Khalil was covering the events unfolding at Tahrir Square for the English edition of Al-Masry Al-Youm when he had the exchange with a police officer in plain clothes:
I told him that the main problem with Egypt regarding elections is that there was no distinction between the government and the National Democratic Party. Every government function - from police work to election monitoring to the committee that permits the formation of political parties - were all under the controlI of a single political party. I quoted a Muslim Brotherhood politician who liked to refer to the Interior Ministry as "the military wing of the NDP".
So what chance did any opposition party or candidate have if all the levers of power and enforcement were controlled by a rival party with a vested in the results? Egypt would never know true democracy, I told him, until the NDP had just as much power and government control as any other party. As long as the government was the NDP, then everything was fake. (pages 95, 96)
Sounds familiar? Make the appropriate substitutions and you can see many sacred cows will continue to enjoy immunity in perpetuity. And even Mubarak did not have the despicable GRC invention.
It is too early to read into the surprise largess of Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, accepting a $30,000 composition offer that will effectively annul the bankruptcy of Chee Soon Juan declared for damages of $500,000. Perhaps the new boys in charge have no taste for the turmoil of an Arab Spring. They just want to talk the issues to death, not face up to reality and solve them.
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Complain more about foreign workers, suddenly cleaners become a shortage and they even threatened that residents may have to clean their own common areas.
ReplyDeleteHey for God's sake, who is complaining about foreign cleaners as if they are the causing so much unhappiness like those Filipina bank tellers at DBS/POSB Bank, etc 'shunned' by local Singaporeans.
In the first place, if our PAP govt are not granting them PRs or citizenships, why tighten the work permits ? So is our PAP govt rigging the system to make it difficult for the rest of us ? Want us to repent .... again ?
LOL..not only that. Even a statement to warn that 31 breaches had happened at past elections and "more measures will be taken". Guess who that message was for?
DeleteAnyone who is still reading Leslie Fong silly dumb-down article must and agree with him, must still live in the LKY 70s/80s era.
DeleteThey go after the FW and cleaners because is the lowest hanging fruits to attack. I am still waiting for the highest dangling fruits for TCJ to tackle - ie. abuses in the PMET areas! And he has NO CLUEs.
Not granting PRs or Citizenships, does not mean not granting Foreigners with work permits. The only difference is they are working residents without a Permanent residence. (see it as temporary residents with fixed limited contract)
DeleteSo it depends how the questions are asked, and how the answers are given. And if the right questions are followed up to verify.
http://therealsingapore.com/content/sakae-sushi-paying-3000mth-cleaner-couldnt-find-any
Delete$3000 and No cleaners?! Yeah right..how many of those are fake examples exposed by the CSI team. And now they will give the citizens yet another false dichotomy. Take FW or Else...
Hear it from the author here.
ReplyDeleteIt was said that the people faced the demoralizing prospect of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, continuing his father’s nepotistic, kleptocratic style of governance into the foreseeable future. The people felt the shame — as a nation of famously “clever, resourceful and resilient” people, inheritors of an ancient and storied civilization — at being dominated by a pack of bullies, liars and incompetents.
http://pomeps.org/2012/02/liberation-square-inside-the-egyptian-revolution-and-the-rebirth-of-a-nation-a-conversation-with-ashraf-khalil-2/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/13/egypt-revolution-hosni-mubaraks-final-tragedy.html
DeleteYou rigged the system. The people rid you. Simple as that.
//They just want to talk the issues to death, not face up to reality and solve them.//
ReplyDeleteThe conversation is about what we want? Or about what they can/will deliver?
Ah..the two sly foxes finally ready to release CSJ into the boxing ring. Just like the PE strategy, let the cannibalization begins.
ReplyDeleteAn astute observation - the old divide and conquer tactic, split the opposition vote with 3 corner fights, etc. But they play the card too early, plenty of time for the egos within the party to sort things out before going into battle.
DeleteMagnanimity from the Father and Holy Goh to CSJ, before they sail into the sunset or the beyond. A sacred cow has been slain? A new dawn, a new beginning? Every journey begins with a single step. We'll have to wait and see.
ReplyDeleteThis part of the game plan in conjuction with Nat Con to prevent any losse of another GRC/SW for 2016. You have to CONvince those 10% people that you are sincere. Have to wait and see then.
DeleteDon't wait and see. Single step starts with you.
ReplyDeleteIf this country can allow an ex-viagra peddling doctor whose license was revoked in USA but allowed to practice here in SG, what is that small expense claim that was wrongfully used to sack CSJ and denied his livelihood for the last 20years; what's more, in light of those grotesques wastage by present day government.
