GE 2011 Again... (Blog post #7)

Recently, I have been posting a lot about the General Elections 2011, partly because I am very interested in politics and also because this year's election is extremely meaningful. Being the only election in which the PAP met a strong opponent, this is the most significant election since independence. I will now be talking about my feelings towards this year's elections.

In this election, the percentage of votes won by the PAP dropped by a huge amount. One of the reasons is because they have a strong opposition this year, Worker's Party, and another being the two most senior ministers, MM Lee and SM Goh, launched personal attacks on Mr Low Thia Khiang and Mr Tan Jee Say respectively. This earned them the public's displeasure, thus leading to their number of votes dropping.

In this year's elections, some of the fights between PAP and the opposition are narrow, especially the one between Mrs Lina Chiam, representing her husband from SPP, and Mr Sitoh Yih Pin from PAP. Winning only by 114 votes, the residents of Potong Pasir demanded a re-election since the gap was too small. Personally, I feel that PAP should let Mrs Chiam take over Potong Pasir, since Mr Chiam himself has already been running it for 27 years ever since he won it over from the hands of PAP. In fact, he should not have gone to compete for Bishan-Toa Payoh and instead stay and continue his hold on Potong Pasir.

Another of the numerous elections I would like to highlight is the one in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. One of the members in the SDP team there is Mr Tan Jee Say, who was formerly SM Goh's private secretary. In his speeches, he mentioned his displeasure about the government, which was his main reason for quitting his job and joining the opposing political party. He even revealed the secret that ministers get a yearly bonus of 8-12 months worth of their monthly salary, which amounts up to 2 million or more. If he did not divulge this, we would never have known where the surpluses of our taxes paid went! In this election, however, Mr Tan's team only won 39.9% of the votes, probably because they were not strong enough to compete with the PAP team led by Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and they did not have specifically planned actions.

All in all, this election was a close fight between PAP and the opposition, and the next election would be even more interesting, whether WP will earn the public's vote and continue its hold on Aljunied or do badly in governing them and lose to PAP again. In this case, both parties will do their best in serving the people of Singapore so as to earn the public's consent.