Misinterpretation, Misquote and Ministerial Salaries

Dr. Lim Wee Kiak has come forward to clarify that his remarks have been taken out of context. Which brings us to the question of what the context was. Let me quote from his clarification (though perhaps I am quoting out of context again):

I have mentioned that the responsibilities of our ministers are not any less than that of our corporate heads. Although their pay should not be equal to corporates [sic] as there is the element of service to country and it is not a job, it should not be too low. So in concluding [sic] , I told the reporter jokingly, that there will be at least some “face” when the minister meet [sic] the corporate chief.

I admit it is a bad example that is [sic] quoted out of context.

Huh? Are you admitting that it is a bad example or are you claiming (or, as your sentence goes, admitting) that you have been quoted out of context? What is “it” a bad example of and what exactly is “it”?

In saying that you have been quoted out of context, you are suggesting that your words have been twisted to mean what they do not mean. However, when you claim to have been joking, it would seem more like you are saying you have been misinterpreted and people are taking your words too seriously when they are not meant to be taken seriously. That is not taking you out of context.

Assuming that you have indeed been quoted out of context or misinterpreted, why are you admitting that “it is a bad example”? If you have given a bad example, then perhaps you have not been misinterpreted or misquoted. Rather, it would simply be that you have not communicated the intended point to the intended audience well and it would be a matter of you not representing yourself properly instead of others getting you wrong. Your clarification contradictorily combines self-exoneration and self-blame.

Based on your clarification, it seems that you do still hold the belief that a salary of $500,000 per annum is too low for a minister even though it is an amount that some of the most impoverished citizens under your care will take decades to earn (without even factoring in inflation? You still seem to be implying that “low” salaries will affect the dignity of ministers even though it is perfectly reasonable to say (without asserting that ministers should be lowly paid) that any lowly paid person, minister or not, can be dignified in the face of anyone in the world. Because even the most lowly paid person is earning an honest living. On the other hand, one wonders how dignified a group of people, with an illustrious history of helping themselves to million-dollar salaries because they have the power to decide, can be.

Dr. Lim Wee Kiak Enlightens Us

Nee Soon GRC MP Dr. Lim Wee Kiak should be praised for his outstanding contribution to exposing how hollow the rhetoric of change initiated by the PAP after the May 7 General Election earlier this month. Commenting on the issue of ministerial salaries, he said:

如果新闻、通讯及艺术部长年薪只有50万，当他和身价数百万的电讯公司总裁开会商讨政策问题时，可能面对一些困难。因为总裁们可能认为没有必要听取部长的意见与建议，因此合理的薪酬将有助于维持一点尊严。(Source)

Translation:

If the Minister of Information, Communication and the Arts earns an annual salary of only $500, 000, when he meets and discusses policies with the CEOs of telecommunications companies who earn millions of dollars, he may face some difficulties because the CEOs may think that there is no need for them to listen to the minister’s views and suggestions, so a reasonable salary will help to maintain the dignity of the minister.

Thanks to the wonderful talents like Irene Ng and Dr. Lim, the layers of make-up that Lee Hsien Loong has applied on the PAP leopard in order to conceal its callous spots are being washed away. Even if we were to believe that Lee is totally sincere about changing, we can see the overwhelming difficulty of the task. In less than twenty days since the election in which the PAP won with a percentage impressive by the standards of democracies but dismal by the standards of authoritarian states, the PAP is at it again, as though they are getting sick of the new charade. Same old illogic. Same old attitude. Now, this is the PAP we know. Welcome back!

From Dr. Lim’s words, we can say that:

1. He thinks that PAP ministers have nothing worth the respect of private sector CEOs but ridiculously high salaries. This may not be true, but it says something when a PAP politician thinks that PAP ministers’ worth are determined by how much they earn, not the quality of their contributions.

2. It is likely that someone earning millions of dollars does not take seriously someone who earns $500,000 per year. Using the same theory, it is easy to understand why million-dollar ministers never seem to take the views and suggestions of common folk. No wonder all our views are dismissed as noise.

Using the same theory again, even when a minister earns $500,000 per year, he may not take us seriously. Because most of us earn maybe 100-500 times less.

3. Dr. Lim considers a $500,00 annual salary low for ministers. Bearing in mind that people tend to cite hypothetical figures that are somewhat exaggerated for illustrative, perhaps we can say that Dr. Lim is expecting ministerial salaries to be much higher than $500, 000.

