Their Dream Team

Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC Ellen Lee has been given the boot to make way for new candidate Amrin Amin and former Aljunied GRC candidate Ong Ye Kung. The lady voters may not take this too kindly, after all the lip service about dearth of women in politics.

The acronym FILTH is for Failed In London, Try Hongkong. But after the puritanical Communists took over, even filth decided to move on. Ong's case is a matter of Failed In Aljunied Try again, anywhere, even in Sembawang. FIAT is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort", as in getting into parliament effortlessly through a GRC.

Those who get to stay in the national lottery, Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan, Vikram Nair and Lim Wee Kiak, are not exactly crowd pleasers. For starters, senior citizens who have been dumped in Johore have Khaw to thank:

"The monthly cost of keeping a resident in a private nursing home in Singapore, you can stretch it easily to pay at least 2-1/2 months of nursing home care in Johor Baru."

Vikram Nair showboated his fearlessness by drinking water from a storage tank fortified by the floating body of a dead Indonesian maid. But the poison was on his tongue when he likened Worker’s Party (WP) MP Chen Show Mao's proposals, for the 2012 Budget to do more for vulnerable groups, to a Nigerian scam:

"Maybe even the Nigerian scheme required you to put $10,000 upfront. But Mr Chen's scheme does not even require a short-term provision. It is not even a deficit for one year. No, no, no. It will pay for itself because it is an investment."

Lim Wee Kiak is the joker in the pack that makes you wonder what is in the drink when these guys were invited to tea at the Istana:

“If the annual salary of the Minister of Information, Communications and the Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discusses policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars because they need not listen to the minister’s ideas and proposals, hence a reasonable payout will help to maintain a bit of dignity.”
- May 2011, on debate on ministerial salaries;

“I will quote (from your speech then) one more time. And maybe your hearing aid has to be (turned) up a little bit.”
- Feb 2013, on Workers’ Party’s chief Low Thia Khiang's remarks being taken out of context;

“What you realise from this survey is that majority are not asking them (PRs) to serve exactly the same two years system. In fact, serving the two years is a privilege. I am quite glad that many Singaporeans realised that and that should be a privilege that belongs to Singaporeans.”
- Oct 2013, on doing National Service as a privilege;

“If they didn’t have information, they should just say they have no information, rather than come up with a lot of theories. When they do this, people will think they already have some information.”
- Apr 2014, on Malaysian authorities' handling of the MH370 case.

Teo Chee Hean is thinking aloud that "Singaporeans should do what we can to strengthen that (PAP) team and not weaken it." What do you think?

The Heat Is On

Not one for mincing words, Mahathir said Najib's tall tale of a Middle East donor is pure bull. We have our own load of crap on his side of the Causeway too, specifically in the Bishan-Toa Payoh surrounds.

Playing mother hen, Ng Eng Hen is leading three greenhorns into parliament via the GRC backdoor, spouting platitudes like:
"look out for residents" - Chong Kee Hiong
"inclusive society is critical" - Chee Hong tat
"contribute to S'pore dream" - Saktiandi Bin Supaat

There's good reason why the chicken crossed the good: the pay over there is better. Jack Neo nailed it with "Money No Enough". Even the superscaled salaried permanent secretary is aiming for the million dollar lottery prize. He claims his wife had reservations, but Ngiam Tong Dow begs to differ:

“When you raise ministers’ salaries to the point that they’re earning millions of dollar, every minister — no matter how much he wants to turn up and tell Hsien Loong off or whatever — will hesitate when he thinks of his million-dollar salary. Even if he wants to do it, his wife will stop him.”

We have seen freshly minted ministers looking out for cardboard collectors with rose-tinted glasses, championing influx of foreigners into the local workforce, and dreaming of the Swiss standard attainable only by the likes of Goh Chok Tong and his cohorts.

The original headline for the ChannelNews Asia post was "All three hot-button issues in the last General Election in 2011 are still on minds of Singaporeans". That was quickly toned down to "Housing, jobs and healthcare weigh heaviest on minds of Singaporeans, survey finds". The heat is still on.

In the land of America, only a competent democratically elected president will make it to term two. Here in lah-lah land, an incompetent after 7 terms, is still asking for more time to address the same three heated issues: Housing, Jobs and Healthcare. By the time a new entrant to the workforce - fighting tooth and nail to stave off foreigners imported to compete for the same job opportunity - finally pays off the last mortgage due, he/she is already in her fifties, staring at a depleted bank account to cope with retirement needs. Based on current estimates, the Medishield Life premium will be at least $1,400. And the dream of car ownership will start at about $100,000, the price of the smallest public housing flat unit.

Hard to believe, but it's currently on your television screens. Fancy powerpoint slides and crafted statistics about Housing, Jobs and Healthcare. Parliament has yet to be dissolved and the writ of election yet to be issued, but campaigning is already in earnest. How is it Lee-gal and Lee-gitimate to misuse public media for selfish party agenda?

