I Know I am Attractive – I just don’t Know Who I am attractive to.

I remember when I first started going bald, my second stepfather (who happens to be bald) assured me that it was perfectly OK because, he said, “Women still love you.” I didn’t know what he meant and I never thought of myself as being particularly attractive in any sense of the word. Despite wanting to be known as the worst sort of cad, I’ve never actually had many women in my life. I’m unfortunately miles closer to Jimmy Carter, who only committed adultery in his heart than Bill Clinton who couldn’t stop committing it.

So, if you consider my history of being a man who wanted to be unquestionably attractive but lost hair at a young age, reading articles in the “gossip” press about how “bald men are more attractive,” was always a bit of boost to the ego. It was kind of a “gee, I have hope” type of feeling. However, as I got older, I suddenly realized that I was attractive, the question was more of, who was I attracting.

This has been a question that I’ve been asking myself lately, especially whenever it comes to this blog. I started the blog with no thought of where it would lead me. At the time, I started, the blog was more of a hobby. There was no particular focus of who I wanted to attract. My PR freelancing work had gotten a big boost from the Saudi Embassy job and I was being published regularly by Today (which paid commentary writers back in those days) and I also got paid for some of the work I did for Arab News. The blog was a place where I could place articles that the main stream did not publish and I didn’t think of what I wanted to call it – the original name was a misspelling and I figured that people would be interested enough in anyone who had the gut to have a crappy name in the public domain.

I never set out to “sell” myself as a blogger. I only noticed that I had an audience of sorts one fine day when I discovered that Google was tracking the analytics. Then I reached forty and was reminded on a few occasions that my working life span was getting shorter and I’d need to develop some form of intellectual property to earn me a few pennies as the income from actual work diminished. It was then that I took developing this blog a bit more seriously. It was, I guess the one thing I had been consistent at. I also remember my favourite litigator telling me that this was the way I would attract people like me to me.

So, the question is, who is like me? I don’t have a solid answer to that and I may never have. I also haven’t made pots of money. My advertising revenue is sad, I barely have enough for an ice cream at the end of the month. However, if I look at the people who have approached me through the blog and where the pennies have come from, I have an interesting snap shot.

Let’s start with the fact that I’ve actually had an offer to buy over the rights of two blog postings. The buyer is the owner of a small but dynamic law firm, run by a lawyer who takes great pride in being a lawyer for the small and medium enterprises. This is a lawyer who has at times struggled against the established order of his profession but instead of worrying that the approval of his fellow professionals, he prefers to focus on the most important people in any business – the customers and rather than focusing on the opinions of his profession, he’s trying to make life easier for the people who use his profession, as can be seen by his latest piece of intellectual property.

His philosophy towards the law is pretty similar to mine when it comes to public relations, advertising and promotions. Too many people in PR are obsessed with working for some multinational and the awards that they’ll win. For me, who cares if you’re employed by Hill & Knowlton or Webber Shandwick, when you could be doing things for the people who there are other people willing to pay you directly and the press people appreciate you for getting someone who could tell a good story.

My friend is far more successful than I am in his business but we have a similar philosophy and we share a dislike for people who think that kicking the crap of people that society neglects is part and parcel of life.

The other thing that I noticed were the numbers of the Ad Sense analytics. A glance at the readers and impressions by country, within the last week is as follows:

My primary audience remains Singapore and the people who help my ad revenue are from Singapore. Online advertising is primarily a numbers game and the money comes from where the most clicks come from, which in turn comes from where the most impressions (as in the number people looking at your page long enough to decide if they’re interested in the ads on the page) come from, which in turn comes from where the page views come from.

Makes sense that someone writing about Singapore would attract the most readers from Singapore and it goes without saying that I push my pieces to people in Singapore because this is where I’ll get the most traction.

What’s particularly interesting is the countries that come in next, which my case is the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I have some family in America and Australia, though, with the exception of my thoughts on the Trump and Middle Eastern politics, most of what I write would be of little interest to anyone who has not lived in Singapore. Off the top of my head, I only know of one school friend living in New Zealand and nobody from Canada. Yet, these countries have been the most consistent in providing me with a source of readers.

So, who in these countries would want to read about the socio-politics of Singapore? I suspect, its former Singaporeans, who still have some interest in what goes on in their “country of origin.”

I don’t have any hard evidence for this. Google Analytics does not reveal deep details of the people who click on a link and I remain blissfully insignificant for anyone to commission to study.
However, around three weeks ago, I Linked up on Linkedin with a professor, who used to teach at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), who had moved to Australia and doing his own thing in the robotics industry. In his message to me, he said he had been following my writing on Tremeritus.

If I take my new friend’s Linkedin profile at face value, I realized that this is the type of person that Singapore needs. Someone who was willing to give up a conventional path in academia to try something in a new and dynamic field of study and business (robotics being the high-tech future making stuff that Singapore’s civil service appears to drool over). The man is apparently doing very well for himself.

The question that this new friendship has got me asking is – how many are there like him. Good sons of Singapore who had to move and settle overseas to make their mark. I think of this question because the issue of “foreign talent” crowding out locals in Singapore has been a consistent one in the last decade. It’s been the thorn in the side of the government and they’ve always said that they’ve needed to bring in people from elsewhere to get things done. The argument is that we don’t have the people to do the jobs of the future.

