Some thoughts about the Singapore general election – Coming to a tacit consensus for apportioning constituencies between PAP and the opposition.

The Singapore General Election is just around the corner. This would be my first time voting, since the last time the election was held, which was 5 years ago, I was a year too young below the minimum age requirement to vote. What are some of my thoughts regarding voting at this general election? Well, I believe that I should vote for what is good for my country, which would affect me and my loved ones as well in one way or another. As to what is good for Singapore and Singaporeans, I am not too sure, but I believe that the status quo of majority PAP as the ruling party, with WP as the minority opposition is comfortable and desirable.

I believe that the incumbent government composed of chiefly the PAP party has done a pretty good job since coming into parliament in the last election. But I can also empathize with the desire by Singaporeans to maintain a proportion of opposition members within the ranks of parliament to provide checks and balance on the ruling party, and also to keep the ruling party on their toes and not become complacent. The ideal composition I believe that most Singaporeans want would be a parliament with PAP as the majority ruling party, and an appropriately sized opposition in the minority.

I think it would work well if Singaporeans can come to some form of tacit consensus on who should vote for which political party based on the constituencies they reside in. I believe one such tacit consensus that may already be prevailing would be that those living in currently-held opposition constituencies should continue voting in the opposition, whilst those living in constituencies currently held by the incumbent ruling party, the PAP, should continue voting for the PAP. The difficulty however lie where Singaporeans wishes to vote in more opposition, but also keep the PAP as the majority ruling party. The difficulty and danger in an election though is that in trying to vote for more opposition representation in parliament without any form of tacit consensus, it is possible to swing too greatly in favor towards the opposition and grant them more seats than what ordinary Singaporeans would be comfortable with, or to be too adverse towards voting any opposition and not vote in enough. I am not sure what the prevailing sentiment amongst the majority of Singaporeans is regarding the number of opposition that should be voted in, whether this should be maintained at status quo, increased, or decreased. In my opinion, the status quo number of opposition is just right, and I don’t think there needs to be so much checks and balance on the ruling party by voting in more opposition if the PAP has been doing a good job, and remain clean and honest as the government given the existing number of opposition members. In my opinion, it would do well for similarly like-minded Singaporeans to vote along some lines of tacit consensus in order to reduce uncertainty of outcomes in the election, and my suggestion of where that line of tacit consensus would be is the status quo, both in terms of the numbers and the current constituencies held by the respective parties. 

Lee Kuan Yew

Today brings about the passing away of Singapore’s first Prime Minister and Founding Father, Lee Kuan Yew. I learnt about this news while on my way to school in the morning, and had turned on the facebook application on my phone to see people sharing news on the matter.

It certainly is a momentous event in Singapore, and a ubiquitous conversation topic amongst people from all circles of Singapore society for the day. For many people in Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew cuts a larger-than-life figure that is almost intertwined with the core of Singapore identity. For supporters, Lee Kuan Yew was chiefly responsible for the economic success and well-rounded development of modern Singapore society, whilst for detractors, he was an authoritarian whose heavy-handed methods suppressed democratic ideals and civil liberties. I know of a handful of people around me who fall into one camp or the other, though often, I am unsure about the reasons for either their support or hatred. I would like to be objective, but this is certainly not an easy task. I just think that credit should be given where they are due, and criticisms levied for where they are justified.

The only time I have come across Lee Kuan Yew in person was when I was walking through the Botanic gardens after school. That was some time ago last year in October I think. Lee Kuan Yew was being driven in a golf cart within the park, with two bodyguards sitting at the back of the cart. I was caught up with excitement with the sighting, and turned to an unacquainted schoolmate walking behind me to exclaim in as calm a manner possible that the person in the cart upfront was Lee Kuan Yew. But the cart moved quickly, and it wasn’t long before it had moved into another section of the park out of sight, so the schoolmate whom I had exclaimed to didn’t get to see it.

I guess a part of me was in awe, another somewhat intimidated, and yet another eager enough that I just might have called out “Hey! Uncle Harry! Take a photo with me!” But that would have been downright awkward and inappropriate given the formidable figure Lee Kuan Yew is. 

Thoughts on Singapore-Indonesian tension: The naming of Indonesian vessel, the Harun Osman

Recently, the hot button foreign affair issue in the Singapore media has been about Singapore’s row with Indonesia over Indonesia’s naming of the navy ship Harun Osman. Harun Osman is taken after the names of two executed Indonesian commandos by the name of Harun Said, and Osman Hj Mohd Ali, who were responsible for setting off a time bomb at a place in Singapore known as the MacDonald House which killed 3 people and injured 33 others. The bombing was part of Indonesia’s armed opposition during the reign of Sukarno towards what was perceived as British attempts to withhold onto power in South East Asia after World War II.