Unfinished Business

Last chance to show Wong can sing.

Singapore's then Minister Mentor (MM) said in an April 2008 email interview that the daring escape of Mas Selamat Kastari from the notorious Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC) on 27 February was a "very severe lesson in complacency". MM Lee said the country's security officers knew that fugitive Mas Selamat was "an escape artist", who had evaded arrest many times. "When you are complacent in handling a wily detainee, then you have been negligent," he concluded.

Mas Selamat was captured by Malaysian police during a raid on a house in Kampung Tawaka, Skudai, on 1 April 2009. Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng told Parliament on October 2010 that Mas Selamat "has not given a completely reliable account" of how he evaded being discovered even as a nationwide manhunt was launched to find him, as well as how he made his way to Malaysia. The nation remembers being informed earlier of another incomplete account, that either Mas Selamat was in Singapore, or he was not in Singapore.

Even as Wong, 68, announced yesterday he would not be contesting in the imminent General Election of 2015, many questions about the jailhouse breakout that would forever be associated with his complacency and negligence, are still not answered. Questions like who's bank account the $1 million bounty for information leading to the apprehension of Mas Selamat was deposited into. Or if the two individuals who made the offer ever paid up.

"I've walked through this long journey, more than three-quarters of my working life," Wong told adoring fans at his swansong. "Don't you think I deserve a rest?" Like the albatross weighing down on the seafarer in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Wong must have been burdened by the stigma of the Mas Selamat saga. Just as another jailbird, Amos Yee, will be the curse on the last politician standing from his batch of 1984.

"Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony."

Time To Abandon Ship

The body language says it all: someone has to pay

When Ng Eng Hen said election season was officially on, it was as good as declaring open the hunting season - it's time to lock and load. Cecil the lion was not the only one caught in the cross hairs. Unlike gentlemen of the naval tradition, Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew was not prepared to go down with SS Sampan 2.0. Not for him the ignominy of suffering a kamikaze mission like George Yeo was assigned in 2011.

Lui's letter of resignation mentioned a promise of reappointment as a Cabinet Minister if he was re-elected. He knows too well about empty promises from horrible people. Like the promise to return one's life savings upon attaining age 55. And what about Lui's recent promise of a 1.9% decrease in public transport fares in December? Will that disappear too with his hasty departure?

Raymond Lim, Mah Bow Tan, Wong Kan Seng, all had at least 5 years of member of parliament allowances to tide over to the new income tax bracket. Poor Lui will just have to go cold turkey. Hope the wife won't have to work overseas as a dometic help. Fortunately Lui won't be clinking champagne glasses with businessmen who demand to drink only with millionaire ministers they can look up to.

Supporters of Lui will likely point out that the appointment of a (retrenched) DFS sales girl as CEO of SMRT was not his doing; ditto the bungling bunch of army general staff currently derailing the public transportation system. However, the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) opening screw up was definitely all his undoing.

"You reminded me that the responsibility of Government was a collective one," wrote Lui, knowing full well the hollowness of those words, having witnessed at first hand others being thrown under the bus. Namely those once in charge of transport, housing and homeland security. Better to walk away with head held high, instead of leaving it at the chopping block. He did tell the press, his departure “has nothing to do with family or health reasons”.

The Quiet Before The Storm

What the mainstream media labelled as derisory horse trading turned out to be a demonstration of maturity in the opposition ranks. One by one, they sacrificed personal agendas for a common objective, the return of Singapore to Singaporeans.

Announcing his party's decision for not contesting in Ang Mo Kio GRC in the coming General Election, SingFirst Secretary-General Tan Jee Say said that they will leave the Reform Party (RP) to take on the People’s Action Party team there.

“Yes, we have decided earlier not to contest in Ang Mo Kio GRC in the spirit of opposition unity. This is not to dilute the opposition votes so as to give RP the best chance to win in Ang Mo Kio, a constituency helmed by the PM himself.”

At another camp, National Solidarity (NSP)'s Secretary-General Hazel Poa relinquished Marine Parade GRC and MacPherson SMC to avoid more multi-cornered fights which are likely to "dilute opposition votes and reduce the chances of a more diverse Parliament."

Meanwhile Workers' Party (WP)'s Sylvia Lim thanked NSP for the sacrifices so that they can focus on their targeted 10 constituencies announced. And NSP thanked Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) for withdrawing from Sembawang GRC “in the interest of opposition unity”.

So why is everybody playing nice? Is it the unintended effect of all those overtly sentimental songs with the home-heart-dream themes highlighted by a little boy? Don't be lulled by the rhetoric of a gentlemanly battle professed by Ng Eng Hen. The horrible person who said Deng Xiaoping was justified in crushing the young bodies of students with heavy tanks is just as likely to pass down the evil lessons of Mao:

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”