TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent The Housing Development Board (HDB) has splurged a massive $3.8 million dollars to "revamp" a gallery equipped with a greater interactive and multi-sensory platform to show off its "achievements". "The HDB gallery provides a canvas for HDB to portray not only the bricks and mortar, but also the heart and soul of public housing," Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Mohamad Maliki Osman said at its opening ceremony at HDB Hub in Toa Payoh, the Straits Times reported yesterday. The new gallery will showcase special features such as a circular 360 degree theatre experience as well as a life-sized hologram believed to be the first in Singapore. HDB was founded in 1960 as a government agency to provide cheap public housing for Singaporeans. More than 85 percent of Singaporeans stayed in 99 year leasehold flats built by HDB. Though the flats were relatively affordable in the early years and had serve its purpose of providing shelter for ordinary Singaporeans, the prices have sky-rocketed lately due to rising demand fueled by immigration in the face of limited supply of new flats. The price of resale flats grew by a 8.2 percent last year hitting a record high with median Cash-over-Valuation (COVs) doubling from $12,000 to $24,000 in the last quarter alone. Despite evidence showing otherwise, HDB continues to insist that public housing remain "affordable" to Singaporeans. National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan even lashed out at Singaporeans for being "fussy" and having "unrealistic" expectations about HDB flats. According to HDB, it expects visitors to the gallery to include students and delegates from other countries here to study Singapore's housing programmes. It is still too early for HDB to rest on its laurels. Much more needs to be done to ensure that the next generation of Singaporeans will be able to afford a home of their own and have enough savings for their retirement at the same time. At current prices, many Singaporeans will have depleted their life savings just to pay for the mortgage loans of these over-priced flats. The $3.8 million dollars could be better spent on providing more housing subsidies for needy Singaporeans. Generous self-praise is no praise really. HDB should remember that it is funded utimately by Singapore taxpayers. It is a public statutory board and not a private developer.   EDITORS’ NOTE: Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans.    Read More →

OPINION A 17 year old "feud" between Singapore Democratic Party's Secretary-General Dr Chee Soon Juan and Singapore People Party's (SPP) Secretary-General Mr Chiam See Tong was dredged up in the press again resulting in a tit-for-tat exchange between supporters from the two camps in cyberspace much to the delight of the PAP. The fracas epitomizes the perennial weakness of the Singapore opposition and its inability to put up a stiff challenge to the PAP for the last twenty years or so since the demise of the Barisan Sosialist - a leadership driven by personalities rather than by team work. In the 1980s, the Workers' Party was personified by the charismatic J.B. Jeyaretnam and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) by Mr Chiam See Tong. The situation now is no less different: Mr Chiam continues to overshadow all others in the Singapore Democratic Alliance and SPP; SDP has become synonymous with Dr Chee' Reform Party continuing JBJ's legacy by his son Kenneth Jeyaretnam and the Workers' Party represented by its two MPs in Parliament  - Low Thia Kiang and Sylvia Lim. Over the last ten years, the opposition has seen an influx of young members many of whom are tertiary educated professionals, but the public faces of the parties remain essentially the same. How can we expect the opposition to ever move forward if the senior leadership remains ossified and trapped in a time-wrap? The scourge of personality-driven politics within the Singapore opposition is not only hampering its growth and development, but discouraging young Singaporeans from joining them as well for no talented people in their right minds will be keen to spend their time and effort with a political party as a junior member being led by the noses by the "paramount" leader all the time. Imagine the British Labor Party still being led by Tony Blair without any leadership reshuffle or the Conservatives without the charming David Cameron taking over the party from the dour William Hague. With due respect to the respective leaders of the opposition parties, they may enjoy enough popular support from the people to get voted into Parliament, but they lack both the ability and determination to build up a credible opposition or alternative to the PAP which is sorely what we need now. Singaporeans do not want to see another 20 years of uninterrupted PAP rule with the same few old opposition faces in Parliament. Mr Chiam may be able to continue for at most another term while Mr Low and Ms Sylvia Lim can still last a term terms. Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam may be able to win a seat in his maiden election, but who else after them? Leadership spurred by personalities rather than pragmatic politics is also driving a wedge among various opposition parties and hampering efforts to forge a united and cohesive front to challenge the PAP. Common sense dictates that the opposition needs to come together under a coalition like Malaysia's Pakatan Rakyat and offers voters an alternative vision for Singapore instead of fighting individual battles separately on their own so as to maximize their chances at the next general election. In 2004, the Malaysian opposition was given a drubbing when they fought the ruling Barisan Nasional as separate parties, but after they secured an unpredecented upset by winning 82 seats in Parliament in the 2008 elections after they band together under a common platform to contest the polls. The Singapore opposition should not be blind to this classic example demonstrated by our neighbors across the Causeway: United it will win big; remain divided and it can kiss its chances goodbye, it is just simple as that. The Singapore Democratic