The two commandos were arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to death. During the period of their detention, Sukarno was deposed by Suharto following the 30^th September Movement in 1965, who renounced the confrontational policy towards Malaysia; whilst the planned inclusion of Singapore into the Federation of Malaya went awry and Singapore became an independent state in 1965. Suharto petitions for a grant of clemency for the two commandos was turned down by the Singapore government, and the two commandos were executed shortly afterwards in 1968. Their bodies were returned to the Indonesian authorities which had them interred in a national heroes cemetery. Their hanging saw some 400 agitated students in Jakarta ransack the Singapore embassy, attack the consul’s residence and burn the Singapore flag, and bilateral ties remained tense for several years.  Supposedly, tensions were cooled after then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew visited Indonesia, and sprinkled flowers over the graves of the two executed commandos. But it seems that any concealed deep-seethed misgivings towards Singapore for executing the two commandos are surfaced from the naming of the ship.

I have several thoughts and questions about the issue.

1.       The opinion of the Singapore government is that the two executed commandos were terrorists. The argument that they are goes that they targeted innocent civilians while not clothed in military uniforms. If they had been targeting military installations instead, they might have been deemd prisoner-of-wars rather than terrorists and been afforded certain protection that comes under the Geneva Convention on how Prisoner-of-Wars should be dealt with. However, I think the complication of this case as compared to the usual case of terrorism is that these soldiers could simply be carrying out the orders of the incumbent government to commit terrorist actions. How are they to be held accountable when that government is deposed and replaced by another government? I have read a blogger who argues that President Suharto was attempting to portray himself as distancing himself from the aggressive and expensive foreign interventionist policy in the region of his predecessor, so as to exculpate the two commandos for their actions.

2.       How much does domestic pressure plays in a government’s foreign policy? There are some examples in regional affairs where local domestic pressure in foreign regional countries causes their government to assume an antagnostic stance towards Singapore. In this case of the executed commandos, President Suharto could possibly have come under some form of domestic pressure to secure the release of the two commandos, which is possibly evidenced by the ransack of the Singapore embassy in Indonesia by the 400 agitated students. Another example where domestic pressure factored in was when the Philippines government threatened to cut off all diplomatic relations with Singapore during the Flor Contemplacion incident when a Filippino domestic worker was executed in Singapore for murder. But anyone claiming that the Singapore government had been ignorant of domestic pressure of the other countries in its foreign affairs dealing possibly misses out on taking into account the domestic pressure that is within Singapore as well. If there had been any domestic pressure that came upon the Singapore government in the executed commandos case, they most likely came from victims or relatives of those who were killed by the acts of the commandos. However, is it possible that sometimes, governments are the ones who incite domestic unrest towards foreign nations through their media as a way of building national solidarity and diverting attention from other important domestic issues?

3.       How should such gestures as the naming of the ship be interpreted by the Singapore government? Is it a bold affront by the authorties in Indonesia towards Singapore, a form of condescension by a big state towards a small state? Is it a way of testing the resolve of Singapore to assert itself? This seems to be the concern and sentiment of the Singapore government, who are probably concerned that any failure to speak up might be seen as weakness. Could it simply have been an oversight by the Indonesians to the sensitivities of neighboring nations. This seems to be the opinion of some Indonesian officials that the Singapore government is simply overreacting to what is a perfunctory tradition of naming ships after national heroes. Yet, there are other Indonesian officials who do make very aggressive statement towards Singapore, such as this comment “Let Singapore keep shrieking, like a chicken beaten by a stick” by Golkar MP Hajriyanto Thohari, deputy chairman of the People' Consultative Assembly. There are both hawks and doves in a country’s government, and I think if there is any concern by Singaporeans, it is whether these hawkish elements in neighboring governments are gaining more sway in their government.

Concerns of Singaporeans - Rising cost of living, influx of foreign workers

I was listening to a conversation with a few schoolmates today. There was this person who is a member of an opposition political party. He was criticizing the government for certain issues that I would list down below.

1. Foremost, it is the rising cost of living. One aspect of the rising cost of living is the increasing rental business cost. In particular, he addressed rising business cost for hawkers who rent places for their stores. He says that there is an oversight by the government to prevent middlemen from renting the places and then leasing them out to hawkers at a higher price as this raises the rental cost for food centres. This raise in cost is in turn passed on to consumers.