I have nothing against brining people in. There are skills that need to be imported and I believe that on balance, greater diversity can only lead to better things or as I often say when I’m in a crass mood, that I don’t have an issue with 10 million more people if it leads to an improvement in the gene pool.

However, if my new friend is anything to do by, I don’t think its true that we are not producing people capable of making the future. I suspect that we are but somehow these people get stifled and discouraged from actually doing it. I’m not saying that life in the US, New Zealand or anywhere else is necessarily better but there is obviously a group that has done significantly better once they’ve left Singapore.

Now, some of it could be financial. It’s been going on with Westerners for years. I remember two of my best friends from England complaining about the “Barrow Boys,” who had come over to Asia to become bank CEOs – their point being “You guys must be desperate – I wouldn’t hire any of them.” Then again, why would you blame any Westerner for moving here? As a friend of mine said, “Wouldn’t you move to a country that worshiped you for being short, fat and bald or all of that?”

 However, we’re not talking about people who had the “expat” life. We’re talking about people who did world renown stuff. Think of Kevin Kwan, the man who wrote Crazy Rich Asians or Melvyn Tan, the pianist. These guys are well renown in their craft by the entire world, except the country in which they were born.

Why is it such that people like that, don’t stay? Why hasn’t someone done a study on why such people don’t stay or what can we do to keep them doing something that works for Singapore. Sure, I get it, Singapore is a small place and for certain things one should explore and take advantage of what the wider world has to offer.

Yet, I can’t help feeling that there’s a part of officialdom that doesn’t want to admit that the natives can be excellent at something. Officialdom is out there buying talent from elsewhere but at the same time trying to stifle what we have at home. I think of the Ben Davis saga, where MINDEF practically tried to turn this boy into a national traitor because he wasn’t giving up the chance to play for one of the biggest names in football. In the modern age, its easy to find flexibility, especially if benefits the nation’s brand.

I think of the millions we spent on foreign athletes in order to win a medal on the international scale. If memory serves correctly, we got a silver in one of the Olympic Games. The medalist in question took the money and promptly moved back to China. Then, there were the Schoolings who practically sold their flat to ensure their kid would pursue his dream. Luckily for Singapore, he chose to swim for us and we have a gold medal and a moment when Majullah Singapura was played around the world.

Again, I don’t have hard proof or statistics to show this and that. What I have is purely anecdotal, however, I don’t think I’m wrong. I remember Lee Kuan Yew once giving an interview on how Singapore could never produce anything worldwide, world-class or world anything because the harsh truth is, we are a tiny nation with limits.

That was so sad to hear because, this was the man who made us something to be proud of on the world stage, telling us that we had to stay in our limits and just be content to be a digit for some multinational or some government agency.

We spend an incredible amount of time and energy to get lots of foreign things (talent, investment etc) in the name of making things work for Singapore. Yet, at the same time, we spend an enormous amount of time going to war against the local population whenever a section of it chooses something different from the norm. We could save so much and gain so much if we stopped trying to force everyone into a tin can that needed to hire pale and blotchy people to tell them what was good for them.

There are Singaporeans out there who have managed to make something of themselves in the wider world. Even if they may no longer have Singaporean passports, they still have some interest in the affairs on their home land. Surely, tapping on this diaspora would pay dividends in so many ways.

Who are the people like me? I like to think it's Singaporeans who love this country and the home it gives but want to do something other than what officialdom deems Singaporeans capable of doing. We are not asking for anything. We merely want the chance to do our little thing, at ease with whoever is in power. Leaving us alone is simple and it pays. Find a way to work with us and everyone wins.

Why Won’t They Join?

I got a call from the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC yesterday. He was intrigued by my last posting which asserted that the last election results had shown that the roots of a two-party system in Singapore had been developed.

As with all intellectual discussions with the Young Muslim Politician, he ended up answering his own question and then it came to the topic of the quality of opposition candidates. He rightfully observed that the quality of opposition candidates was exceedingly good. First there was the news that Professor Paul Tambyah, Chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), had been elected to head the US based Society for Infectious Diseases (see - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/paul-tambyah-first-singaporean-infectious-diseases-isid-12847020) and then came the performance in of the Dr. Jamus Lim of the Worker’s Party (WP) in the debate against Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, our Minister for Foreign Affairs. An excerpt of the debate can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5B6w7YGuwo

Dr. Balakrishnan is a former school debater and considered one of our more articulate ministers. The PAP must have been hoping that Dr. Balakrishnan would wipe the floor in the debate and he did not. Dr. Lim’s performance in the debate was exemplary. He was articulate and consistently on message and somehow, that gave the Young Muslim Politician a great moment of insight, when he told me to look at Dr. Balakrishnan’s expression throughout the debate. The expression was – this guy should be on our team, why the hell couldn’t we recruit him.

Apparently, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had tried to recruit Dr. Lim when he returned from Abu Dhabi, after serving as an economist for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which is the third largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world. Apparently, Dr Lim turned the PAP down.

This is a problem for the PAP. Like every good business, political parties need to attract good people, and the PAP used to have a monopoly on the brains. The government’s scholarship system was designed to ensure that smart people stayed within the system. The system worked like this, sponsor a bright kid through to university, get him or her into the civil service for a few years and then, after they had cut their teeth, get them to stand for election. 

