"Fresh faces from private sector dominate PAP’s slate of first-timers - CNA 28 August 2015
SINGAPORE: A bumper crop of recruits from the private sector form the bulk of the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) new candidates this General Election (GE).
With the PAP’s introduction on Friday (Aug 28) of its final slate of candidates – its team for the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) - and barring any last-minute changes before Nomination Day, the ruling party will be fielding 22 candidates who will be contesting a GE for the first time.
Of these, 14 are from the private sector and two are from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This means that about two-thirds of the candidates are from outside the public sector.
This is a stark difference from 2011, when the party’s slate of 24 first-time candidates was dominated by 16 people from the public sector – including 5 from the labour movement - and only 8 from the private sector. Leaders from statutory boards and the armed forces had featured prominently.
The latest numbers seem to indicate that the party has bucked the trend in past GEs of relying on the public sector pool for its political recruits – a trend that has had some raising the possibility of “groupthink” in Government. When this was discussed recently, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean noted that in this GE, the PAP had found “a good slate” from the private sector.
“We want a person who can understand and bring the knowledge into Parliament, and possibly Cabinet, to bring a new dimension to our discussions. But we also have MPs active in the social sector which brings a new dimension too," Mr Teo said on Aug 22.
The private-sector recruits include lawyers, doctors in private practice and bankers. The candidates from NGOs are Louis Ng, founder of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society or ACRES; and Ms Joan Pereira, the assistant general manager of Temasek Cares."
Hmm. Maybe I am wrong about PAP not able to attract candidates from the private sector.
Lessons for me are:
1. it is good that they are able to showcase MORE candidates from the private sector than in the last GE. Maybe I am too critical of them as I won't count anyone from Temasek as from the private sector. Also, while lawyers, doctors and bankers are good at what they do, they are not necessarily connected to the ordinary people's life as they are by and large, material wise anyway, making good money, a lot more than the ordinary people. So, do they truly understand why the less privileged need to be helped?;
2. while DPM Teo insists that the PAP has a good balance of private and public sector candidates, the past performance of the PAP MPs unfortunately showed that MOST do not speak out against some of the policies that the people had problems with. Most, in fact, defended the position of the government as THEY understand the rationale and the need to carry out those so-called unpopular policies like: need for 6.9m population to keep growing our economy and create jobs for Singaporeans ultimately never mind 4 out 10 goes to them only. Only MP Inderjit Singh spoke up and won many admirers as he acknowledged what the people felt are real problems;
3. I am not sure about the tag: 'Suicide Squad' for the PAP's Aljunied team as WP has not done themselves any favours with the TC governance and financial management challenges. The ground there can be mixed. It is how both teams can win the minds of the voters over: was the WP Team unfairly crippled or burdened with trying to their jobs with the TC Software been taken away from them by AIM (the 2-dollar PAP company)? Yes they were unfairly impeded but does it not show their incompetence after running with it for more than 3 over years? Are they corrupt as alleged by the PAP or they are just left with no choice to let 'less than competent but committed people who want to work with WP' since no one else seems to want to be associated with WP TC? is there a SG100 IF Singapore continued to be run by just ideas just from the dominant party in government? What does it say about the resilience of our political system if defeated candidates from the ruling party just packed up and go saying: 'to hell with you ungrateful voters who don't know how much we have done for you'? I mean, if the voters are ungrateful, or even stupid, don't they need MORE HELP from the wise?
SINGAPORE: A bumper crop of recruits from the private sector form the bulk of the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) new candidates this General Election (GE).
With the PAP’s introduction on Friday (Aug 28) of its final slate of candidates – its team for the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) - and barring any last-minute changes before Nomination Day, the ruling party will be fielding 22 candidates who will be contesting a GE for the first time.
Of these, 14 are from the private sector and two are from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This means that about two-thirds of the candidates are from outside the public sector.
This is a stark difference from 2011, when the party’s slate of 24 first-time candidates was dominated by 16 people from the public sector – including 5 from the labour movement - and only 8 from the private sector. Leaders from statutory boards and the armed forces had featured prominently.
The latest numbers seem to indicate that the party has bucked the trend in past GEs of relying on the public sector pool for its political recruits – a trend that has had some raising the possibility of “groupthink” in Government. When this was discussed recently, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean noted that in this GE, the PAP had found “a good slate” from the private sector.
“We want a person who can understand and bring the knowledge into Parliament, and possibly Cabinet, to bring a new dimension to our discussions. But we also have MPs active in the social sector which brings a new dimension too," Mr Teo said on Aug 22.
The private-sector recruits include lawyers, doctors in private practice and bankers. The candidates from NGOs are Louis Ng, founder of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society or ACRES; and Ms Joan Pereira, the assistant general manager of Temasek Cares."
Hmm. Maybe I am wrong about PAP not able to attract candidates from the private sector.
Lessons for me are:
1. it is good that they are able to showcase MORE candidates from the private sector than in the last GE. Maybe I am too critical of them as I won't count anyone from Temasek as from the private sector. Also, while lawyers, doctors and bankers are good at what they do, they are not necessarily connected to the ordinary people's life as they are by and large, material wise anyway, making good money, a lot more than the ordinary people. So, do they truly understand why the less privileged need to be helped?;
2. while DPM Teo insists that the PAP has a good balance of private and public sector candidates, the past performance of the PAP MPs unfortunately showed that MOST do not speak out against some of the policies that the people had problems with. Most, in fact, defended the position of the government as THEY understand the rationale and the need to carry out those so-called unpopular policies like: need for 6.9m population to keep growing our economy and create jobs for Singaporeans ultimately never mind 4 out 10 goes to them only. Only MP Inderjit Singh spoke up and won many admirers as he acknowledged what the people felt are real problems;
3. I am not sure about the tag: 'Suicide Squad' for the PAP's Aljunied team as WP has not done themselves any favours with the TC governance and financial management challenges. The ground there can be mixed. It is how both teams can win the minds of the voters over: was the WP Team unfairly crippled or burdened with trying to their jobs with the TC Software been taken away from them by AIM (the 2-dollar PAP company)? Yes they were unfairly impeded but does it not show their incompetence after running with it for more than 3 over years? Are they corrupt as alleged by the PAP or they are just left with no choice to let 'less than competent but committed people who want to work with WP' since no one else seems to want to be associated with WP TC? is there a SG100 IF Singapore continued to be run by just ideas just from the dominant party in government? What does it say about the resilience of our political system if defeated candidates from the ruling party just packed up and go saying: 'to hell with you ungrateful voters who don't know how much we have done for you'? I mean, if the voters are ungrateful, or even stupid, don't they need MORE HELP from the wise?
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