Sights and sounds at Punggol East By-Elections

> Ask why many who helped out at the Meet the People Session or RC are in for.. you may be surprised

1. My previous RC chairman - he do all the renting of the chairs, tables & structures for the occasions, All the tours were organised by him.

2. Some of the RC members - join because of children primary school places.

There are really dedicated people who want to serve. But yes, a lot of them are vested by self interests...

(28-01-2013, 05:34 PM)Stocker Wrote: Priority to get a HDB flat , school . Many who deal with local biz hope to get PBMs BBM.

somemore...free carpark under the GRC they serve, special privileges if your flat bind by MOP or race quota, if they want can give a valid reason to help you.

2 of my friends, 1 helping rich grassroot have free transport and chicken rice provide...the other poor opposition grassroot you pay your own tpt and buy your own chicken rice.

Do you know, pasir malam along the road in HDB housing estate those stall holder pay daily rental to who? Ans: grassroot and collected by TC on their behalf. Now you know why they are so rich...Btw, those foot-way along the road who is the owner? LTA or HDB ?.

When I was young, my parent always reminded me to vote for PAP, without them we will still squat in the kampong. In those days, they built really low cost subsidized public housing for my parent at only $6,200 for a 3 room flat.

Now the younger generation tell their grandparent not to vote PAP.
PE majority of them are below 40.
PAP jialet liao, give handicap also cannot win.

(28-01-2013, 08:54 PM)specuvestor Wrote: Do we really envy Taiwan politics degeneration where the politicians are so enslaved by populist policies, and public servants are degraded and ridiculed to the extent of inaction, after authoritarian strongman Chiang and his son? (an unfortunate coincidence with Singapore which I hope will not be extrapolated further in the future)

中庸之道.

I am a happy observer of the change in climate in Singapore politics, giving credit to LHL for opening up, vs the lip service and even worse policies of his predecessor that planted the roots of all these problems. I wouldn't want the pendulum of individualism to swing to the other extreme.

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(28-01-2013, 06:13 PM)sgd Wrote: I don't want or need anybody to government me.

this is a pretty dangerous ideology as the right wing republicans in US. They are ok to enjoy the fruit of collectivism ie bailouts or New Jersey federal aid, but assume all success is attributed to the individual only.

I don't believe in Rambos, nor the Hollywood excessive portrayal of a man changing the world. Neither LKY nor Steve Jobs can achieve what they achieved without the team of people backing them up.

It's a bit like having a tender with your suppliers would you rather have 1 supplier or many many different suppliers they will come in all of them jumping in to win your deal and they will impress you and let you squeeze them by giving you freebies bring you out for meals maybe even entertainment and in the end you will still get the best deal. Do you really care which company is a better supplier even more expensive as long as you meet your own targets? And is that really a bad thing?

If singaporeans can squeeze the max from these people who have been squeezing us all along is that really so bad?

(28-01-2013, 04:56 PM)arthur Wrote: Anyway, enough of my blabbering, hope you enjoy the clip which MSM would not show it at any cost.

Only a WP activist would think that the MSM should show a 4 minute clip on WP activism.

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(28-01-2013, 05:06 PM)yeokiwi Wrote: Same with PA. Either they disband it or reorganise it to be political party independent.
It's kind of mockery when PA stands for People's Association while the people does not identify with the association.

Who do you mean by identify with PA? Most HDB heartlander would have used the community centre facilities at some point, even without knowing that the organization running the CC is PA. Is it important for PA to promote itself?

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It is clear that the desire for change is unstoppable. I am sure that the PAP leaders are fully aware that the likelihood of them being voted out of power in the next GE is quite high. The responsible thing to do is to strengthen the civil service. Having come into contact with civil servants from various countries in the region, I have high regard for our civil service. However the risk is still there because Singapore has never changed government.

While many were celebrating on Saturday night, I am also sure there many who were worried. And not just from the PAP camp. It will be interesting to know what is going on in Mr Low's mind now. He looked very preoccupied during the press conference. Whether he wants it or not, the all important task of governing Singapore could fall on him sooner than he has ever expected. Should he failed, he and his team will really end up as 历史罪人.

when everything in public service is marked and benchmarked to net economic value, it is no wonder that public hdb flat is also treated as a commodity asset.

" Do you really care which company is a better supplier even more expensive as long as you meet your own targets? And is that really a bad thing?

If singaporeans can squeeze the max from these people who have been squeezing us all along is that really so bad?"

That's one of the lesson of HDB fiasco under Mah when a lot of contractors collapsed about 10 years ago due to the lowest price bidding and HDB was tight on cash flow.

Nobody likes to be squeezed, even politicians. I always believe people will perform best when they are fulfilled. Question is the lack of accountability that's been festering in the elitist ideology ie I know better than you. This is not the same and runs counter to meritocracy.

Pianist is right that public services cannot be benchmarked to economic goals. Capitalism is just a TOOL to make them efficient, rather than become goals in itself. Otherwise we should just abolish defence since it is not a profit generator.

(28-01-2013, 11:02 PM)touzi Wrote:

(28-01-2013, 04:56 PM)arthur Wrote: Anyway, enough of my blabbering, hope you enjoy the clip which MSM would not show it at any cost.