The Singapore government has been very open about the fact that it competes with the private sector for talent. Our Ministers are the world’s highest paid. Political salaries are comparable with those from top private sector organisations.  The official reasoning is that this prevents corruption (there’s no need to think about dipping your hands in the cookie jar when you’re being well paid) and that its necessary to pay well because if we didn’t pay our public figures well, they’d run off to the private sector and make their fortunes elsewhere instead of working for the betterment of the nation.

Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim are living proof that Singapore has the people who can compete on the international stage. The problem for the ruling party is that they’re not on the side of the PAP, which given the PAP’s hold on the government, is the only party with the resources to give them things. If you want money, the PAP is in the position to give it to you. If you want the backing of the state to get things done, only the PAP can give it to you.

So, the question that the PAP needs to answer is why aren’t people like Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim not flocking to join the side of the PAP?

The government has traditionally used the purse strings to attract people. Personally, I don’t disagree with paying people in public service well. Why should you expect people to work for some higher ideal if it doesn’t put food on the table? I know that the guy with the backing of the state machinery can get things done in a way that the guys protesting on the streets will never be able to do. Our entire system has been based on this. Whenever a smart guy even gave the appearance of being interested in joining “the other” (which means any side other than the government approved one) side, the government and PAP would inevitably “buy” them over.

Now, there’s a problem. Bright guys are turning them down to work for the “other” side. These are the people with the expertise needed for the future. Think about this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic that has ravaged the economy. Who else could be better to be leading the charge against these things than a world recognized expert on infectious diseases and an internationally recognized economist? Yet, these people are not joining.

So, the PAP has to ask itself, why can’t it recruit people like this. It’s been doing it successfully and suddenly you get flawed candidates like Ivan Lim. By contrast, the opposition, which lacks the resources to offer great things is attracting brains like these. The ruling party needs to do some soul searching on why it has been unable to get great minds like Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim instead of trying to demonise the great minds that won’t join if it is serious about ensuring that Singapore’s machinery has the best minds working for it.

Slow but Steady Wins the Race

It was an election result that everyone expected. As usual, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (“PAP”) ended up with 83 of the available 91 seats in parliament and 61 percent of the popular vote. Yet, despite winning an election margin with more resemblance to a North Korean referendum approving the hair style of Kim Jong Un than what might consider a democratic mandate, Singapore’s Prime Minister appeared like a chastened school boy appearing before the principle. He muttered some words about how the electorate had made its intention for more diversity in parliament and talked about external conditions like Covid-19 that damaged the economy. The Prime Minister’s post election comments can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlxfbE2VvfY 

Why would a Prime Minister of a ruling party in the middle of an economic meltdown appear like a chastened school boy after a thumping electoral win? The answer could be found in the fact that instead of wiping out the opposition, the ruling party lost another Group Representation Constituency (GRC – a particularly unique Singaporean feature Westminster Democracy, which involves four constituencies being molded together and you get four MPs for your vote – which means that its possible for a heavy weight minister to bring in fresh blood into parliament on his coat tails). Just as the loss of Aljunied GRC had come with the costs of losing then Foreign Minister, George Yeo, the additional loss of Sengkang GRC came with the loss of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Secretary-General of the National Trade Union’s Congress (NTUC – our only union), Mr. Ng Chee Meng. The party that celebrated the most was the Workers Party, which had up to that point received minimal press coverage.

You could argue that Singapore politics has had a turning point. The ruling party can no longer take winning GRC’s for granted and future election results are more likely to be like 2011 rather than 2015, which saw the death of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the Nation’s 50th anniversary. The bad news for the ruling party is that the main opposition party, the Worker’s Party has been very good at holding onto seats that it has won. Mr. Low Thia Khiang held onto their first win in the Single Member Constituency (SMC) of Hougang for nearly 20-years before jumping over the Aljunied GRC, which they have held onto in the last two elections (2015 and 2020).

The benefit for the ruling party is that ministers no longer guarantee electoral success, which means that new candidates will have to fight harder and smarter to gain votes. The ruling party, which has gained a sense of belief that elections are a given, there is the reality of having to change its mindset to a changing world. Policies will have to be sold in a more consultative manner rather than in a “Me, smart and you stupid” manner.

While the ruling party will have to go through a bit of a cultural change, the biggest change that the election gave us was in the nature of opposition. The biggest winner of the evening was the Workers’ Party, which had its position as our main opposition party cemented. While the Workers Party has remained the only other political party to have seats in parliament, it had been quiet throughout the election.

The attention was focused on the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), which was led by former Presidential Candidate, Mr. Tan Cheng Bok who had been endorsed as “the leader that Singapore needs,” by non-other than Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, the Prime Minister’s Younger Brother.

The story of the Worker’s Party’s success his highly instructional for entrepreneurs. The party has worked on the “slow but steady” strategy, a strategy that should be credited to its former secretary-general, Mr. Low Thia Khiang. The strategy is simple, to win seats one at a time. The Worker’s Party faces criticisms on a regular basis from both sides. The government has a way of lambasting Worker Party MPs for being quiet in parliament. The more radical elements criticize the Worker’s Party for being “PAP lite,” and not proposing anything terribly different from the PAP.

