Elections on May 6th

Let's see if this election will again be claimed to have been won by the current ruling party with a vote of less than 23%. Actually, if you do the math, the 1968 election was the worst.

Great Firewall of China

See my post at my other blog at livejournal.com. I cannot reach this site from China. I can post (using drivel) though? What gives?

I can access this site via anonymouse.org though.

Help me understand what makes a mandate!

From this, if you do the math, here is what happened in 2001:

a) Total number of persons eligible to vote: 2,036,923
b) Number that could vote because of the "walkovers": 615,267, ie, 30.21% of voters
c) Of the 615,267, the number that voted in favour of the PAP: 453,527.
d) That number, 453,527 comprises 22.27% of the TOTAL number of voters. BUT, the ruling party would instead like to say that they got 73.7% of votes in their favour - 453,527/615,267, those who voted in favour of the PAP divided by those who could, NOT what it should be - 453,527/2,036,923 which is those who voted in favour of PAP divided by total number of voters. Spin doctors lying with statistics - naturally, our compliant daily rags did not do the analysis as well.

So, with a 22.27% of votes in favour of the PAP, the PAP has a mandate to govern? MM Lee, the wise one with the databank, will say that "it is a reflection of how bad the opposition is". How did we let this happen?

22.27% gives 97.6% or 82 seats in parliament! Can this be allowed to continue? We need to be able to VOTE in the MPs, not to get in on stupid technicalities. Walkovers are unconstitutional.

Look at it another way:

a) Of the 84 seats, only 29 are elected MPs, 27 of them being PAPies or, in percentage terms, 32% of the 84 MPs are elected PAPy MPs. All 29 of them have a moral and legal right to represent their constituents.
b) A whopping 55 or 65.4% (almost 2/3s) are WOMPs and have no moral right to represent anyone. Legal right to represent is bestowed by a flawed walkover system.

How does this work?

a) Voting in any election is compulsory. Riiggghhhtt.
b) If you don't vote, your name is struck off the electoral rolls and you cannot then run in the next election (I think). You need to pay S$5 to reinstate your name. Need to give a "valid and sufficient reason" to want to be on the roll. I wonder why? Has anyone been denied before? If not, why bother?
c) If there is no one contesting the candidate, she gets into parliament without a single vote in her favour; you are deemed to have voted anyway. Hmm.
d) This WOMP (walk over member of parliament) gets a seat in parliament and is then subjected to the Party Whip - ie, there can be as much debate as you please in parliament but when it comes to voting in parliament, the PW dictates how the WOMPs and MPs vote.

Nice. It all works well. Life is nice.

So, it is a sorta democracy at the ballot box (assuming you can), and then it is dictatorial regime in parliament. Interesting. Use "democracy" to get in, and then use the whip to line things up.
Am I missing something here? Did my fellow citizens get shafted with slick propaganda all these years? I think so.

So, your vote is secret.

Well, that is indeed true. I have no desire to keep my vote a secret. There is no reason to other than to feed the "climate of fear". For the record, in elections that I could vote, I voted for the competition. Why? Because every vote counts and I think it is unhealthy, distasteful and unwise for there to be no one from another political persuasion in parliament. Also, it would be nice to say "I never voted for you!" Mr PAP MP.

So, the stage is set. We will have another round of what cannot be anything but a sham.

In a show on TV, MM Lee tried to engage with a group of Singaporeans who are what is being called the post independence generation. It was an interesting dialog with some highlights and some lowlights. What I got out of it was the MM Lee still clings on to some archaic ways of thinking tempered by his "databank".

He was challenged about podcasts, blogs etc. His answer to disallow them for the elections was because "we cannot engage in a robust dialog". It is hard to believe that the PAP really *thinks* that they cannot engage in a dialog via blogs and podcasts. It is a pink elephant. They know that they cannot get into a robust dialog because they cannot package their answers. They need spin doctors to spin their replies (and helped by the compliant media) which cannot be done on the net. So, let's just take the easy way out and ban it. There, done.

To a question if only 20% of people voted, would that be deemed to be a mandate, all he could do was to deflect it to say that it is a reflection of failure of the opponents. Who's pulling whose leg here, Mr Lee? The government that has been in office, at least since 2001, did not have the honest mandate of the people. The bulk of the people got in via walkovers which is an abuse of the constitutional right of a citizen's right to vote. Walkovers are a scar on the intellect and a fatal blow to the body politic. It takes away the raison d'taire for having a constitution and an elections process.

Overall the show as a sad display of a man and a party that has lost it. The party he founded is short of ideas and boldness (not that the other parties have anyihing better). All said, Mr Lee, it would be wiser for you to step aside and retire like a gentleman. You have served well and we will applaud you and your place in history is well deserved. Thanks for the memories. We can erect a statue for you in front of the Marina casino - seriously!