The two old farts have to do that as they know they have no moral case for it.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chee-Soon-Juan/79314173848
Critical questions people need to ask themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhy should Dr Chee in the first place force to pay these two clowns millions resulting in his bankruptcy, and still have to pay them ? Why ? Why ? Didn't the questions that Dr Chee raised is the same questions we ask today ? Where is the billions and millions, and how is the money accountable, among the questions ? If these questions asked by Dr Chee implies defamation , then what didn't the two clowns sue everyone in the blogosphere that ask the same things as Dr Chee , even though we don't have the protection as those who ask in parliament ?
Why didn't the government sue Christopher Baldings for his research on TH/GIC who reveals shocking discovery that leads the govt to alter data from 17% return to 3.9% ?
http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/08/01/gic-and-temasek%E2%80%99s-annualised-returns-revised/
This govt still have the cheek to wayang and talk down the public with National CONverstion ? Where is accountability in spending these wasted millions as wayang ?
Exactly. CSJ paid the price of $30k for slamming the leaders.
DeleteThese days, people are doing it for free!
Is overpaid IMHO. Should have waived the wand before calling them angels. Besides, 20yrs is a lifetime you can never retrieve.
HK has 1 country 2 systems.
DeleteSG has 1 country 2 standards.
If a deal/offer looks too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
ReplyDeleteFor a start, they'll probably ban Chee's book from being sold here now.
However, the acceptance does provide some distraction in the national conversation about the National Conversation.
The NC has been receiving quite a whacking. And deservedly so. Just setting it up has been a fiasco so far. For a start, we now know that all that talk about sacred cows being sacrificed is a lot of bull. Perhaps Chee will be the sacrificial lamb.
Indeed. Natcon does get a tick under the ‘LKY would never have done that’ category. In other speak, managing expectations also translate to managing perception.
Deletelooks more like managing anger than managing expectations to me....
Deletei believe the useless PM knows the 40% is a lost cause while a huge chunk of his supporters are getting pissed off with his ill thought policies.
“Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?”
ReplyDelete- Lee Kuan Yew, Asahai Shimbun symposium, May 9, 1991
I think LKY would add in the middle-eastern Arabs if he is still wielding his knuckle-duster.
AT least our leader never go MIA lah, unlike that other President-in-waiting while the entire south china sea are going topsy-turvy.
ReplyDeletehttp://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/9/1/focus/11949899&sec=focus
Great article Tattler.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the speech by Warren Elizabeth at DNC who said "the system is rigged against them"
I think we can partially agree with that similarity here, but to add in the lower income band - double whammy.
Was at least prepared to give the PM some slacks when he came up again with the National Conversation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, after all the twists and turns, I must say, I am 90% doubtful, they will not slay, "cry father, cry mother" people like me, rather than those sacred cows.
Incidentally, I stand qualified to be a "cry father, cry mother" citizen, as both my parents are no longer on this earth. Cry father, cry mother, in some PAP MP lingo are those who "cow pey, cow bu"....
Anonymous9/12/2012 1:44 PM
ReplyDelete"If a deal/offer looks too good to be true, it probably isn't true."
LKY and GCT were awarded damages of $500K for the 2001 18 billion loan libel suit, for which Chee was declared a bankrupt, and $300K to LHL and LKY in 2006 (after he was declared a bankrupt) for the NKF libel suit. The Official Assignee and Chee did not specify which, so the $30K composition must seem to cover both cases to annul the bankruptcy - except that LHL is still mum.
It is Chee who offered the deal, and it was accepted, not the other way around! So what gives? Have the two old farts suffered a techtonic shift in the mindsets, or have they cut a backroom deal with Chee, because not everything is what meets the eye. Or will LHL pull the rug from under him for the 2006 $300K? Only time will tell what really happened or will happen.
If Chee was already bankrupt in 2001, how come they still to get $300K from him in 2006? Squeezing blood out of stone?
ReplyDeleteChee was bankrupted in 2006 because of 2001 case. A few months later they awarded damages of $300K for the NKF case. Ya, they were squeezing him. So Chee is not off the hook yet, I think! So it depends on whether the $30K settlement includes the $300K damages, but they did not say. Otherwise they can bankrupt him again!
DeleteIs there any statute that says that you can award damages against a bankrupt?
DeleteCorrection: Is there any statute that says that you cannot award damages against a bankrupt? It happened in 2006 against Chee. Did they rescind this award? They did against DBS, who wanted to claim from Chee the costs of the proceedings.
DeleteA temporary peace does not mean war is over.
ReplyDeleteUntil all 3 are dead, the animosity will not
die.