Obama earns US$400,000 yearly. Convert that to S$ using the current exchange rate and we will feel sorry for him. We now know why no one takes him seriously. Even when he says that Osama is dead, no one believes him and instead comes up with conspiracy theories about how Osama is lying to the world. To gain more credibility, Obama needs to at least triple his current salary.

It’s a harsh world we live in. Actually Molly feels even more sorry for Kuan Yew. Now that he has left the Cabinet, his MP salary is going to be so appallingly low that he will never be able to raise his head high again. Maybe he will be inspired to write Hard Truths II. But who is going to bother about it if he is not earning a few million dollars a year?

On Ministers Leaving the Cabinet

It may come as a surprise to us that Goh Chok Tong and Kuan Yew are leaving the Cabinet. Looks like Kuan Yew’s “I’m not the Prime Minister” refrain can have an additional line now: “I’m not even a minister.”

But what is the use of having a Senior Minister and a Minister Mentor (who has once been the Senior Minister) to begin with?

I would be more impressed if they had decided to leave the Parliament altogether. And hold by-elections. And apologize for retiring late and drawing so many additional years of million-dollar salaries. And pledge to donate their pensions to Molly the Cat Welfare Society. And perhaps Kuan Yew should also step down from his role as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the GIC.

The move by the two established politicians seems somewhat disingenuous especially for Goh Chok Tong as many Marine Parade GRC voters must have voted for the PAP team because they did not want to lose a minister. (I shall not elaborate on my opinion of those who actually think this way.) Coming only a week after Singaporeans have three ministers who contested in Aljunied GRC, Singaporeans may start suspecting the rhetoric which goes that Singaporeans need to vote for the PAP because they cannot afford to lose their highly talented ministers. One retired quite unexpectedly not long before the General Election. Two are leaving the Cabinet after the General Election even though they remain as MPs for the constituencies. And three were not voted into the Parliament. It is a good reminder that no minister is (or should be) indispensable.

The question that may never get answered is the question of motivation. If the two are retiring because they can or have been getting in the way of the Prime Minister, it leaves me wondering about the strength of the latter’s leadership. If they can get in his way of setting a new leadership direction, he ought to be the one asking them to leave the Cabinet or even retire totally. But, as he tells us, it is their own decision to leave the Cabinet.

On the other hand, if they are leaving to allay the public’s concerns (which may not be justified), would the move not be rather superficial, calculated to change the image of the PAP? An extreme makeover does nothing to change one’s character even if it gains one favorable attention.

What is important to this feline member of the public is a deeper, more fundamental and more thorough change in Singapore—a change that, sacrilegious as it may sound, is amounts to an obliteration of Kuan Yew’s legacy in the Singaporean psyche. When we have such a change, the PAP will no longer be virtually synonymous with the government or Singapore. People will be able to understand and perceive the differences between the PAP, the government and the country. The civil service and the mainstream media will no longer be/ be viewed as being singularly partial towards the PAP. The PAP can become the dominant party after a General Election, and it can well also become an opposition party.

The exit of the MM and SM from the cabinet may signify the end of a certain leadership style, but it does not necessarily imply a change beyond the style. Perhaps it even marks the end of an era of politics characterized by defamation suits against opposition politicians. But in no way does it represent a willingness on the part of the PAP to loosen its stranglehold on Singapore society. If we remember the past, we may recall the Marxist conspiracy of the 1980s and the defamation suits of the 1990s-2000s. When using a pair of iron hands to throttle seems to be something of an overkill, you can simply order your victim not to breathe with the iron hands on standby. When ordering your victim seems excessively highhanded, you can tell your victim to breathe all he wants but stealthily deprive the room of ventilation. The techniques differ, but the effects remain and may even be intensified.

For the PAP, true change cannot be an attempt to gain favor in panic. True change is accepting the fact of life that you may not always be popular. True change is not a means to an end. It should stem be the end result of a certain belief. If we get the impression that the PAP is changing or trying to look as though it has changed in order not to lose more votes in the next election, we should also see that true change will ultimately defeat the purpose behind the change.Because Singaporeans do not want PAP dominance to continue to be an inevitability.

We can imagine three possible scenarios:

1. There is no change in the PAP, so the PAP continues to lose support.

2. There is superficial change in the PAP that is done in an attempt to “connect” with the people, but people are discerning to see through it so the PAP continues to lose support from Singaporeans who continue to feel alienated from the PAP.