Despite this, Mr. Low and his team have understood that the most important element in the game is seats in parliament. For the Workers Party the key is to win seats and hold onto them. Speeches in parliament and talking about holding the executive to account are pointless if you don’t have seats in parliament. Hence, Mr. Low ensured that his team worked hard enough for their respective constituents to ensure they would hold onto their seats.

What makes this such an effective strategy is the fact that the PAP has been effective in running the show and takes great pains in drumming in the message that its not worth changing a winning group. The subtle message (which is not very subtle in as much as the government has famously withheld funds to opposition held constituencies) has been voting opposition will turn things to crap. 

Hence, while we may want to irritate the ruling party or we vote opposition to protest certain things, we’d always give the main votes to the PAP to ensure our standard of life continues. However, by winning seats and holding onto them, the Worker’s Party is showing that it can run things despite the handicaps of lack of resources, law suites etc. This counters the ruling party’s argument that it holds a monopoly on managerial competence. 

The seeds of change in the nature of opposition politics have been sowed. Within three elections, it looks very likely that there will be an opposition party that campaigns on the premise that it is capable of forming and running a government, as opposed to the current situation where opposition parties’ campaign on the premise that they’re there to be opposition to the ruling party.

The business analogy best explains Singapore’s political landscape. We have the former monopoly player in the shape of the PAP, which dominates just about everything. There is the sexy start-up which looks good and has a great visionary founder in Tan Cheng Bok, with the backing of a rich VC in the shape of Lee Hsien Yang. This is the player that everyone talks about.

The Workers Party is by contrast, a slow growth business. The initial founders have spent their fortunes building the ground-up infrastructure and product and the current and future generations test and expand markets. 

The records speak for themselves. Sexy start ups are sexy but unless they’ve built a real business and prepared for life after the hype, they tend to fade. Think of We Work as a cautionary tale. Then there are the former monopolies that have had to undergo painful changes in order to adapt. Those that have succeeded have continued to thrive, like SingTel, those that failed have ended up costing tax payers billions – think of the Detroit Big Three. Finally, there are the businesses that grow slowly but steadily, getting their products right. Think of Apple as a positive example. The lessons are there, it’s just whether we want to take them.  

Why Are Trade offs Necessary?

On the 28th of June, 2020, my step-uncle Michael (younger brother of my first step-dad, Lee) passed from Covid-19. While, I wasn’t close to him (the last time we met was a brief meeting eight years ago at Lee’s 80th birthday party), his passing had the effect of making the Covid-19 pandemic real to me.

Prior to that, Covid-19 was something I knew from the media. I knew it as a reason for changing my lifestyle for two to three months. Covid-19 was statistics and something the wife and kid talked to me about but it still wasn’t real. Then Michael died and suddenly Covid-19 became real. It was no longer a statistic; it was the end of a life that had touched mine.

It wasn’t just a case of someone I knew from my childhood getting the virus. It was the account of how he got it. He had something else that needed treating, so he went to hospital to get it checked out and it was there that he got the virus. It was as easy as being in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

While he didn’t plan for it, I believe that my step-uncle’s passing should remain a cautionary tale. We should be reminded as the world tries to return to “normal,” that the virus is anything but under control. Countries that thought they had it under control and opened up have seen sudden spikes and have had to quickly reimpose restrictions.

I do get the need for some opening up. I’m back to the office and no matter how much I’ve not wanted to return to an existence that is clearly unhealthy (offices being places that encourage sloth of thought and body), I’ve accepted that the income that comes along with this primitive existence is something that I have to earn in order to keep afloat until I can create something better.

The facts are simple enough. There are bills to pay and economies around the world do need to have some activity in order for enough cash to flow round the system. I also understand that the population at large cannot survive on handouts from the government – even governments with large fiscal reserves can only give out so much.

Yet, despite the obvious need to make a living, we should tread carefully. The virus is still floating around quite happily and you never know where it might float into an area where you are. The last thing my step-uncle expected was to breath the “wrong” air in a hospital of all places.

I think of the people protesting the need to wear mask when they go outdoors and wonder how willing would they be to lie in a hospital bed or a few dollars. I remember joking with the wife about how I should get Covid-19 so that she and the kid could their hands on a $30,000 grant. Her reaction was “You want to die? If you don’t die, your body will never be the same again.”

Which leads to the point of why the hell do we still stick onto brain numbing and physically degenerative forms of work like insisting that people come to offices. Technology has reduced the limitations set by geography. Work can be done anywhere. The question remains, why should it be a choice of staying safe from a pandemic and making a living. Surely, as a society, we have the means to ensure that people don’t have to make such tradeoffs.

Shutting Up and Doing Nothing is one of the Hardest Jobs in the World – Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix’s “The Crown”

I’ve just stumbled upon a wonderful dialogue in “The Crown,” which tells the story of the British Royal Family. The scene involves a conversation between a young Prince Charles and his mother, right after the investiture as Prince of Wales. In this moment, the young and anguished Prince tells his mother, “I have a voice,” to which his mother replies, “Nobody cares,” and then goes onto explain, “shutting up and doing nothing is the hardest job in the world.”

This dialogue has stuck in my mind and as Singapore’s General Election draws to an end (it’s cooling off day – i.e. the day before polling day, a day when you’re not supposed to utter anything remotely political so a to ensure people can focus on the issues without anyone trying to influence then unduly – or in simple terms without anyone trying to stop the voters from doing the right thing), this dialogue has started to beat around the brain furiously.

