05 September 2008

In Jurong GRC, more wanted a by-election than not

Helping out with a street survey is an eye-opening experience. Here are a few observations I made about Singaporeans' view of their political rights and their understanding of democratic mechanisms. Full essay.

4 comments:

yuen said...

not sure how representative the poll is, but in any case, "people" do not call for by-elections; the government does, and the government still remembers the 1981 anson by-election that returned jeyarantnam; now that may be ancient history to most people, but people in power tend to have long memories

as with the western democracies, a by-election is usually used by voters to display dissatisfaction with the government, and opposition tends to get a higher vote than they could expect in a general election; in most countries this is not a big deal, but here it is: the government is used to having no or very few opposition MPs, and thinks just a few more would distract it from its preferred focused attention on economic management

Anonymous said...

Previously when Bt Batok was a single SMC,Kwan Yue Keng under SDP obtained 40+ % in the GE.After that Pap abolished B.Batok and merged into Jurong GRC.You can see how dirty is Pap.It also abolished Anson,Cheng San, Eunos, Braddel Hts.

Anonymous said...

George says:
Alex,
Yes, the govt can't cope with the possibility of 6 more opposition MPs. On this, we have the 'disarmingly' frank assurance from the PM, post last GE. not surprising of course, since a great numbers of the MPs got into parliament on the coat tail of a party big-gun (usually a minister, no less). Now, surely you don't suppose any of the M$ ministers would dare take the potential risk of losing such a huge drop in income for some silly thing as parliamentary democracy?!

The kiasu and siasee traits is very much ingrained in our MPs as well as the average citizens.

Anonymous said...

Simple. Having come this far in nearly 50 yrs, the PAP is too cowardly to lose it all fighting on a level playing field. As the old man has said himself, "I built up this place! Nobody is going to knock it down!" It's his Lego castle and you can't kick it down, baby. Over his dead body, maybe.