3. There is real change in the PAP, and therefore the myth of the necessity of PAP dominance is dispelled once and for all. The PAP will not enjoy the dominance that it has always enjoyed, something it almost takes for granted.

There is, of course, a fourth scenario. Singaporeans buy into the superficial changes naively and continue to allow the PAP to enjoy its dominance. Singaporeans have proven to be a disappointing lot election after election. So this is entirely possible, if not likely.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Expect no Change, Singapore

It is the hardest truth universally lamented that Singaporeans can expect zero change from their ruling party after the 2011 General Election. After the euphoria felt by many upon the loss of Aljunied GRC to the Workers’ Party, the optimism and hope dissipate, as per every Election ever since Singaporeans started secretly wishing that the PAP would lose. In the past, the announcement of the election result of each constituency would deal the optimism a blow, culminating in the death blow in the form of the final, decisive announcement, in the unbelievable percentage of votes that the PAP has garnered in spite of itself. Singaporeans have, time and again, proven that the majority of them would rather give a party that has done wrong in their eyes a chance to do more wrong than give opposition parties a chance to fight to set things right, perhaps resulting in a form of uncanny self-disgust on the part of the electorate found nowhere else in the democratic or autocratic world (because those in the democratic world will not behave like that and those in the autocratic world have no choice). Is this who I am? Is this the society of which I am a part?

But this year, the optimism is set to last longer. It was the best of times because it was the worst of times for out of the most deplorable era, a most ravishing hope is conceived. Only to be aborted, ravished before its time. The more we are intoxicated by hope, the more crippling the hangover. Hope is systemically built into the Singaporean psyche as a kamikaze sacrifice. And we buy into it because it is only luxury we can afford. Our hope is not artificial—it never is. Our hope is real, but hopelessly transient. Singapore allows us to hope only so that we can despair. This year, we are led by a rare degree of defiance into hoping for the fantastical whilst fully knowing the inevitable. The non-apology with the word sorry by the man who continues to be our Prime Minister might, too, have fed the hope of Singaporeans. Only we can expect no change. To be sure, we can expect to be informed about changes. To be sure, we will be expected to believe that change has taken place. To be sure, some of us will be led into thinking that there is change, much to the frustration of those who just see otherwise. To be sure, the status quo will remain and be enhanced.

The grand narrative of Singapore as printed indelibly in the books of the PAP is now made grander, endowed with the irresistible seductiveness of change. It is, without a doubt, a cheap rhetorical seduction and not a substantial one. But, still, we succumb. We either surrender to it with our beliefs or we surrender to it with a cynical smirk because we know that even lip service provides more pleasure in the long run. While Power in Singapore has long combed and styled every fiber of the society with its peculiar coat of rationality, it is now threatening to encroach into the realm of the ineffable. Lee Hsien Loong tell us:

To secure our position economically, we must get our politics right. We have to maintain political support for policies which benefit Singaporeans,” he told an audience of about 800 GIC staff, clients and business partners.

He tells us:

It goes beyond specific items, where you can calculate dollars and cents, to a sense of reassurance and concern and empathy.

His words perhaps reveal more than he had intended. It is not reassurance, concern and empathy that he is striving for, but a sense of these undefinables. The fundamentals of the discourse remains uncannily, in fact rather disrubingly familiar: “rapid changes,” “standards of living are rising,” “progress,” “raising people’s income,” “GDP,” “upgrade productivity,” “challenging tasks,” “job ready and deployable” workers, “the restructuring of Singapore’s industries.” And most importantly, “To secure our position economically, we must get our politics right. We have to maintain political support for policies which benefit Singaporeans.” Show support for us and we will show empathy. We are good enough to pass the Voight-Kampff Test.

Elsewhere in the news, the police have stopped an illegal assembly of rebellious subjects petitioning for a by-election in Potong Pasir and the Aljunied Town Council suspending its services before the Workers’ Party MPs take over the management of the constituency. We know these have nothing to do with the PAP or the way it has shaped Singapore. We should watch in anticipation as the PAP changes its image to please us and prepare to applaud them for their successful efforts.

Change for Singapore is an unattainable possibility that has to be taken as an attainable impossibility. More than ever, Singaporeans have to struggle harder for change because the static has now grafted the mask of change onto its face. Somehow, though one may never articulate how, resistance is futile has to be taken as resistance is fertile.

