“The only thing I know about elections is that I don’t need to work on Polling Day because it’s a public holiday.”
The above statement was from a conversation I had with a fellow sports volunteer during last year’s ASEAN Para-Games. I can still vividly remember that conversation because of the shock I felt when I first heard that statement.
Such a statement implies that some Singaporeans are not fully aware about the importance of their vote, and the effect that their vote will have on our future and the future of our children. It is very worrying to know that some Singaporeans perceive elections as nothing more than an opportunity to get a public holiday.
Elections is not and must never be about us getting a public holiday and a day off work. Elections is and must always be about us choosing the right people with the right heart and the right intentions, who is driven by the sole desire to become servants of the people so that they can build a better future for all Singaporeans.
On this day last year, Singaporeans voted overwhelmingly for the PAP to serve them as the political party to govern Singapore and to chart our future. Now that it has been a year since that day, it is as good a time as any for us to reflect on the choices we had made a year ago. It is necessary for all of us to reflect on the choices we had made last year because our choices are going to determine the future Singapore that our children and grandchildren will be living in.
Here are five very fundamental questions that we should ponder about:
1) Have the government we voted for acted in a way that is deserving of the mandate that we had given them?
2) Have the government we voted for fulfilled or is working hard to fulfil the promises they had made to us during the elections campaign?
3) Have the government we voted for acted in a way that makes them deserving of being called the government that will build a better future for us and our children?
4) Are the government’s actions and inactions in the past one year in line with the kind of actions and inactions that we were expecting the government to take when we decided to give them our mandate?
5) Are the policies and laws that the government have implemented in the past one year and are planning to implement in the future in line with the kind of policies and laws that we were expecting the government to implement when we decided to give them our mandate?
In less than five years time, we will be given another opportunity to choose our future. Let us use this time to reflect on the actions and inactions of the government we had chosen in 2015, to think about the kind of people we want as our voices in Parliament, and to ponder about the future we want to leave behind for our children, our society and our nation.