ATTACK THE BEST FORM OF DEFENCE FOR PAP

By Cheryl Chan

Political Correspondent

 

With even party stalwarts like Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong admitting that “the ground is not so sweet” ahead of the coming General Election, the ruling PAP is set to face one of its most gruelling contests in modern history.

 

The polls on May 7 are likely to see many ‘firsts’ for Singapore’s opposition. Firstly, for the first time since Singapore’s independence, the opposition is set to challenge for all 87 Parliamentary seats on offer. Secondly, the slate of opposition candidates is unprecedented in terms of strength, with scores of former government scholars, civil servants, corporate high-flyers and even senior political aides flocking to join its ranks.

 

Meanwhile, the PAP has, by its own admission, found it difficult to attract candidates, forcing it to turn to its most reliable sources – the Armed Forces, the NTUC and the civil service – for new blood.

 

Even though the state-controlled mainstream media has sent its propaganda machine into overdrive trying to build up the PAP, the fact remains that much of Singapore’s electorate is becoming increasingly disenfranchised with the party that has held a monopoly on power since 1959, against the backdrop of soaring inflation, depressed wages, and the uncontrolled influx of foreign immigrants – who now make up 1 in 4 people living in the country.

 

 

If You Can’t Convince, Confuse

 

In the face of unrelenting pressure from opposition parties over these issues, the PAP seems to have decided that attack is the best form of defence. Instead of defending their own policies or explaining why they are superior, PAP ministers have concentrated their focus on lambasting the opposition’s alternative policy proposals – in addition to harping on, ad nauseam, on the party’s track record and the opposition parties’ lack thereof.

 

For over 20 years, PAP leaders have been singing the same familiar refrain. The opposition is irresponsible because all it does is criticise and find fault. The opposition never has anything constructive to say or any solutions to propose.

 

This time around, however, the opposition parties have come prepared – armed to the teeth, in fact, with policy proposals. The Workers’ Party has released a 65-page manifesto with policy recommendations in every area from public housing to low-wage workers to nationalised public transport.

 

The Singapore Democratic Party, previously viewed as a party fixated only on human rights and civil liberties, wrote up its own Shadow Budget, and has made repeated calls for the introduction of minimum wage and a ‘Singaporeans-first’ labour policy. One of its candidates, Tan Jee Say, wrote a 45-page paper earlier this year, calling for Singapore to reduce its reliance on manufacturing and to make serious attempts to reshape the economy into being more services-oriented.

 

In contrast, the PAP manifesto for this election contains only vague slogans and generic platitudes on “securing our future together”, “ensuring no one gets left behind” and “creating more meaningful jobs”. It says nothing about how these objectives will be achieved, and provides no details of any proposed policies to bring about these desired ends.

 

When this was brought to the attention of cabinet minister Lim Swee Say, all he could say was that the “future was uncertain”, and that the PAP would formulate policies to deal with problems as they arose. He added that the manifesto was not meant to contain specific details, and that Singaporeans should not focus on the “micro aspects”.

 

 

Relentless Assault

 

The Deputy Prime Minister, however, appeared to take a different view, at least as far as the WP manifesto was concerned. Mr Wong Kan Seng did not just want to know what the WP’s recommendations were, but how they would actually implement them, and how their initiatives would be funded. He called on Singaporeans to “scrutinise” the WP’s manifesto and hold them to account – a perfect diversion tactic to shield the PAP from the spotlight.

 

Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam did not just take issue with the WP’s manifesto, he even found time to find fault with its slogan. He wanted to know which model the WP was referring to when it said it wanted to build towards a “First World Parliament”, and accused the WP of deliberately avoiding answering that question. He added that the WP ought to come clean on whether it thought Singapore should adopt the political models of any “First World” countries, and went on to attack the flaws of Western democractic systems, stating that legislation often could not be passed as a result of infighting within Parliament.