Only a WP activist would think that the MSM should show a 4 minute clip on WP activism.

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(28-01-2013, 05:06 PM)yeokiwi Wrote: Same with PA. Either they disband it or reorganise it to be political party independent.
It's kind of mockery when PA stands for People's Association while the people does not identify with the association.

Who do you mean by identify with PA? Most HDB heartlander would have used the community centre facilities at some point, even without knowing that the organization running the CC is PA. Is it important for PA to promote itself?

---

It is clear that the desire for change is unstoppable. I am sure that the PAP leaders are fully aware that the likelihood of them being voted out of power in the next GE is quite high. The responsible thing to do is to strengthen the civil service. Having come into contact with civil servants from various countries in the region, I have high regard for our civil service. However the risk is still there because Singapore has never changed government.

While many were celebrating on Saturday night, I am also sure there many who were worried. And not just from the PAP camp. It will be interesting to know what is going on in Mr Low's mind now. He looked very preoccupied during the press conference. Whether he wants it or not, the all important task of governing Singapore could fall on him sooner than he has ever expected. Should he failed, he and his team will really end up as 历史罪人.

No party is indispensable, nothing to worry.

(28-01-2013, 11:02 PM)touzi Wrote: Who do you mean by identify with PA? Most HDB heartlander would have used the community centre facilities at some point, even without knowing that the organization running the CC is PA. Is it important for PA to promote itself?

http://www.pa.gov.sg/images/news/10021907482126516.pdf
PA mission statement
To Build and to Bridge Communities in achieving One People, One Singapore


Not I say one and the target is not set by me either.

Obviously, citizens think otherwise(especially those in Aljunied, Hougang and Punggol East).
They are more like burning bridges than building them.

(28-01-2013, 11:02 PM)touzi Wrote: While many were celebrating on Saturday night, I am also sure there many who were worried. And not just from the PAP camp. It will be interesting to know what is going on in Mr Low's mind now. He looked very preoccupied during the press conference. Whether he wants it or not, the all important task of governing Singapore could fall on him sooner than he has ever expected. Should he failed, he and his team will really end up as 历史罪人.

During GE2011, WP contested for 23 seats, out of a total of 87. Looks unlikely what you say will happen soon, unless they're able to field more than double the numbers in the next GE or they form a coalition with other winning opposition parties (assuming they're able to swing the voters).

But what you say about others (besides PAP) who ought to be worried is likely to be very true... for RP and SDA. From this 4-corner fight, it becomes very obvious that these 2 parties (besides PAP) ought to be doing some serious soul searching... I wonder if they'll still be around, come next GE... If so, IMO, most likely, they won't be able to attract many capable people as candidates to join them...

(29-01-2013, 12:17 AM)cfa Wrote:

(28-01-2013, 11:02 PM)touzi Wrote:

(28-01-2013, 04:56 PM)arthur Wrote: Anyway, enough of my blabbering, hope you enjoy the clip which MSM would not show it at any cost.

Only a WP activist would think that the MSM should show a 4 minute clip on WP activism.

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(28-01-2013, 05:06 PM)yeokiwi Wrote: Same with PA. Either they disband it or reorganise it to be political party independent.
It's kind of mockery when PA stands for People's Association while the people does not identify with the association.

Who do you mean by identify with PA? Most HDB heartlander would have used the community centre facilities at some point, even without knowing that the organization running the CC is PA. Is it important for PA to promote itself?

---

It is clear that the desire for change is unstoppable. I am sure that the PAP leaders are fully aware that the likelihood of them being voted out of power in the next GE is quite high. The responsible thing to do is to strengthen the civil service. Having come into contact with civil servants from various countries in the region, I have high regard for our civil service. However the risk is still there because Singapore has never changed government.

While many were celebrating on Saturday night, I am also sure there many who were worried. And not just from the PAP camp. It will be interesting to know what is going on in Mr Low's mind now. He looked very preoccupied during the press conference. Whether he wants it or not, the all important task of governing Singapore could fall on him sooner than he has ever expected. Should he failed, he and his team will really end up as 历史罪人.

No party is indispensable, nothing to worry.

Many people are being misled to believe the politicians run the country. The americans change administrations once every 4-8 years how the country can keep functioning if they keep changing people? So are our political system any different? The Politicians don't run the country it is the civil service that runs everything and there's an army of them to do everything. The politicians are like ceo of companies they have managers to run things for them so they have power lunches with this or that counterpart or senator or congressman, their job is high level just to build contacts and once a while meet the people session. You notice meet people session there's at least a note taker they are taking notes so they can divide work out to people later on. So don't worry the civil service are running things. The politicians anybody can take over their job.

If you still believe that the politicians here are indispensible just take a look at the current cabinet all are new people, not a single one from SM Goh or MM Lee era have remained, if really those guys were indispensible then our country would have collapsed the moment they stepped down why things are still running? So you see politicans don't run the country and I don't think it's difficult to do power lunches either.

As for the civil service entrenched in the branches of PAP yes is there but these are average citizens like you and me they have their own families to support and bills to pay so is not like they going to walk away from their jobs if WP run things tomorrow, these days when people walk away from their jobs in mass protest they will get thrown into prison as we have learnt quite recently from smrt bus drivers.

So don't worry too much no party is indispensable as what cfa says.