Monday, November 02, 2020

“In This Country we Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, not to a Leader or to a Political Party.” – Carley Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard

 

I’ve just caught a beautiful soundbite on Youtube from an interview on Fox News with Carley Fiorina, the former Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard (“HP”). Since forced to resign from the top job at HP, Ms. Fiorina has taken on a variety of roles, the most noticeable of which was to be a Presidential Candidate for the Republican Party in 2016 (which she lost to Donald Trump).

Four years after her unsuccessful attempt to run for president, Ms. Fiorina has somehow gained attention in the current election by going on record to state that she is endorsing the Democratic challenger, Mr. Joe Biden as president. Fox News questioned her on why she chose to support Mr. Biden and among her reasons for supporting Mr. Biden in the current election was because it was her right as a private citizen to do so. She told the interviewer “In this Country, we Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, not to a Leader or to a Political Party.” The Fox News interview with Ms. Fiorina can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE8V39DRbzY

Leaving aside the complexities of the Presidential Election, Ms. Fiorina has made a point which often gets drowned out an increasingly partisan world – namely the fact that citizens of a country, particularly in those that claim to have a democratic system of government, are citizens of their nation first and members of political parties, ethnic and religious groups etc second and political leaders who win office are leaders of nations rather than political parties, ethnic and religious groups second.

While this should be a basic fact for nations that claim to be democratic, this has not been the case. America has been a famously divisive place in the last four years. Instead of being the “United States of America,” it has become a collection of squabbling groups that can roughly be described as “Trump-Loyalist,” and “Never-Trumpers.”

In fairness to Mr. Trump, the seeds of partisan extremism were sown into the system long before his arrival on the scene and he’s merely the most significant exploiter of divisions. Closer to home, there is Thailand, which was divided into the urbanites of Bangkok that loathed former Prime Minister, Thakshin Shinawatra (Yellow Shirts) and the rural folk who adored him (red shirts). Thailand’s only real unity that transcended Mr. Shinawatra was the reverence for King Bhumibol and a loathing for King Vajiralongkorn.

Further South, in Singapore, we have an interesting twist on things. Here’s its not a wealthy “outsider” like Trump and Shinawatra who are upsetting norms. Rather than rely on “outsiders” to disturb democratic norms, we have our own ruling party, which has quietly supported a culture of “You are either with us or against us.”

The divisions are not as obvious as in the American or Thai scenarios but extreme partisanship does exist, thanks to the ruling party’s inability to tolerate criticism of any kind, including from the people who are by no means opponents or dare I say critics of the powers that be.

Furthermore, unlike the polar opposition in Singapore is more diverse. Unlike America, Thailand or even Malaysia, there has yet to be a single charismatic force to unite and harness dissenting elements. Think of the opposition movements as a collection of tiny fragments.

In a way, the ruling party has it easy. It merely has to listen to the “opposition element” get to their source of grievances and find a way of keeping them happy. If you observe the online criticisms of the government long enough, you’ll notice that they are primarily with issues on policies that have affected lives and as Singapore’s election results have consistently shown, the electorate is pushing for the government to listen rather than to be swept away. There has yet to be a call for what Michael Moore calls “Political Molotov Cocktail.”

This hasn’t happened. We have a POFOMA bill which is officially meant to stop online falsehoods but is based on little more than what the minister considers a falsehood. Then we have the old-fashioned use of defamation suites and as various instances in Covid-19 showed – too many instances of the elite covering for the elite (think of the bailing out of dormitory owners and the rush to defend Liew Mun Leong after the verdict from the High Court exposed the extent to which he had attempted to crush his former maid).

The current political party has become synonymous with government and any challenge to it appears to be a challenge on the nation. Look at the way in which the national anthem is coopted into being a party slogan. Singaporeans sing “Majulah Singapaura” (Malay for Onwards Singapore). The ruling party is quite happy for call of “Majulah PAP.” Our Minister of Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo used to the two in the recently concluded General Election as if PAP and Singapore the nation were one and the same:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuUfUU00Y78


The ruling party needs to stop coopting national symbols for its own and its leaders need to understand that they are national leaders first and foremost. Party affiliations should be a secondary concern.

The electorate have made it clear in the last election that it is willing to give more seats to the opposition if the ruling party does not appear to be listening. It’s best if the ruling party listened rather than engaged in acts that tie itself to the national core if it intends to stop the gradual loss of seats.


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Maira Gall