As I’ve watched this moment on Netflix, it’s dawned on me that Singapore has adopted the Westminster System of government from the British in more ways than one. Our Prime Minister functions pretty much like the inhabitant of 10 Downing Street and our President behaves in a similar fashion to a combination of the House of Lords and the Sovereign (She does as told by the elected Prime Minister but doesn’t have to wear the wigs, gowns or live in a palace). What most people realise is that we’ve also inherited a similar relationship between the governing and governed.

The only adaption between our system and the one we took, is there is an inversion of the relationship. In Britain, the Sovereign, who technically rules her subjects is bound by convention to shut up and do absolutely nothing.

If you’ve followed “The Crown” on Netflix as often as I have, it is a point that the Queen repeats time and time again. The Queen, as those who have dealt with her have mentioned in the gossip pages, is always fully aware of what is going on. The government of the day sends her daily briefings and even in her 90s, the Queen makes it a point to be up to speed. The sharp, politically astute woman as shown in the series is not an exaggeration. Yet, despite what she may feel about a Prime Minister or whether she knows the Prime Minister is creating a disaster, she keeps her mouth shut. As she says on Netflix about dealing with an incompetent Prime Minister’s, “That’s not our job, its up to the voters.”

The Queen takes her role very seriously and famously does not comment about any of her Prime Ministers, not just in the United Kingdom but all over the Commonwealth – a point which was made in Tom Platt's book about Lee Kuan Yew.

This has worked brilliantly for the British Monarchy. By keeping mum and doing as she’s told, the Queen has been a dignified symbol of the British Nation. She avoids getting into the grubby world of politics and while things are done in her name, the people know that she’s not the real decision maker and she doesn’t get blamed when things screw up.

The Singapore version of this relationship has an interesting twist. In this relationship, it is the governed, who are expected to shut up and do absolutely nothing. It is the people that we elect to run the show that are expected to make the noise and we, the governed are expected to shut up and do absolutely nothing.

In a way, this system has worked as well for the people of Singapore as it has for the British Monarchy. We, the people elected a government that did everything for us and as many foreigners, including those from the developed nations of Europe and the US have said, “What are you complaining about, whenever I’ve mentioned something that suggested that Singapore’s politicians were less than perfect.”

I think of PN Balji, the former editor of the Today Newspaper, who argued that if you look at things objectively, “the successive PAP governments have got about 75 to 80 percent of things right.” Most of us have plenty to eat and have a roof over our heads. While not all of us live the lives of “Crazy Rich Asians,” we don’t have homeless lying on the streets of Boat Quay the way they used to line up outside my front door in Soho. As a very senior member of the Indian Business Community said to be once, “Why worry?”

In a way feeling sorry for Singaporeans for their apparent lack of rights is like feeling sorry for Prince Charles complaining that he has a voice and he’s being allowed to be himself. Does Prince Charles ever had to worry about things like food and shelter? The answer is no and nobody cares if a man who has no worries about food or shelter having no voice of his own. Many foreigners tend to look at us the same way. Even with Covid-19, the world is looking as if we’re deliberately trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, our cases surged to unprecedented levels overnight, but hey only 26 people have died and unlike the American or Brazilian scenario, our leaders are at least pretending to take things seriously.

Yet, like the lives of Britain’s Royal Family, the life for people in Singapore is not perfect and there are tensions beneath the surface. Just as the Queen’s family have behaved as badly as the average man if not worse (think of Prince Andrew’s friendship with Mr. Epstein), Singapore’s governed have taken some pretty hard knocks that people elsewhere experience. Think, for example of the wage disparity between the billionaires whom buy holiday homes here and the average construction worker whom we begrudgingly give a thousand dollars a month to after working a 12-hour day for 28 plus days a month and that’s before we deduct things like agent fees.

Furthermore, times have changed and tried and tested solutions that worked in the 60s may not necessarily work now. It would be nice to believe, as a recent PAP slogan, which was sent to me implies, the PAP did everything and will continue to do everything in a wise and good manner but it won’t be that way.

Like Prince Charles, we have a voice and voices need to be heard. Prince Charles, who is duty bound to shut up and do nothing, had raised issues like the quality of farmed produce, architecture and the environment. Seemed quite nutty at the time but then when issues like climate change started to bite – well he didn’t sound so nutty after all.  The same can be said for our “nutty” voices. We had people like Alex Au of Yawning Bread or Jolovn Wham, who made a song and dance about the conditions that migrant workers lived in. They were nutty leftist and then Covid-19 struck.

We have a strange system where one party has the voice and the others are expected to shut up and do nothing. I think, Singapore is the only democracy where the opposition campaigns to be – opposition. We seem to like it that way because, well the PAP has done OK by us and we like to think this will continue forever.

Unfortunately, the single voice won’t be the only right one forever and there comes a time where we need to listen to many voices to solve the more complex issues of the day. We need to except that the more ideas out in the market place, the better and we need to accept that the best ideas don’t always come from one source and we will need to test conflicting ideas – even if it means that one day the opposition will have to campaign to be the government rather than being content to b opposition.