我们是新加坡公民
只怕祸从口出，哪怕花言巧语
只要海誓山盟，不盼情深意重
只需海市蜃楼，就能心满意足

Blogged with the Flock Browser

PAP in Denial Over Aljunied?

Screen cap from PAP website.

WP Won Aljunied with Fewer Votes than PAP???

Honest mistake?

How did the Workers’ Party manage to win with fewer votes?

On a PAP Victory

Molly decided to trick the senile See Nao into thinking that the PAP has won all 82 contested seats in the General Election and writing a letter to the ST Forum on the topic so that readers would be vaccinated before the deluge of smug letters to the ST that will likely follow a PAP victory.

Dear See Nao,

I would like to invite you to pen a model post-Election ST Forum letter now that the PAP has won the Election with a 66.6% majority in every ward. Do you have anything to say about the General Election results?

Molly

*****

Dear Molly,

I am pleased to oblige. As everyone can guess, I voted for the PAP. On my way to the polling center, I vaguely heard many people saying that they are cross with the PAP. I was glad and you could see me beaming with PAP pride.. Despite all the emotions that the opposition has stirred, people are putting their cross of endorsement for the PAP when they vote.

Singaporeans have voted wisely and shown themselves to be rational voters who would choose a party that can deliver. They have proven to be immune to the lame attempts by the opposition to connect with the electorate emotionally.

While the opposition makes promises it can’t keep, the PAP makes promises that it will keep. When the His Eminence Lee Kuan Yew said that people would regret, people will regret.

The opposition talks about giving the people a voice. Unfortunately, they are not giving people a choice. They are not giving people a choice to have a voice or not. This shows that the opposition has failed to understand Singaporeans. Singaporeans do not want a voice. They want the PAP. The PAP’s victory is the people’s voice. Beyond that, Singaporeans do not want a voice. There are already a lot of noisy Singaporeans and having a voice aggravates the situation. And since they have voted for silence, let the PAP silence them.

Now that the PAP has emerged overwhelmingly victorious in what has been said to be its toughest Election ever, Singaporeans can now sleep in peace. There are no freak election results and my reservist unit won’t be activated to deploy snipers to set things right.

Majulah Singapapura!

Lee See Nao (Mr.)

Does PAP Administrator Want Khaw Boon Wan Out of Parliament??

In the latest saga, Tin Pei Ling allegedly scoffed at rival Nicole Seah who cried during a rally speech in a facebook entry. She reportedly posted, ‎”OooOooOoooh so that’s REALLY what happened? Wow, I think tears in parliament is worse than ANYTHING ELSE!”

Tin has since clarified that it was Denise He, one of her administrators who had posted the comments accidentally even though some remain unconvinced by her explanation.

We know, of course, that Nicole Seah was not in parliament, but the point is quite clear. “Tin Pei Ling” (here and for the rest of this post, I use inverted commas to represent whoever it is that posted using Tin Pe Ling’s account) is saying that Nicole Seah does not deserve a parliamentary seat because she cried during the rally, an act that that she could have taken to be indicative of weakness.

I wonder, though, what “Tin Pei Ling” thinks of Khaw Boon Wan who “choked back tears when he described how residents had been concerned about his welfare when he dropped by their homes” and spoke with “his voice wavering.” (Straits Times, May 3 2011, “Khaw: Residents have become personal friends“)

Does “Tin Pei Ling” think that Khaw, too, is worse than anything else?

I wonder also what “Tin Pei Ling” thinks of Kuan Yew who shed tears when he announced that Singapore was no longer part of Malaysia. Or what she thinks of Lim Boon Heng who cried and said that there was no groupthink in the PAP.

George Yeo’s Promise to Transform PAP a Worry

Let’s examine George Yeo’s promise to transform the PAP from the within. If his team at Aljunied does win the election, we can say that there are 2 main possibilities:

1. George Yeo’s team fulfills the promise.

2. George Yeo’s team does not fulfill the promise. 

Let’s see, then, if either scenario is necessarily good.

 

1. George Yeo’s team fulfills the promise.

We are not too sure how long it would be before the promise is fulfilled, but let’s just imagine that the promise is fulfilled after some time. And this period of time may not be short.

PAP voters who likes stability and those who buy into the idea that there is not enough talent in Singapore to have more than one strong political party or A Team may start worrying.