2. He criticizes the government for the influx of foreign workers, which he argues decreases quality of living of Singaporeans. He says that these foreigners who come into Singapore take up PMET jobs. They are able to work longer hours because they do not have family commitments. As such, employers prefer to hire them instead of the locals. He argues that this is an unfair disadvantage to the locals, and that it runs counter to government’s objectives to promote family life and encourage couples to have children.

3. He also argues that the lack of regulation of MNCs that come in to set up their operations in Singapore. He says that these MNCs employ foreign people from the west who have international expertise in management to oversee operations. Locals are unable to acquire employment in these top-tier management posts, which is a vicious cycle as they are then unable to acquire the requisite experience.

I have heard criticisms of the current PAP government from various people. I tend to be a skeptic, and would like to evaluate the performance of the PAP for myself. I suppose I would like to take a bigger interest in politics so that I will make informed choice when voting in the next general election. The most recent topic of controversy would be the White Paper on Singapore population that was passed in Singapore parliament by the PAP-dominated parliament a few months ago. There was another mass turn-out yesterday on labour day to protest against the White Paper. I have yet to evaluate the merits of the White Paper for myself. On one hand, the PAP government seems absolutely firm in their conviction that Singapore requires an intake of foreigners to sustain its economic competency in the future. On the other hand, there are many people in the public, and eminent opposition figures who see this measure as a bad one that would have negative consequences for the people of Singapore.

I am not sure who is right on the matter, or what would be a better take on population policies in Singapore, and it could certainly help with more objective opinion in the media from academics or experts examining the issue.

The Hard Truths 1 - The sustenance of Singapore's survivability

I am trying to develop an interest in politics and world affairs so that I can have more content that I can blog about. Moreover, I figured that I should start being a politically engaged member of society, if there is any purpose to being one, perhaps so that I will vote correctly in the next general election. I doubt I will make a career in politics, but I guess if ever I become good at blogging about politics, I can become a political commentator. Now, I am really a newbie at politics and might be ignorant about many things regarding the state of affairs. The information that I will read about comes from the straits times and alternative medias like the online citizen. But let me start my endeavour to be a more informed political citizen by learning the views of our first prime minister of Singapore – Lee Kuan Yew. I suppose I wish to form a more objective evaluation of the man, his character, and the work he has done in building up Singapore. So I will blog more about this political personality, that is, if I can keep a sustained interest in politics. And if I can, I will try to proceed to blog on other political personalities of Singapore, such as former deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee and S. Rajaratnnam. I suppose before I read his critics, I shall try to understand what the man himself has to say.

With that, let me start on my reading on the book the Hard Truths featuring Lee Kuan Yew’s views on what it takes to keep Singapore going. Each chapter is presented in a question-and-answer format preceded by an introduction.

In the first chapter of the book, Lee Kuan Yew gave his views on the trepid state of Singapore’s security given our geopolitical location and belligerent neighbouring countries, especially from Malaysia.

At Page 18 - “In Singapore, we are in a very turbulent region,” he would remind us. “If we do not have a government and a people that differentiate themselves from the rest of the neighbourhood…Singapore will cease to exist.” He recounted commenting to his Australian hosts in 1988 after a visit to New Zealand, that “I could come back here in 100 years and I’d be sure to find this place, still green grass, still sheep and cows and wheat and fruit trees…When I project myself forward 100 years for Singapore, I cannot tell you that it will exist.”

I remember reading for social studies lesson during my secondary school days on the nation state of Venice as a case study of small nation states, and its rise and fall. It held a prominent position as a centre of international trade, but subsequently declined from external threats from its neighbouring state powers, as well as from other circumstances such as the onslaught of the black plague. I suppose there is a concern by Lee Kuan Yew as to whether the narrative of the rise and fall of a nation state would similarly apply to Singapore. For now, Singapore is an economically strong nation amongst its neighbours, and holds many hub statuses, but would there come a day where Singapore would decline, or even become non-existent?

Lee Kuan Yew highlights the threats that Singapore experience within the geographical region from neighbouring country, and points out the vulnerabilities given Singapore’s dependence for resources which it imports from surrounding neighbours. In the past, we used to import water from Malaysia, and there were repeated threats from then Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohammad about breaching the water agreement and cutting off supply of water to Singapore. From what I read about in the Singapore newspapers, Mahathir was making statements like, “To skin a cat, there are many ways, to skin Singapore, there are also many ways.” I wondered then why Mahathir would take such a hard-ball approach towards Singapore.