A Disreputable Son

I got to confess that I am an unsuccessful son of a very successful man. My father was at one stage, one of the top advertising film photographers in town. His success was such that it reached the stage where hiring my father was considered a higher status symbol than flying in an expatriate to do the job. I, by contrast have had a rather different checkered career path. Whereas my father went from rags to riches, I went pretty much the other way. I think of the “horny aunty” who asked if I was a reformed Yellow Ribbon Criminal because the fact that I worked as a waiter and spoke the way I did, did not quite add up. You could say that I am a “disreputable” son.

I bring this personal discussion up because it seems that I’m not the only so called “disreputable” son walking around. In the five years I’ve worked in the insolvency industry, I’ve noticed that there are plenty of them around. There are a number of boxes of documents that I’ve read through, which were once thriving enterprises that were started and built up by a tough, street wise entrepreneur, that turned south after the old man died and left things to the much better educated son. Whenever these boxes ended up on my desk, I’ve often found myself asking “what happened?” How did an enterprise go from thriving and unbeatable to a box of documents for me to go through?

Succession is what you’d call the single greatest challenges facing family businesses. How do you ensure that your good work stays and grows when the main qualification for your successors is family ties? It’s obviously succeeded as many of the greatest fortunes come from family businesses that have lasted generations. However, more often than not, a thriving enterprise ends up as a box on my desk.

With the prominence of family businesses on the global stage, it’s worth studying the things that make them tick and the things that screw them up. I live in a nation that is, in many ways, the classic family business. The current Prime Minister is the son of the Founding Prime Minister and he is also the husband of the CEO of one of our sovereign wealth funds. Our national story does offer some guidelines on what to do and what not to do.

There was never any doubt that our current Prime Minister would become Prime Minister. It was only a question of when. In fairness to the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, he generally demanded high standards of the people he chose to serve him and there are enough accounts to show that he made it a point that his family were not to cash in on his political office the way the families of his contemporaries in Malaysia and Indonesia had done. The current Prime Minister needed to have the brains to get into Cambridge (where he was regarded as a brilliant mathematician) and when he was in National Service, he did go through basic military training (BMT) and Officer Cadet School (OCS). He did not get 12-year deferments to study soil as a matter of national security.

Our Prime Minister was brought up knowing what there were expectations for him to perform. In a sense, the original Mr. Lee “trained” him up by making him go through national service, getting into Cambridge and when he entered politics, he did win his seat in a single member constituency (SMC).Before taking the top job, he did serve as his father’s successor’s deputy. In a sense, he was given time to grow into the job and we were prepared for him to take over.

The obvious comparison is Saudi Arabia, where the world knew King Salman would be the next king after his brother, King Abdullah died in 2015. What we were not prepared for was Mohammad Bin Salman, who came out from nowhere to be given a range of portfolios and before we knew it, there was a 30 plus something with no prior experience of running a fire hose, running the entire country.

However, while our current Prime Minister has been a competent enough manager, he’s been nothing. Unlike his predecessor who called for a “Kinder, gentler Singapore,” or his father who went through the independence struggle with the British and the Malayan Federation, our Prime Minister has never once articulated his vision.

At best he’s been guided by GDP growth figures in the same way that a CEO of a commercial company has been guided by sales targets. If there is a criticism to be leveled at this Prime Minister, it is that he’s been a little too preoccupied with the growth statistics than what those growth statistics mean on the ground. His signature policy of opening the floodgates on immigration was the prime example. It brought growth but it also brought a host of other issues, which Singapore is still trying to cope with.

Part of the responsibility with this, lies with the Old Patriarch. The younger Mr. Lee had to contend with the old one in his cabinet as “Minister Mentor” and somehow there was a never a chance to stamp his own mark onto the government. As is often argued, the problem with brilliant founders is that they never know when to let go.

One of the greatest causes of failure in families is the failure to let go. While Singapore has not been run to the ground and I don’t believe its in any danger of going down the tubes anytime soon, the unwillingness to let go has allowed the things that set Singapore apart to quietly vanish. Unless a new leader with a passion to set out a vision emerges, Singapore will decline.

Just as I started talking about my personal experiences, I shall end on them. I’m grateful my father allowed me to do my own things. All though I’ve not been the roaring success he was, my success and failures are mine. I was not molded to take over something that was not meant to be mine. I wonder how many family businesses might have survived if the founder had let go and allowed his successors to be their own people. 

If Big Business Diversifies Income, Why Can’t You do too?

I’m going to side track and shock my more liberal friends by defending a member of the ruling party in Singapore’s General Elections. The member is Mr. Murali Pillai, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency (Bukit Batok SMC), who apparently said that he didn’t see why MPs were expected to serve the people full time and couldn’t keep their day jobs.

This call has given the opposition plenty of opportunity to accuse PAP MP’s like Mr. Murali of being greedy opportunist who are more interested in extra money than in devoting their lives to serving the people. On the face of it, being an MP is a wonderful money-making scheme. If you’re elected into parliament, you get a monthly allowance of some $15,000 (three times the national average) and you are only work one day a week when you meet your constituents and even then, you have an army of grassroots volunteers who are so eager to please, they’ll do all the heavy lifting for you. Given this scenario, it’s only logical for one to take on another job as this job officially pays you to do not very much.

