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Cheering for the foreigners home team

The typical image of a cheerleader is a short skirted lass executing gymnastic moves and waving colourful poms-poms. Not a geriatric guided and steadied in his locomotion by a phalanx of security officers, at state expense. And since articulating distinctly to be understood  by an audience is becoming too much of a physical effort, he has to rouse the troops through the printed media via a "Statement from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew".

Yes, we are mindful of the first generation of leaders of his contemporaries were men of integrity and high capabilities. Men like Goh Keng Swee and Lim Kim San, builders with a passion and a heart for the people.  But today's crop includes the degenerate Vivian Balakrishnan who delight to wallow in the mire of gutter politic, invoking both the religion and homophobic cards, and endangering the delicate fabric of civil society. Or the obstinate Mah Bow Tan who is laying the foundation for Singapore's own variant of sub-prime crisis, by committing future generations to indentured servitude for a 99-year lease. Lee was boasting about how he removed the right of seaside owners for compensation for loss of their foreshores so that the Government could reclaim land without high cost of compensating the owners of seaside properties. And not shackle the public housing programmes of Lim Kim San with prohibitive market rates. How things have changed.

Just how far capabilities of officers have fallen through the years is best illustrated by the complacency of Wong Kan Seng, who is crowing during his walkabouts that he won't be voted out because of letting a terrorist slip through the bathroom window. Similarly, swaggering generals with barely one year of military service at that rank are posturing like Montgomery at the Battle of El Alamein, with an out sized ego to match. They are cocky in the knowledge that the iron girdle of the GRC will be shielding from the electorate.

Lee claims they combed the whole of Singapore society to field candidates of proven character and high calibre. Then how did they miss Chen Show Mao and Nicole Seah, currently second most popular politician on Facebook, only falling behind Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew? Instead they scrapped the bottom with Janil "Putus Chinta" Puthucheary (a father's heart is a fragile thing) and a fool 'em all Stanchart executive. Right, we are not living in Disney World, not with people still being hanged and a presidential pardon that cannot save lives when it matters. A place where significant regrets of an aspiring politician include missing out on a trip to Sentosa's Universal Studios.

In the heat and dust of this election, Lee cajoles us, do not risk your assets, property values, job opportunities. Don't fret your 87-year old mind, with the misfiring neurons, voters will definitely be thinking about the orchestrated asset inflation, the mockery of subsidized housing by The Valuer, and all those jobs going to the favoured foreigners, when they march to the polls. But thanks for the reminder anyway.