Daily Lessons from Life 27-28 January 2013 - Post Punggol East SMC By-Election ...

Lots of analysis and chattering on the surprise victory by the opposition party candidate.

Many pundits, political observers of note commented that the victory margin was surprisingly large. Even the opposition party's leadership expressed surprise candidly.

Whatever the responses might be, it is a fact that the opposition candidate has been returned as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Punggol East SMC.

The official response from the ruling party is: it was a good and close fight and the voters have decided. That's how democracy works. The nation should come together to focus on many pressing national challenges as one people now. They also said they will continue with their good work regardless as it never or did not occur to them that how hard they work is dependent on if there are sufficient opposition MPs in the parliament to push them.

The official response from the winning opposition party is: they are thankful and know their responsibilities to the voters to continue to 'goat' the ruling government to work hard or harder, the immediate REAL issues of taking over the Town Council/Meet-the-People Session/etc at the ground level are priority, another by-election win does not a TREND established, there are still much work to do to bring up a sizable opposition in the parliament that can challenge real law making!, the opposition will be assisting the government to do the right things and not oppose for the sake of opposing national policies!

Well, whatever the UNOFFICIAL feeling may be, I am good with the OFFICIAL responses from both camps EXCEPT I strongly feel that the ruling party has to SERIOUSLY take stock and soul search as to WHY despite the MANY 'We are doing the right things for YOU Singaporeans' measures being taken the voters, at least the majority in this particular SMC, still do not seemed to GET IT?

While one can trivialise it to 'this is just a small SCM of 16k+', the next GE in 2016 will be a larger pool of voters and the ruling party will be OK. It is unwise and irresponsible to make that assumption. Someone has collated the GE2011 results and made prediction that with a swing of 7-8% against the ruling party, quite a few of the GRC constituencies can fall into the opposition. That is the worst nightmare for the ruling party, and Singapore as the opposition parties are not ready to run the country.

Do we want to take that risk, Mr Ruling Party? ...