When the Worker’s Party made Singapore’s electoral history by winning a single GRC (Group Representation Constituency – a concept unique to Singapore but it’s basically a case of voting for a single MP but getting four) in the 2011 General Election, the first thing that the Workers Party did was to announce that their MPs would only be MPs and live off the single income of an MPs allowance.

It was a brilliant political move that was designed to show that the Worker’s Party MPs were going to be dedicated servants of the people as opposed to the ones from the ruling party, who were made to look like they were treating the MPs job as a summer getaway on the tax payers dime.

While I get the political master stroke that this move is, I believe that the concept of making people work only one job is faulty. This is especially true in a time where innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and robots are changing the job market in ways that we never imagined possible. Jobs that we thought of are no longer going to exist. Gone are the days when you joined a single department in a single company for the next fifty years.

Tying people down to a single employer at any given time made sense when people worked for a large organization that would take care of them for life. However, in an era where organizations can dump you at a drop of a hat and be praised for creating “shareholder value,” this does not make sense. The only thing this does is to create a sense of insecurity among people and create a generation of neurotics who will do anything to keep onto that ever-precious job. It works beautifully for big time employers who haven’t exactly been good about raising salaries to keep up with inflation.

I take the example of Singapore’s migrant worker population as an example. Thanks to the explosion of Covid-19 cases among are migrant worker community, the world became very aware of the sub-human conditions that our migrant workers were being housed in. It took a global pandemic for people to even pretend to understand that there was a gross mismatch in the power between the employers and the employees, which led to a national health crisis.

One of the reasons for this mismatch in power between the employer and employee is the fact that the migrant workers are tied to the employers by law. The employer controls their right to stay in Singapore and the migrant worker has to put up with it. An employer can easily terminate the pass of migrant worker for the smallest infringement and choose other workers. By contrast, the migrant worker faces plenty of legal hurdles designed to give jobs to emasculated tin cans sitting in an office jacking off over spreadsheets, should he want to change his (they are mostly men) his employer because the current one is screwing him. I speak as someone who once had to fire 30 of them in a liquidation scenario.

There are of course arguments that one has to be careful about conflicts of interest. For example, you cannot expect someone working in Human Resources at Coke to moonlight in the same role at Pepsi. Doing this would put most employers at risk – trade secrets would no longer exist.

However, as long as you avoid such situations, there should be no reason why any worker should not be allowed to take a job on the side? I think of one of my best friends, who is a Nepali chef. He used to work for a hotel but on his spare days would cook at other restaurants. Didn’t please his HR but he had a reasonable argument, which was – “I can knowledge when I work other places, which I bring back.” It assumes that the knowledge of an employee is a monopoly of the employer. Contrary to what you might be told by the Singapore government, knowledge is not a static block but a flowing river and when people work in many places and in many different roles, they learn and share best practices.

I had a relatively enlightened employer, who allowed me to keep working at the Bistrot.  At first it was a little uncomfortable for him when common friend did point out that I was clearly happier in the Bistrot environment than in the office one. However, I had the chance to repay his kindness when I could introduce potential clients to him through people I had known at the restaurant.

No sensible businessman who will depend on a single customer, so why should human beings depend on a single employer?

The issue with our MPs is not so much a case of them having two well paid jobs. It’s a case of one of the employers not being willing to ask for more value. Mr. Murali is right, why can’t an MP hold down another job. The key here is that in return for the $15,000 monthly allowance, we should make Meet the People sessions every night. The MP can finish his day job at 6pm and then deal with constituents from 8 to 10 at night. That would be worth the money.

Making people get tied down in an age of mobility and fluidity is to create slavery to an organization. The last time I checked, slavery was the antithesis to a normal society.

“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.  

“If Israel devours all of Palestine, it will be a matter of time before Israel becomes Palestine,” - Marwan Bishara – Al Jazeera

Beating Up Weaklings Only Turns You into A Weakling.

I’ve just read an article by Al Jazeera’s senior correspondent, Marwan Bishara, that seems to sum up one of the big issues of the current General Election, the seeming inability of a very powerful entity to get the basics right.

Mr. Bishara’s article was about the proposed annexation of Palestinian lands in the Middle East by Israel, as prescribed in the Peace Plan concocted by Jared Kushner. Mr. Bishara, who is an Israeli citizen, argues that Israel, which is a dominant military force, backed blindly by the world’s most powerful military force, will only harm itself if it carries out an illegal annexation of Palestinian lands by becoming like the Palestinians. Mr. Bishara’s article can be found at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/hubris-israel-endgame-palestine-200630085817780.html

Although I’m sitting nearly 8,000 kilometres away from the conflict that Mr. Bishara was describing, I was able to see some interesting parallels between the war zone described by Mr. Bishara and my safe, comfortable city state.

There are no obvious similarities. A General Election in Singapore is a seemingly tame affair when compared to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, if you look closely enough, there is an underlying similarity.

Like the Israeli military, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is by far and away the most dominant force in Singapore’s politics. This is the party that has every tool at its disposal during an election. Singapore’s opposition parties are pretty much like the Palestinian youth hanging out in Ramallah, a pretty disgruntled lot.

Elections in Singapore are pretty much like an armed conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Youth. One side throws stone and the other replies with drone and air strikes, artillery fire and tanks. Then, when the battle reaches its obvious conclusion, the side with the heavy fire power gets commended in the world press for its heroic defense of the homeland, while the kids throwing stones as the tanks mow down their homes, are chastised for holding an irrational hatred to the benevolent overlords.

