by singfirst
Channel News Asia sought SingFirst’s views regarding PM Lee’s speech at the PAP party conference on 7 Dec 2014. He spoke about how the next GE will be a deadly serious fight, that it was about choosing the next government and not merely giving more seats to the opposition. CNA’s report on his speech here.
CNA: What is Sing First’s response to the speech?
SingFirst : The PM shows lack of confidence. He is flip-flopping. More than 20 years ago when town councils were introduced, PAP had said that election was about electing MPs to manage local housing estates, instilling fear in voters that their estates would be mismanaged by opposition MPs and would consequently drop in value. Now that opposition MPs have proven that they can manage housing estates, PAP is singing a different tune. By describing it as a national election now, PAP hopes to instill fear in voters that opposition cannot manage the country. We will prove the PAP wrong just as the opposition PAP themselves without experience in government proved the ruling party in 1959 wrong. There is another revealing aspect. By downplaying the local dimension of a GE, the PM unwittingly shows his lack of confidence in his party local machinery which has been failing in recent years. He knows his local machinery will fail him again in the coming GE and it will not be a surprise if he is side-stepping them. PM also implies that the nation does not need checkers. He is wrong. Every organisation needs checkers; for example, the accounts of companies need to be checked by auditors. Without checkers, the PAP government will be prosecutor, judge and jury, all in one. Isn’t this scary? The PM is also wrong to say a checker will mean one doer or thinker less and hence a less effective government. The government does not need all MPs to be in government. it only needs a majority of MPs to form the government or 44 MPs in the current Parliament; not all MPs are members of the government with government posts. So even if all the 43 non-government MPs are opposition MPs, the government can still function effectively with all 43 opposition MPs as checkers. The PM misled Singaporeans by saying opposition parties have no vision. If he goes to the website of opposition parties, he will notice they have a vision for the country. For example, SingFirst states its vision loud and clear on its website. Obviously PM does not know his competitors well. Has he forgotten what Sun Tze said, “Know yourself, know your enemy, a thousand battles, a thousand victories.” With LHL as leader, PAP will not win a thousand victories and it will not achieve its stated goal of winning back all lost seats. Isn’t it time for the PAP to change its Secretary General?
CNA: How would the party define the next GE?
SingFirst : We see the next GE as a last chance for Singaporeans to assert ourselves, our interests and well being in the face of PAP’s relentless attempt to dilute the core of native Singaporeans by converting huge numbers of foreigners to citizenship. Yes the next GE is deadly serious for true blue Singaporeans. CNA:
How is the party gearing up for the next elections?
SingFirst: We are gearing up to contest as many constituencies as we can to provide an alternative to the PAP in cooperation with other opposition parties.