 

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan chose to take a more specific approach, honing in on the WP’s proposals to peg the price of new HDB flats to median incomes because the existing policy to peg new home prices to “market rates” was making it difficult for first-time home-buyers to afford HDB flats. Without actually explaining the merits of the PAP approach, Mr Mah lambasted the WP proposals as “dangerous”, “ill-conceived” and “irresponsible”. He added that the WP’s calls for the Singapore Land Authority to charge the HDB less for state land was tantamount to “illegally raiding the national reserves”.

 

Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen did not even bother attacking the WP’s policies. He went straight for the jugular, choosing instead of question the commitment of its candidates. Training his sights on Taiwan-born corporate lawyer Chen Show Mao, Dr Ng wanted to know how Mr Chen could relate to the “aspirations of Singaporeans”, seeing as he had spent “his entire career working in the United States and China”. He also called on the WP to stop avoiding questions on Mr Chen’s motives and intentions in joining politics after almost 30 years abroad.

 

Turning their attentions to the SDP, Ministers Lim Swee Say and Lim Hng Kiang criticised proposals from new candidate Tan Jee Say – who was formerly an administrative service officer and Principal Private Secretary to Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong – to decrease Singapore’s reliance on manufacturing. Mr Tan says that the industry has led to an over-reliance of foreign workers, which has in turn led to depressed wages for Singaporean workers. He wants Singapore to move towards becoming a service-based economy instead.

 

Ignoring the fact that the PAP has long advocated a move towards being a service-based economy, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, the Minister for Trade and Industry, said that Mr Tan’s suggestions were “unrealistic” as the services sector would not drive the same level of growth as manufacturing. How he came to this conclusion is anyone’s guess, as no reasoning was provided.

 

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, will be coming up against Mr Tan’s heavyweight SDP team in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. He did not make any comment on any of the recommendations put forward in Mr Tan’s 45-page paper, choosing instead to say that he had failed to exercise due diligence in joining the SDP.

 

In a stinging attack on both Mr Tan and the SDP, Dr Balakrishnan said that their decision to contest in Holland-Bukit Timah was “purely opportunistic”, and that the team comprised of “strange bedfellows” in a “marriage of convenience”. He questioned the SDP team’s “agenda and motivations” and accused them of “having no plans” for the constituency.

 

 

Is The PAP Out Of Ideas?

 

Going back to the familiar PAP refrain that the opposition just criticises and does not put forward any alternatives, it seems that the all-knowing PAP has become guilty of violating the age-old maxim that says: “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”

 

Even with the subservient mainstream media on its side, voters are finding it odd that the PAP seems to be taking on the role of an opposition party instead of that of the ruling party. It has not put forward any concrete policy proposals of its own, and has instead confined itself to attacking the policy proposals put forward by the opposition – most notably the WP and SDP. Could it be that Singapore’s leaders have become so flummoxed by the unprecedented scale of the coming electoral contest that they have been caught unaware, and are reacting out of sheer panic and frustration?

 

Or could it be that the PAP leaders know that their policies – such as the further liberalisation of immigration laws needed in order to boost the population to 6.5 million – will not go down well with an already enraged electorate, and so do not want to reveal the full extent of their plans for fear of suffering a backlash at the polls?

 

Could it be that the PAP has become accustomed to having a monopoly on ideas after 51 years of interrupted rule that it has allowed itself to become so insular and out of touch – as evidenced from the fact that two-thirds of its new candidates have been drawn from the public sector and the NTUC – that it has now become suspicious and fearful of the same electorate that it has previously managed to keep docile, subjugated and indifferent?

 

Could it be that the PAP now realises that its policies are indefensible and unjustifiable in the eyes of the voters, because they are designed to benefit only a small coterie of political and business elites at the expense of the common working man and woman?

 

Perhaps it is a combination of several or even all of these factors. Backed into a corner, the PAP’s leaders now realise that Singaporeans no longer have complete and unconditional faith in them, and in order for the party to retain its stranglehold on Parliament, the best approach is to ensure that Singaporeans have even less faith in the opposition, and vote in the party that is the least worst option.

 

The problem is that for many voters, the least worst option is no longer the PAP.

 

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The writer is a political science graduate from the National University of Singapore. She is currently working as an analyst at a leading research firm.

 

 

 

 

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