During the transition, there will be instability. We may see people being weeded. We may see people quitting. Or perhaps the people will remain, but it would take quite a bit of internal conflict solving before everything is ironed out. This is not at all going to be stable for the party and if there is virtually no opposition in the parliament, it may basically mean an unstable government too. If there are opposition MPs, they will actually be a force that will force the PAP to stay more united since they need to be united against a common “enemy”.

For those who buy into the talent insufficiency theory, if key personnel leave the PAP in the process of transformation, would the PAP not become a party with fewer talents since the new “talents” may not match the current ones (who are already the best of the best in Singapore)?

Then what happens to Singapore after the PAP is transformed? Will the new PAP be the way Singaporeans want it to be? What if it is closer to meeting Singaporeans’ expectations but still does not quite meet our expectations? Would it not be good to have enough opposition MPs around to give them an impetus to come closer to meeting our expectations? This is especially so if we simply see that even if the PAP is transformed, it may not be transformed permanently. What if it were to revert to its old ways? Again, the need to have opposition presence in the Parliament is important to prevent this.

Bottomline: The transformation of the PAP should ideally be carried out when we have a sizeable number of opposition MPs.

2. George Yeo’s team does not fulfill the promise, i.e. the PAP is not transformed.

This may not mean that the team does not try to fulfill the promise. There are two possibilities:

(a) Perhaps they try and fail, so the promise is not fulfilled.

(b) Or perhaps they do not even try to begin with.

Nevertheless, the scenario is basically the same for both (a) and (b): the PAP is not transformed; it remains the way it is.

It is quite likely, if the PAP is not transformed, that voters will no longer have the chance to vote for a different team in the next General Election. If the PAP is not transformed, it will still use the same old tactics to fix the opposition and weaken them. They may continue importing new citizens that tend to support them.

In fact, if the PAP is not transformed, perhaps voters may not be able to vote for George Yeo and his team in the next General Election even if the opposition is able to contest the PAP. This is because if George Yeo tries to transform the PAP and fails, he fails because there are forces that do not want to change. And these forces may not be happy with him for trying to change and may kick him out of the party.

We have to remember that, if the report by Today is accurate, George Yeo is promising that his team will be a force from within the party that will attempt to transform it. If the entire PAP is unanimous about changing, there would actually be no need for his team to attempt to transform the party since the members would all be in agreement when it comes to transformation and will go forward together. In this case, it wouldn’t matter if George Yeo’s team does not win the Election, so he claim that his team needs a strong mandate in order to be the voice of change in the party would not be valid.

If we assume that Georgeo Yeo made the promise in earnest, then we have to see it as an indication that the PAP could possibly splinter into two factions. If this happens, we cannot be sure how the PAP is going to govern Singapore. We need enough opposition MPs to make sure that they do a proper job.

Actually, if the promise that the PAP will be better is not going to be fulfilled, there is even less reason to vote for George Yeo’s team or the PAP in general.

Bottomline: If the PAP is not going to change, it is important to vote for the opposition now to at least pressure the men in white not to go too far.

Conclusion

Whether the promise is going to be fulfilled or not, it is a good idea to vote for the opposition.

Given that after the promise to change, we have the PAP distributing flyers smearing the Workers’ Party just before cooling day, leaving the Workers’ Party with little time to defend itself (a move which has long speculated to be the purpose of the cooling day law), is George Yeo’s team showing any signs of true change?

In fact, voters cannot really tell if George Yeo is making the promise as himself or if he is “nominated” as the one to make the promise because he is one of the PAP minister-grade politicians who have received the least flak during the Election campaign.

Ironically, George Yeo’s promise to change the PAP may itself indicate the PAP’s unwillingness to change. It is a variation of the old PAP rhetoric that there is no need for opposition in the Parliament and that the PAP is alone sufficient for all purposes, even “oppositional” forces.

It is a cliché by now, but vote wisely.

Give Yourself, not the PAP, a Chance

Often, when I tell people which party I will be voting for, I get told that that I should not divulge it because it is secret. And I would start clarifying that the secrecy of the vote is not a requirement for the voter to keep his/her vote secret but rather an assurance that the vote is confidential unless the voter chooses to divulge it. Yet, some are unconvinced, perhaps because there is so much justifiable and/or unjustifiable fear in Singapore that it does not even seem possible that the confidentiality of the vote is guaranteed and the guarantee is interpreted as a repressive or restrictive mechanism instead. Of course, it does not help that the clause is often recited together with an injunction to vote—voting is mandatory—that is by no means universal.