Alliance was set up by Mr Chiam solely for this purpose, but it has floundered in recent years and is no more an empty shell popped up by SPP. The National Solidarity Party joined and left. Efforts to reach out to the Workers' Party and Reform Party have stonewalled though the latter may still join eventually while SDP was effectively left out of the loop. Why can't the Singapore opposition set aside their petty differences, sit down, discuss and draft up an united manifesto for Singapore like what the Malaysian opposition did? Taking on the PAP with separate messages will only dilute their strength and allowing themselves to be drowned out by the PAP's propaganda. What does the opposition wants to achieve? What can it offer to Singaporeans that the PAP can't? What changes can it make to improve our lives? Singaporeans want to know all these. They will not simply cast a vote for the opposition just to oppose in Parliament. We want a competitive political system and not one dominated by a single party. Does the opposition know our wishes and aspirations? Preparing and participating in a general election requires mammoth amount of time, efforts and resources and since the opposition members are already committing so much to it, why don't they do something to boost their chances? Alas, judging from the latest Chee-Chiam spat, it appears that some opposition leaders are still unwilling to let go of the past and move on for the sake of the future. The opposition cannot simply count on the rising unpopularity of the PAP to bring in the votes. While it may be able to decrease the winning margin of the PAP and to increase its number of seats in Parliament, it is highly unlikely that it will be able to deny the PAP its traditional two-thirds majority which is the crux of the matter here because only then will it be able to block it from passing bills and legislations at its wimps and fancies as and when it wishes to. It is time the senior leaders of the opposition consider taking a back-seat and allow fresh blood to take their parties forward. The young leaders may have less historical baggage between them and therefore more inclined to work together for the common good. If Malaysia's Chinese-based DAP and the Islamist PAS can work together in the same coalition, why not the Singapore opposition parties whose differences are superficial at best. With the next election looming ahead, it is time for the Singapore opposition to get their act together. There is no time to lose.   EDITORS' NOTE: Please join our Facebook discussion on this article here and invite your friends to do so as well to raise awareness among fellow Singaporeans.   Copyright © 2009 – 2010 The Temasek Review (If you are going to reproduce this article on your blog or forum, please provide a link back to ours)   Related articles: >> Triggering the Singapore political tsunami with a highly motivated minority >> Singaporeans think highly of opposition’s chances in next general election >> What will happen to Singapore if the opposition wins the next general election >> Dr Ng Eng Hen welcomes greater contest from opposition >> Chee slammed again for introducing confrontational politics in Singapore >> Lim Hwee Hua: opposition “trying” to work the ground for next GE >> Let the next GE be a primer for Singapore’s own political tsunami >> Are opposition MPs becoming redundant in Singapore ? >> Why do we need so many strawberry PAP MPs in Parliament? >> PAP MPs complain of fast-pace of parliamentary debates >> Why PAP MPs are no more but a “wayang” >> A disaster in the making: PAP’s “instant tree” mentality >> Yes-men PAP MPs embarrassed themselves by saying instinctively “yes” to wrongly reduce budget  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent It was supposed to be the world's largest gathering of democracy advocates and political parties right at our doorsteps in Jakarta this week, but there was no mention of it in the Singapore media which has imposed a complete news blackout on World Movement for Democracy (WMD)'s general assembly. Under the theme, “Solidarity Across Cultures: Working Together for Democracy,” the assembly was held from 10 - 14 April. In his opening address, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a call for the world to embrace democracy: "Regardless of what political model you embrace, I have no doubt that in our time our future belongs to those who are willing to responsibly embrace pluralism, openness and freedom. Your choice is to act and survive, or to resist and crumble," he said. Indonesia itself has made a relatively successful transition from autocracy under the Suharto years to a modern, functioning and vibrant democracy today. The aseembly aims to provide participants with a forum to exchange practical, hands-on knowledge that they can use in the countries and regions in which they work and to ensure that the extent of repression exercised by regimes in closed societies will not pass unnoticed in the international community, and to devise new ways to enhance assistance to those inside those countries; Though a wave of democratization has swept much of East and Southeast Asia in the last two decades which see former dictatorships like South Korea and Taiwan being overthrown and replaced by democracies, Singapore remains firmly in the iron fists of the PAP. The PAP has ruled Singapore for more than 50 years since winning power in 1959. Since then, it has managed to subvert and gain control of all institutions of the state to serve its own partisan purpose including the media, civil society, police, bureaucracy and grassroots organizations. Though Singapore is supposedly a democracy on paper, it is no more a one-party totalitarian state than North Korea. Repressive laws are put in place to curtail the civil and political liberties of citizens who cannot expect to vote out the PAP through the ballot box under an unfair electoral system engineered to keep the incumbents in power forever. It is hardly a surprise that the Singapore media did not report on the assembly. It is a mouthpiece of the PAP and will not publish anything which will be deemed detrimental to the interests of its political master.  Read More →