TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent An irate resident tipped us off on a floor party organized by his Residents' Committee lately to "promote and enhance understanding, respect, mutual support and interaction among residents of different backgrounds." He felt that the money used to organize the party could be better used to help the poor and needy in Singapore. Floor and block parties are becoming more common in the HDB heartlands as the PAP continues to pour in taxpayers' monies to rectify a blatant mistake of their making and to court the votes of the new citizens by making them feel welcomed and happy in Singapore. Too many foreigners were allowed into the country within too short a period of time and Singapore is now experiencing a major headache on how to integrate all of them into society. Minister for Community, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan unveiled a mega $10-million dollar Community Integration Fund last October to sponsor "integration" programmes such as free language classes for foreigners and HDB floor parties. It is most naive of the PAP to think that they can promote "interaction" between native Singaporeans and the immigrants by organizing such parties. They will simply come for the free food and leave without knowing one another. The foreigners will tend to stick within their own cliques because there are simply so many of them here in Singapore now that they have few incentives to reach out to the larger community of Singaporeans. Attached below is the flyer promoting the floor party and an account from our reader: "My RC recently organised a floor party outside my unit at the lift lobby. I said to one of the RC members that I had been staying here since 2001 but there was no such floor party before. He replied me that only since last year 2009 that they had "the fund" to organise floor party for the residents. But he did not say why previously his RC did not have the fund? Was it due to the recent massive influx of FTs, PRs and new citizens that his RC decided to organise this kind of floor party? I really had to thank these FTs, PRs and new citizens for the "free" buffet dinner.   The RC "wayang" prior to the commencement of floor party by getting town council cleaners to use "high tech" cleaning machine to clean up the dirty floor tiles of my lift lobby in which the floor party would be hosted there. Never before that the cleaners use such a "high tech" cleaning machine to clean up the lift lobby dirty floor tiles, what they normally did was just sweeping the floor using a broom, only once a month that they use high pressure water jet machine to wash corridor and lift lobby.   The buffet dinner as expected did not taste good since it was "free". The floor party as expected turned out to be a "free" dinner meal for the residents here, not much "interacting" between the residents, most residents left the floor party after filling their hungry stomachs.   I feel that as a resident who "benefited" from the "free" buffet dinner, the RC or the ruling party should use the floor party fund for the poor and needy people of S'pore instead of using it on the residents who may not be "grateful" after eating a "free" buffet dinner."  Read More →

Dear Sir, At the time of writing this, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) is known to be preparing for a General Election (GE) which is expected to be held within the few months. For the past 30 years the SDP has been active in GE. In 1991 it rose to prominence by winning 3 seats. Since the 1990s, Dr Chee Soon Juan has continuously held the position of secretary-general in SDP. Dr Chee and his sister Ms Chee Siok Chin has tried to raise the profile of SDP by being more directly critical of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). This has resulted in the SDP being involved in a series of civil and criminal lawsuits. Between 1984 and 1991, the PAP had seen its share of valid votes decreased from 78% to 61%. The actions of the Chee siblings had been to the advantage of the PAP. It had managed to portray the SDP and other critics as an assembly of hot-headed radicals. As a result, the SDP had been indirectly helping the PAP to win votes. In the 1997 GE, the PAP reversed the decreasing vote trend by winning 65% of valid votes. In the 2001 GE, the PAP increased its valid vote share to 75%. In the 2006 GE, the SDP received approximately of 25% of valid votes in its contests. This was far below the 33% average for all opposition candidates. Currently the SDP may be able to increase its vote share or even win a parliamentary seat due to apparent rising anti-PAP sentiments. It is essential the SDP should maintain contact with the masses through cool-headed rational discussion. The Chee siblings had been associated with confrontational methods and this had almost certainly put off many voters. Therefore the writer urged the Chee siblings to maintain a low profile in the expected 2010 GE. It can still play a role as mentors to potential candidates. With the large inflow of immigrants which are expected to more supportive of the PAP, this opposition would had to be very careful not to give away any advantage to the PAP.   Yours truly,   Mr Chua Yuankai   DISCLAIMER: Temasek Review does not share the views espoused by the writer above.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent In a lengthy commentary titled “Gently, gently does it with political opponents” published in the Straits Times on 5 March 2010, PAP spin doctor and apologist Chua Mui Hoong tried desperately hard to portray PAP MPs as “gentlemen” to salvage their already embattled image in the eyes of the public, especially the younger generation. (Source) Ms Chua waxed lyrical about PAP MPs engaging in "gentlemanly" speech with one another and even the opposition in Parliament to promote and sell the PAP's accepted brand of "non-confrontational" politics to unsuspecting readers. The state media has been perpetuating the myth of a "moderate" opposition for years to take the heat off the PAP. A genuine opposition will have shredded them into pieces in Parliament and show them up as inept nincompoops which will shatter their aura of invincibility forever. A gentleman is one who treats his opponent with respect and able to accept differences in opinions gracefully as epitomized by the farewell speech given by British opposition leader David Cameron to the former Prime Minister Tony Blair whom he had several fierce debates with in Parliament: Contrast this with Prime Minister Lee's infamous "fix the opposition" speech in 2006: Who is the real gentleman and who is the hypocrite? The answer cannot be more obvious.  Read More →