Perhaps the irony of the secret vote is but a symptom of a larger problem with socio-political domain in Singapore. I know politically aware people who are unhappy with the PAP’s policies and criticize the PAP for its tactics at maintaining its political hegemony, which is not at all anything surprising. Except I also know that some of these people are voting for the PAP, even with the prospects of 87:0 after the Election tomorrow. It is lamentable that the PAP has more voters than supporters and wins one election after another even when it lacks supporters, even when it is not necessarily even preferred over the opposition.

It becomes interesting, then, to ask what it is about Singapore under the PAP that makes for transcendental ludicrousness. Singaporeans have in recent years become more aware of the drawbacks of the PAP’s policies. In fact, many are not simply aware but are actually experiencing the drawbacks firsthand. Yet, it does appear that despite new awareness, old habits and old assumptions die hard.

There is, for instance, a rather strange belief about the PAP and political stability. Sure, Singapore has, for a long time since the PAP came to power, not been politically unstable. But why do people seem to think that there will be political instability if there were 30 opposition MPs in the Parliament? Why do people seem to think that there would be political instability if the PAP were no longer the government? Even if Singapore is not the most democratic place in the world, it has the structures of a democracy in place and there is no reason that Singapore would become politically unstable with the presence of opposition MPs. It is not as if there is going to be a civil war the moment the opposition becomes the dominant party instead; if there is going to be one, wouldn’t it be the PAP (now the opposition) who starts it even though it is currently being praised for bringing about stability. It is also not as if there is any opposition party that harbors aggression towards other countries and voting them into power could lead to war. People simply cannot understand that a change in the make-up of the government is not political instability. It is just change. And change takes place even if the PAP is the only party left in the Parliament.

One of the craziest reasons that has been given for voting for the PAP: you know they are going to win (or “You know the opposition won’t win”). So? Conversations will usually end here or the subject is changed. It is as if the predictability of the Election results is a reason to perpetuate its predictability. In Aljunied, there are voters who will repent (to borrow Kuan Yew’s vocabulary) by voting for the PAP before they have even sinned. Which begs the question of whether repentance is even necessary. Similar reasons given for voting for the PAP include “Everyone also vote for the PAP one lah” or the patently preposterous but certainly enlightening “I don’t like their policies but it has become a habit to vote for them.”

It is unintentionally enlightening. People are starting to exfoliate the dry, coarse skin of the PAP’s policies and even rhetoric. But a greater change is necessary. Beyond the skin, people need to recognize how the PAP has wired their minds and make an effort rewire them. Unfortunately, five decades of political hegemony during which the PAP is virtually god has left a large portion of the population unwilling to think and lazy to invest any effort to recognize the conditions that have constructed their worldviews and undying habits. In other words, uncertainty seems like a fearsome zone than the increasingly uncomfortable comfort zone to which they have been inured. This is perhaps the greatest success of the PAP. It is difficult to win hearts and minds and keep them, but it does not matter at all if you could colonize them and shape their landscapes.

No doubt, Lee Hsien Loong has used the word sorry in his speech (and that is, I remind the reader, different from saying sorry). No doubt, George Yeo has said that the PAP needs to transform itself and review the way it governs. But even if we assume naively that the effort to the truly sincere, there is no way to tell if the PAP will see what it has got wrong. In fact, it is more likely than not that the PAP will ultimately rely on new indicators to afford alienating or offending Singaporeans, but will continue to be the same in essence. In other words, it can well become stronger without becoming better. There is little indication that the PAP will change the main thrust of its economic policies. There is even less indication that the PAP will change liberate politics or retreat from its obsession with engineering society. There’s no indication that the PAP will tell the Straits Times to maintain journalistic integrity instead of being biased towards it. Is it possible that the PAP is wired in such a way that it is unable to change even when it realizes the need to, just like the voters who are dislike the PAP but vote for the PAP? The PAP has so thoroughly engineered Singapore that it could well be a victim of itself.

Singapore needs change. But, first, the people have to want change. And show it.

We have seen members of the PAP shed tears and express regret. If we assist them in eradicating the opposition from the parliament, we could well be the ones to shed tears and express regret in time to come. For PAP-voting readers who may just have that little tinge of indecision: Vote for the opposition. Vote to oppose the PAP or vote to oppose the self that has never managed to manifest itself in you.