As mentioned in my last posting, there’s very little to say about Singapore’s General Elections. The result is a forgone conclusion and it’s a question of how badly the opposition parties get drubbed. As I’ve argued constantly, while the PAP governments have made mistakes, they’ve not done enough to lose elections. If you look at the results of the last few elections, the results have been pretty much the same. The ruling party enters this contest with the crucial advantage of a brand reputation for competence in governing.
Furthermore, the ruling party has used its advantages of incumbency. It called the election not long after giving out money to help people with the economic damages of Covid-19 and at a time when rules limiting the size of gatherings are in force, thus hobbling the opposition parties’ chances of holding large rallies. This is in addition to famously redrawing electoral boundaries in its favour. Despite its obvious advantages going into the fight, the ruling party famously does not leave things to chance. You can think of Singapore’s General Election as a fight between a gorilla that ties the arms of the chihuahua before stepping into the boxing ring with the chihuahua.
Change must be coming faster to Singapore’s political scene than anyone imagined. The ruling party has a single stroke, proceeded to give the opposition a gift that shreds one of its most crucial tenants – namely the reputation for competence. This has been done before a single shot has been fired in the proverbial war.
Mr. Ivan Lim, who had planned to stand for election as a candidate for the ruling party has just announced that he is no longer standing for election because of pressure from the online crowd. The story can be found at:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3090873/online-backlash-forces-singapores-pap-drop-ivan-lim-election
If you read the story of Mr. Lim’s withdrawal, you’ll realise that it’s a sign of Singapore politics being more normal. Candidates who run for political office most democracies have to be prepared for every detail of their private lives to be scrutinized and the unwritten understanding is that when a candidate runs for office and gains office and all the power and perks that go with the said office, that they sacrifice the right of privacy.
At the most basic level, you could say Mr. Lim failed that hurdle of not being able to withstand public scrutiny and that the ruling party had failed to realise that the times had changed. While can rely on favourable coverage from the mainstream media, this the age of social media, which allows alternative voices to speak loudly.
This is the kindest thing that one can say about the ruling party and its former candidate. Further discussion would suggest that the ruling party’s machinery has major issues.
Mr. Lim was selected as a candidate because he checked the usual boxes of having the right credentials – namely former military officer and senior executive at a large local company linked to the government. However, within a matter of days of announcing his candidacy, one of the men who served under Mr. Lim posted something about Mr. Lim being an elitist and arrogant shit and which lead to other people posting things about him at his work place. The posting can be seen below:
More seriously, this led to allegations that Mr. Lim was involved in a bribery scandal over a project that his company was involved in, in Brazil. A report of the allegation can be found at:
https://mustsharenews.com/ivan-lim-keppel/?fbclid=IwAR0kdvahfCc2DLYD7apTTdTPtrH7Ec337OyjNWagDVR4CiGD5S2YCBS1YCc
Furthermore, the ruling party has used its advantages of incumbency. It called the election not long after giving out money to help people with the economic damages of Covid-19 and at a time when rules limiting the size of gatherings are in force, thus hobbling the opposition parties’ chances of holding large rallies. This is in addition to famously redrawing electoral boundaries in its favour. Despite its obvious advantages going into the fight, the ruling party famously does not leave things to chance. You can think of Singapore’s General Election as a fight between a gorilla that ties the arms of the chihuahua before stepping into the boxing ring with the chihuahua.
Change must be coming faster to Singapore’s political scene than anyone imagined. The ruling party has a single stroke, proceeded to give the opposition a gift that shreds one of its most crucial tenants – namely the reputation for competence. This has been done before a single shot has been fired in the proverbial war.
Mr. Ivan Lim, who had planned to stand for election as a candidate for the ruling party has just announced that he is no longer standing for election because of pressure from the online crowd. The story can be found at:
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3090873/online-backlash-forces-singapores-pap-drop-ivan-lim-election
If you read the story of Mr. Lim’s withdrawal, you’ll realise that it’s a sign of Singapore politics being more normal. Candidates who run for political office most democracies have to be prepared for every detail of their private lives to be scrutinized and the unwritten understanding is that when a candidate runs for office and gains office and all the power and perks that go with the said office, that they sacrifice the right of privacy.
At the most basic level, you could say Mr. Lim failed that hurdle of not being able to withstand public scrutiny and that the ruling party had failed to realise that the times had changed. While can rely on favourable coverage from the mainstream media, this the age of social media, which allows alternative voices to speak loudly.
This is the kindest thing that one can say about the ruling party and its former candidate. Further discussion would suggest that the ruling party’s machinery has major issues.
Mr. Lim was selected as a candidate because he checked the usual boxes of having the right credentials – namely former military officer and senior executive at a large local company linked to the government. However, within a matter of days of announcing his candidacy, one of the men who served under Mr. Lim posted something about Mr. Lim being an elitist and arrogant shit and which lead to other people posting things about him at his work place. The posting can be seen below:
https://mustsharenews.com/ivan-lim-keppel/?fbclid=IwAR0kdvahfCc2DLYD7apTTdTPtrH7Ec337OyjNWagDVR4CiGD5S2YCBS1YCc
Despite an online petition, Mr. Lim at first promised to fight the election and was even supported by the Minister for the Environment, Mr. Masagos Zulkifi. Mr. Lim’s defense of the allegations and Mr. Masagos’s reaction can be found at:
All of this could be a mistake that was corrected if this was any other party. However, this is not the case. Our ruling party has built its entire reputation around its competence and getting the best people possible. More importantly, Singapore’s government has stressed to the world that it is a vigorous champion of honest government. Our message to anyone planning to invest in Singapore is that while we may be a little pricier, we are transparent and you will never pay a bribe or be shaken down by officials.
Lee Kuan Yew was very clear about this point. He paid ministers well but insisted on the highest standards of integrity in public office. Any government official caught with his or her hands in the proverbial cookie jar was always humiliated in public.
So, the fundamental question here is, how did Mr. Lim even get selected to become a potential MP? The PAP has always made it a point to stress that it gets people of not just high levels of competence but character and basic integrity.
Leaving aside Mr. Lim’s alleged elitst attitudes, there was an allegation floating around the internet that he may have had a connection to a major bribery scandal that was reported in the international media. How is it such that this most careful of political parties did not pick it up? It’s not like they didn’t have the resources to check on him.
Mr. Lim was a “tainted” candidate and the most charitable conclusion is that there was a fault in the vetting process. The next best thing you can say is that someone in the ruling party didn’t think it was important that there was such an allegation attached to Mr. Lim or that they could cover it up.
Mr. Lim has just proven to the electorate that Singapore needs a stronger opposition presence in parliament to ensure that the highest standards of competence and integrity that Lee Kuan Yew’s initial PAP governments told us to demand are maintained.
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