One of my kid’s biggest gripes with me is that I don’t make much use of the off button on my iPhone. She constantly reminds me that I need to turn off my phone when I’m not using it. She tells me that turning off my phone when not using it allows me to avoid unpleasant accidents.
I’m bringing
this topic up because it seems that I’m part of an elite group of people who are
too smart to use the off button on their devices. Our foreign minister, Dr.
Vivian Balakrishnan was recently forced to apologies to non-constituency member
of parliament (NCMP), Mr. Leong Mun Wai during a parliamentary debate. Dr.
Balakrishnan was caught on camera making remarks about Mr. Leong being “illiterate,”
and how he was surprise that Mr. Leong made it to “RI” (Raffles Institution –
one of Singapore’s elite schools) to his colleagues during the debate on CECA
(the free trade agreement with India).
The result of
this has been an online storm. It’s been pointed out that Dr. Balakrishnan had
exposed himself and the party of being what everyone else has been accusing it
of being for the last two decades – elitist and out of touch. Dr. Balakrishnan had
to issue an apology to Mr. Leong.
Take from
the Facebook pages of Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan and Mr. Leong Mun Wai
Unfortunately
for Dr. Balakrishnan, his apology to Mr. Leong will not end things. His “private”
remarks about “lousy schools,” runs contrary to the government’s recent efforts
to down play the need for great academics.
I will leave
the discussion on what Dr. Balakrishnan said, as this is something that
everyone else is discussing. His remarks were troubling. This was a prominent
minister proving the opposition party’s point that the government is out of
touch. However, the fact that this mistake was made was also troubling because it
showed something even worse – government complacency.
Sure, there’s
an argument that Dr. Balakrishnan is only human and bound to make mistakes. However,
this isn’t a mistake you’d expect of a politician of Dr. Balakrishnan’s standing.
As far as non-politicians are concerned, we believe that politicians generally
play things up for an audience. As such, we expect politicians to be very aware
of their situation.
Politics, as much
as most communication ministries might like to deny, is a game played in the
public eye. Politicians who intend to hang onto power are painfully aware that
they are always under the spotlight and they actually need to become the public
image. People who are aware that they are being scrutinized do not make
mistakes like ensuring that the microphones are off.
Politicians who
make this basic mistake lose elections. In the UK, two former Prime Ministers
were killed by this. There was John Major who described his cabinet colleagues
as “bastards” for live radio when he thought the radio was off. He was crushed
in a landslide in the 1997 election. Then there was Gordon Brown who talked about
a “bigoted old woman” while his microphone was still on. Mr. Brown promptly lost
the 2010 election. Both Mr. Major and Mr. Brown had taken over charismatic predecessors
and their respective political parties had reached the end of their respective
lifespans. Getting caught making uncalled for remarks on air only confirmed
what voters suspected – it was time for someone else.
Dr. Balakrishnan
and his colleagues are lucky in as much as this incident happened a year after
the election. Unlike the UK, Singapore’s government is an unenviable position
in as much as the opposition parties have yet to form any credible challenge.
Singapore’s opposition parties’ campaign on the need for more opposition rather
than on being an alternative government. So, on this level, it’s unlikely that the
ruling party is in any danger of being turfed out in the immediate future.
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