I kind of got some information for the reason for such animosity when Former law minister Jayakumar came to give a talk over at the law faculty of Singapore. According to him, Malaysia during the time of Mahathir Mohammad, was put off by Singapore turning down Malaysia’s request for financial aid during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Subsequently, Mahathir started taking a hard-nosed approach in dealing with Singapore, bargaining for hard deals in the Malaysia-Singapore Points of Agreement of 1990 such as a 60-40 percent owernship in favour of Malaysia for in exchange for selling back the area at Tanjong Pagar where the railway line was. There is an endnote snippet at page 39 of the Hard Truth which states that “Malaysia banned all snad exports to Singapore in 1997, saying that It needed to conserve resources and protect sea and river beds. Indonesia banned sand exports to Singapore in 2007, citing environmental concerns. Singapore uses sand in construction and land reclamation; Indonesia’s ban caused construction activities to grind to a halt as sand prices trebled in 2007. Singapore now buys sand from further afield.”

I heard the reason why Indonesia was quite unhappy with Singapore was because of the outflow of capital after racial riots caused Chinese businessmen to park their money into Singapore. Singapore’s initial refusal to sign an extradition treaty led Indonesia to mete out a sand ban. Of course, the reasons given was masked as environmental concerns about eroding shore lines.

For now, it seems like Singapore’s foreign relationships with its neighbouring countries are more amicable, especially with the passing of leadership to the current leaders of Singapore and Malaysia. I do hope that the various leaders in the region would be sensible and peaceful in dealing with one another, and not allow their personal gripes to affect foreign relations in a negative manner. After all, there are many people that lives in each country, and they would suffer if the leaders of the various neighbouring countries take a hard-ball attitude towards one another.

My impression of Lee Kuan Yew is that he is a tough man who takes a tough attitude towards ensuring the success of Singapore, and he has no qualms about resorting to tough measures to address his concerns. After all, Singapore is his legacy, and what history shall ever make of him will depend on whether Singapore stands the test of time.

National Day Rally Speech By PM Lee Hsien Loong

I just watched the National Day Rally Speech given by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

One of the topics of his speech was on the need for Singapore to continually progress. People must be educated and trained to meet the needs of a highly-skilled economy. He gave an example of how smart devices will be able to fulfill the functions of a personal secretary, and the personal secretary will have to move up the skills ladder to become an office manager. The government has in mind to increase the number of university graduates from the 27% to 40%. This is to be done by the incremental expansion of the intake of the existing universities and the creation of two new universities in Singapore: SIM University (UniSIM) and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

I wonder whether the expansion of the provision of university education will enable Singapore to furnish the manpower for a highly-skilled economy. For one, I think that there is such a thing as a gradation of human capacities in a population. Not everyone will be capable enough to take on jobs that are highly-skilled. There is only so much that the provision of higher-tier education service can do in training up a workforce for roles in a highly-skilled economy. I think that it would be very difficult to increase the number of skilled workers beyond a certain percentage of the population because nature may not provide enough capable people.

However, even though I feel that it would be tough to obtain a high concentration of skilled workers, I think there is no other choice for Singapore. It’s really an economic issue. There needs to be a certain threshold number of highly skilled workers for it to be effective to contribute to progress in society. This revolves around the concept of economies of scales. There must be a certain quantity of highly-skilled workers that are effectively integrated to work towards the desired outcome of societal progress. A country with a large population can do this much more easily even with a low-concentration skilled force because the population can provide the necessary numbers that achieves the threshold requirement for economies of scales to take place. This is not possible for Singapore which has a small population. This may place some difficulties on the economy to have to maintain a certain number of skilled jobs which is not equitably proportionate to the number of the population. I think that it might lead to a sub-standard highly-skilled economy. For example, there may be many scientists and engineers around, but who are not of the requisite quality to meet the aims of a highly-skilled economy.

I wish that I can be proved wrong though because I like the egalitarian ideal of human beings being capable enough for any roles in society as long as they have the requisite training. I might be wrong in my sentiment on this. If this is so, then the expansion of university education can easily meet the objectives. Otherwise, Singapore may have to rethink about how it wants its economy to develop.

Amidst all the talks about the direction to which Singapore must strive towards, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong did not forget about stressing the importance for Singaporean to be caring and amicable towards one another. “Not just a prosperous country – but one that has a heart.” It’s nice to hear the Singapore Prime Minister address this. There is a need to address the social aspects of a country’s development. I don’t think a highly-educated and wealth nation is correspondent with a socially gracious nation.  A nation with people that is courteous and kind in treating one another goes a long way towards a happier nation.