GE2020 - Vote Wisely.

Vote wisely. More importantly, vote with common-sense in mind. 

Here’s what I mean. 

To start off, PAP is asking for a strong mandate. Not wanting to be a wet blanket, I believe they will get it. Out of 93 seats, they should be able to secure a supermajority (which is over 70 seats), if not more.

In GE2015, there were 89 seats. PAP won 83 seats. The only opposition party that won that election run was WP. Yes, they retained Aljunied GRC. But it came with a price of a small margin victory (50.95%). 

So, the 13th Parliament (2015 - 2020), with 89 seats, PAP dominated Parliament with 83 seats. That is not just supermajority, that’s 93% absolute control. And none of the other opposition parties won, save for WP. 

Yet, this GE2020 would be an even steeper uphill climb for the opposition because of the close to $100b payout and the covid crisis. Anxiety and uncertainty shift mindset and destabilise hearts. It thus tends to cause the silent majority to prefer hanging on to the familiar, that is, the status quo. It’s like our security blanket, our warm comfort zone, or our little Sampan floating in charted waters. (Putting it bluntly, PAP is like the country’s maternal breast, and it will take a lot to wean the people completely off). 

That is why I am predicting the rather predictable. You really don’t need any crystal ball or Paul the Octopus for this. Germany then was a pleasant surprise, PAP will not be. 

In his last political broadcast yesterday, TCB said: “The PAP is telling you that to overcome this crisis, it must have complete mandate of all 93 seats in Parliament. Its idea of a Singapore Together is domination - with no opposition MPs elected into Parliament. Does this kind of Parliament really represent Singapore Together? Surely we can build a better vision of Singapore Together?”

Personally, I do not think that PAP is gunning for all 93 seats. No doubt, they want to win. It’s what all politicians want or dream of. What’s more, PM Lee would also want to leave office with an electoral bang loud enough, like CNY firecrackers, to red carpet his political heir in, that is, DPM HSK - the man with the East Coast plan. 

But winning all seats, all 93 of them, run the risk of bastardising the ideals of democracy in Singapore. I also believe the silent majority would not be pleased with that result too. 

The thing about the silent majority is that we want our cake and eat it, that is, we want our bed and bounce on it. And the democracy that is unique to Singapore is that we want PAP to continue to lead with as little disruption as possible, but we also want someone to watch over them, like a guard dog on sentry duty. 

Somehow, we just sleep sounder at night when we know the dog is going to bark at intruders breaching the perimeters (take note, this is just an analogy).

In other words, we simply distrust the colloquial coinage of “ownself check ownself”. And by the way, what is democracy in Parliament when you have 93 seats hotly contested and 93 seats coolly won by the same party. Isn’t the opposite of democracy autocracy, if not dictatorship? 

Well, this is where commonsense comes in. Democracy is no guarantee of good and honest government. FYI, Putin, Erdogan and Kim were all elected into office, by the people, for the people and of the people. 

Alas, the only problem is that the leader and the voters have different definitions of what “the people” means. For the dictator, the people is a means to their own ends. For the voters, they always harbour the hope, however misleading or naive, that “the people” means that this time, he will be different (that is, really put the people first as an end in itself). But most times, he is very much the same. 

So, going back to the GE2020, the possibility of sweeping all 93 seats in Parliament by tomorrow is no guarantee that Singapore will become a dictatorship. It will however mean that we will become a rather oxymoronic uniparty democracy, instead of a multiparty or duo-party democracy. 

Mind you, we only end up bastardising the ideals of democracy when we end up with leaders like Putin, Erdogan and Kim in a sham democratic republic. For the ideals of democracy cannot flourish without the character of a leader just like you cannot have a coin with only one side. 

In any event, look at the great democracy of the United States under Trump. It’s not exactly ideal right now, right? It could very well be a democratic womb giving birth to a problematic dictator. 

In the end, the question is, will Singapore survive politically should the opposition be wiped out tomorrow? Will the people or the silent majority be happy? I mean, it is not really too farfetch or fanciful to achieve that result, because the only opposition party clinging on in Parliament is WP with only 6 seats.

Well, I will let the outgoing PM Lee answer that and he recently answered it rather empathetically. 

“You want to have a good vote, of course, but how you interpret it also depends on the mood during the campaign and the vibes, whether the people feel that this is a good outcome and they are happy with it.”

He added: “If you have an election at the end of which you have, let’s say even a very overwhelming majority, but the minority who voted against you are extremely, intensely unhappy with the outcome, the country is divided, there is a lack of trust, mutual lack of respect - which is what’s happened in many Western countries, like in the US - I think that’s a bad outcome.”

Mm...it seems PAP, like the silent majority, wants the cake and eat it too - that is, to win “a very overwhelming majority” and at the same time, hoping for a happy ending.

In any event, if I may read between the lines, I guess the best outcome that would please most, if not all, Singaporeans, whether the silent majority or the vocal minority, is to see to it that PAP returns to power, warming the seats they had previously occupied, and then keeping some non-all-white opposition in tact in Parliament to perform their usual sentry guard duty.