative body - that promulgates laws and
regulations - been freely elected by the entire population ?
Can the rules that are forumulated by the Legislative Body be
considered representative of the majority of Singaporeans - when
there are more Singaporeans left out of the entire political
process ?
The Ruling Party had managed to collect only 747,860 of the votes
that gave them a winning percentage of 66.6%.
Considering that Singapore's population is supposed to be 4,484
million by mid-2006 - with PR determined to be 290,118 and Non-PR
numbered 754,524 as taken from the Statistics available for 2006 - this leaves only
3,913,091 Singaporean Citizens from all age
groups.
According to the available statistics for the 2006 Election -
there were only 1,222,884
voting electorates that participated.
This number is only 27.27% of the Singaporean
Citizens.
Even the King of Thailand had nullified the Thai Election 2006 when
only about 30% of the population participated.
Yet, the brilliance of a PhD educated supporter of the MIW will not
be discerning and to be more critical, but will be so gullible to
falsely propagate and trumpet MIW propaganda.
Can the number of 747,860 votes that
form 66.6% of the valid votes - won by the MIW - be representative
of the 3,913,091
Singaporeans - [with non-Citizens taken out] ?
Even if we lopped off the number of voters that cast their votes
for the MIW, there remain 3,165,231 Singaporeans -
who had not given their votes but are disgusted and resentful
towards the arrogance of the MIW.
Which majority is the MIW representing ? Is their victory claim
nothing more then an ironical Pyrrhic Victory
?
Continuation of Original Post by oxford mushroom:
Unfortunately, those who talk about democracy do not act as
law-abiding citizens in a democratic society and have therefore
lost all credibility.
Unfortunately, those who talked of
democracy will use all means to tweek the Legislations to win an
election for themselves, and neither have they acted as examplary
law-abiding Political Leaders in their use of the Law to remove the
Citizens' Rights to participate freely in Politics, and will use
the full effects of the Law to terrrorise the Citizens into
submission.
The following is an article on the
conflicting count of Permanent Residents and Non-PRs in the
Singapore Population.
A population snapshot
As at June 2006, there were 4.484 million inhabitants in
Singapore, according to the official Statistics Department..
Of these, 0.8757 million (19.5%) were ''non-residents'' residing
here. (Don't laugh at how they mangle the terminology)
These ''non-resident'' are those who are here on medium-term passes
of a few years' duration. They include company executives based
here, professors on contract, the families, students from abroad,
and vast numbers of low-skilled workers and domestic maids.
3.6085 million are ''ingapore residents'' This term is used to mean
2 categories Citizens and Permanent Residents (PR) together.
The Statstics Departments no longer publishes data pertaining to
citizens alone. If I recall correctly, they used to, as recently as
2 or 3 years ago.
But our curiosity insists on asking, what percentage of
''residents'' were citizens as at June 2006? The Department of
Statistics website was no help at all, so I had to attempt an
estimate by comparing data from the Elections Department with the
demographic data in the the Statistics Department website.
The Elections Department said there were 2.1587 million voters for
the May 2006 general election. To be eligible to vote in Singapore,
one has to be at least 21 years old. The Stats Department said
there were 2.6605 million "residents" who were 20 years old and
above.
Thus, about 19% of adult ''residents'' were not eligible to vote; I
would assume that the main reason would be because there were not
citizens. Hence, by extension, we can estimate that about 19% of
all ''residents'' reported in the Statistics Department website
were PRs. This in turn translates to 15.2% of all inhabitants in
Singapore.
Thus, this gives a breakdown of the 4.484 million inhabitants of
Singapore: 65.3% citizens, 15.2% PRs, 19.5%
''non-residents''.
However, the Straits Times on 24 Feb 2007 gave slightly different
percentage (but for 2005). See next box below.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historical data from the Straits Times' article of 24 Feb
2007.
1960: Singapore had 1.6 million inhabitants, of which 73% were born
in Singapore and Malaysia and 27% born elsewhere.
1970: Singapore had 2.07 million inhabitants. 90.4% citizens, 6.7%
PRs and 2.9% "non-residents''.
1990: Singapore had 3.05 million inhabitants. 86% citizens, 3.6%
PRs and 10.3% "non-residents''
2005: Singapore had 4.3 million inhabitants. 71.5% citizens, 10.1%
PRs and 18.3% "non-residents''.
The newspaper cited the Department of Statistics for the the number
of inhabitants and the 2005 percentage breakdowns. For the
percentage breakdowns of other years. it cited Migration and Social
Diversity by Prof Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore,
Department of Geography.
