Daily Lessons from Life 26 January 2013 - Punggol East By-Election Surprises!

Met up with some ex-PW Singapore colleagues at one of their beautifully appointed home. Key reason being in honour of one who visited Singapore from London for business.

It so happened that the by-election results for the Punggol East SMC would be announced on 26 January 2013 too.

Folks in this circle should naturally be the supporters of the ruling party but not really. Maybe the ruling part has missed something that these folks cared about a lot. While they are very well to do and successful in their own rights, they do feel that the next generation will have it much tougher than them. Certain things are going as well as they should given the 'reputation' of the ruling party.

Anyway, some are still die-hard fans and were irritated by some of us who showed too much enthusiasm to the opposition party's candidate.

The polling ended at 9 p.m. and the results was supposedly to be known by 10 p.m. given it is a SMC and with about 36k+ voters on the roll. Tension built as no result was made known past 10 p.m. A fickle of hope lighted among the pro-opposition camp as a re-count, presumably that's why there is this delay to announce the result. Just past 11 p.m., the Returning Officer announced the result that was followed by loud applause, not thunderous, but loud enough to let any doubters know who is the winner. The opposition party's candidate won! And by a larger than expected margin of 13% over the ruling party candidate. A surprise indeed as even the opposition party leadership acknowledged that the winning margin was much bigger than they would have dreamt in their wildest dream in subsequent interviews!!

Another momentous event in the development of Singapore political arena. IF taken positively by the ruling party, it will august well for them. They are obviously frustrated that they seemed to have DONE ALL the RIGHT THINGS for the people. Yet, why are the voters, the majority of them this time, did not vote their well qualified candidate in?

Should we read too much in this By-Election result? Honestly, YES and NO.

NO because it has the by-election effect in that the voters KNOW that the government of the day will remain. They are just putting a Member of Parliament into the Parliament to represent them.

YES because:

1. there was a swing of 13% vs. the General Election held just a short 20 months ago;
2. the swing STILL happened even with many goodies supposedly targeting the majority of the voters, young educated adults many are forming young families, just a few days before the voting day;
3. the swing STILL happened with the other hot topic of 'overly inflating public housing prices' being addressed for the 7th time that will supposedly bring the runaway prices down or at least slow the rise!;
4. the swing STILL happened despite the personal endorsement by the Prime Minister of the ruling party's candidate that he has capacity to be more than just a mere MP! With the PM spending time campaigning for him. A feat not seen at the other by-election which was held sometimes last year!

Personally I am glad for this result. Not because I am pro-opposition. I am glad as despite the many achievements accomplished by the ruling party's earlier leadership and the many Singaporeans who came along to support these leaders in the 1st 3/4 of Singapore's nation building, the latest batch of leaders and some of the national policies and the manner in which many of these were executed left much to be desired. They have fallen way short of the sterling high standard set by their predecessors.

Will the ruling party responds positively? IF they do, they can make a big comeback. If not, the voting against the ruling party trend will continue as people are voting with their emotion - negative emotion that the policies while touted as helping Singaporeans are NOT perceived as such. Rationality will be out of the window and the next General Election in 2016, if contested FULLY by all the opposition parties, can produce a freak result that no right minded Singaporean would want - a change of government!

I don't see that happening as the opposition parties will KNOW if they contest FULLY, the voters, being conservative, will vote the ruling party in as there is no evidence whatsoever that the opposition parties' members are ready to be running the country. As critics of the ruling party's national policies and as 'sterner check-and-balance' representative of the people, they are welcome. BUT NOT, not yet, as rulers of Singapore - our beloved Little Red Dot!