We Wuz Robbed

Despite an initial lead by Tan Cheng Bock, phony Tan stole the presidential sweepstakes with a pathetic 0.34 percent of the votes, shaved from an earlier 0.35 margin. That's gotta be déjà vu. In May this year, Lee Kuan Yew's ragtag posse snatched Tanjong Pagar with a walkover due to a paper shuffle delay of 35 seconds. Only the thick skinned can declare a victory under such contentious circumstances. Somebody ought to take a serious look at the "spoilt" votes. Somebody truly independent.

The number of spoilt votes was 1.76% of 2,153,014 cast. That's 37,826 people who could have made mince meat of the 7,269 deciding margin. If a ballot paper, with a cross on TCB and a moustache over TT's mug shot, was considered a spoilt vote, a recount would surely yield quite a different result. But not by the same civil servants manning the counting centres, those who know which side of their bread is buttered. At some centres, they went home instead of conducting the recount. It's our shameful version of the hanging, dimpled, and pregnant chads at the Florida election recount of 2000, which made George "WMD" Bush president.

It did not escape any casual observer that 65 percent of voters did not cast their ballots for the PAP candidate. Now that's quite a swing from the 60 percent "mandate" the party secured from the electorate with their usual assortment of campaign tricks, courtesy of sycophants in the PA and grassroots network. Although the presidency was trumpeted as a non-political role, the poll had turned into a direct referendum on the PAP - The Washington Post called it a barometer of voter discontent - thanks to Tan's close links with the party and blood ties with the Lee family. Tony Tan is a distant cousin of the late Kwa Geok Choo, which makes him an uncle of Lee Hsien Loong.

Under the PAP, Singapore's GDP grew to nearly $50,000 per capita in 2010, one of the highest in the world, with the fat going to the top few percent. As of March 2011, World Bank ranks Singapore's Gini Coefficient at 0.44, grotesquely high for a developed economy. Unfortunately real wealth is not trickling down the income ladder anytime soon. A Japanese expatriate aptly described Singapore as "North Korea that works."

PM Lee declared the election has produced an unambiguous winner. Since the nail biting result came in at 4.30 am, he must have been fast asleep at the wheel, and the exuberant celebration probably written a week earlier. The incoming 7th head of state wasn't too encouraging when he said, "I don't think it's fair to describe, for example President Nathan's tenure as being in an ivory tower," signalling that his reign won't be too dissimilar. If he wants to be more convincing about a change of agenda, given the oceanic swell of soaring housing prices, a surge in foreign workers and rising income inequality, he would have to dye his hair black.