If you take this comparison further, you’ll like notice that there are further similarities. Like Israel, the PAP has been a success story. Just as the Israeli nation was the nation of no resources that managed to make the desert bloom, the PAP ran tiny Singapore with no natural hinterland and turned it into one of the wealthiest, safest, cleanest places on earth. 

Just as Israel shines in so many ways when compared to its neighbours, the PAP has somehow managed to nab the best and brightest and left the opposition with, well……(The Young Pork Munching Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC for example has been calling me because he’s shocked that in this election, the opposition party has been fielding highly qualified candidates).

Unfortunately, the PAP has somehow picked up another similarity with the State of Israel.  It has become the living example of what Donald Trump calls “So much winning, that you’ll get bored of winning.”  

Israel is a military and economic powerhouse that has spent years beating up a beaten people led by corrupt incompetents. I remember an Algerian describing the late Yasser Arafat as “That Bastard who stole everything.” The Middle East only democracy produced Bibi Netanyahu, who was the world’s first slick pioneer of populist demagoguery. Bibi built his entire career by taking the easy way out of doing things like making peace and by blaming it on everyone and everything else. Despite its economic success, Israel has been able to shake off a Prime Minister who spends a worrying amount of time in court defending himself from corruption charges. While Israel for the most part remains a vibrant and democratic, one has to ask if it is growing too tolerant of the type of leader that one often associated with Israel’s Palestinian neighbours.

Is something happening to the PAP, a party that has run a highly regarded government for more than five decades. The PAP has been a highly disciplined, well run ship. Its machinery was superb. The opposition traditionally consisted of a few disgruntled people who spent their time trying to brandish this or that to get a bit of attention.

However, things are starting to change. Our opposition parties seem to be getting their act together, while the PAP has been running around like a clueless chicken. The Workers Party (the only opposition party with seats in parliament) has been a model of party discipline and unity. The political party managed to run a Group Representative Constituency (GRC or for non-Singaporeans, a system where voters get four for the price of one) despite every effort made to ensure they failed.

The Progress Singapore Party (PSP), which has becoming the “exciting” party to watch, also proved remarkably disciplined. When one of its members was involved in questionable behavior, he was expelled.

By contrast, at least two potential Members of Parliament have been involved in some rather weird stuff. There was Ivan Lim, and there’s also Ng Ling Ling, who can’t explain what she means how she managed to set up an institute where she was hired to be the assistant director after it was set up. The story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/singapore-ge2020-pap-new-face-ng-ling-ling-responds-to-claim-of-falsely-taking-credit-for

Just as Mr. Bishara said that Israel would become Palestine if it conquered Palestinian lands, might it also be a case of the PAP becoming the Opposition if it wins all the seats in parliament in this election? 

Being President of this Country is Entirely About Character – Andrew Shepard, the American President

One of the great memories I have of student days was watching “The American President,” in the US at the time of the Lewinsky Saga. The movie is about a President who is a widower, who falls in love with a lobbyist. His girlfriend gets attacked by his political opponents and he ends up screwing her for political expediency. However, at the end, he realizes his mistake and decides to fight back and one of the key lines of his final speech is “Being President of this Country is Entirely About Character.”

I am reminded of this movie because I’ve just seen a Facebook posting by the Fawning Follower, who is one of the more interesting members of the cult of Singapore’s Ruling Party. True to form, the Fawning Followers post is a long tirade against the people who “hounded” former candidate for Member of Parliament, Mr. Ivan Lim from running in the elections. I’m pasting a snap shot of the Fawning Follower’s posting and to get the full post you can click on:

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2948815981892776?__tn__=K-R

The thrust of his argument is that we, the Singaporean voters should not be such namby-pamby babies because Ivan Lim has arrogant elitist tendencies. The Fawning Follower goes onto list a range of great men, who brought great innovations to humanity but were at the same time arseholes of the highest order.

The Fawning Follower proceeds to remind us that, “if you want to judge controversial people do it on their merit (or lack of it) not their character.” He makes the point that “being an a**hole is actually a strength.”

Like most cult members, the Fawning Follower misses the obvious points in his eagerness to defend the cult of the ruling party. His key failure is this – he forgets that we’re not talking about a cult that he belongs to. We’re talking about a political party and because that political party is a governing party, we’re talking about the government of a country. As a citizen of that country, I and every other citizen have a moral obligation to tell our government when they’re f***ing up.

I stress that I am not against the government or the ruling party. As often said, I think they’ve done a good job on balance. As long as I and my little girl have a safe and clean environment, I’m not going to complain too much.

However, there have been major f*** ups that have the potential to affect my basic life. First, there was the issue of exploding Covid-19 cases in foreign worker dormitories. This exposed what is essentially a slave racket and there was no defense for a part of the system that had failed from every standpoint

Then there’s the issue of Ivan Lim. As mentioned in my last posting, the entire saga brought into question the selection process of our governing party and the integrity of a candidate for public office. This wasn’t just a case of keyboard warriors having a issues with Ivan Lim, it was a sad reflection of how a party that normally wins elections by blinking several times was behaving like an organization that could not post letters. This is best explained by my former boss, Mr. PN Balji, former editor of Today in his article, which can be found at:

https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/pn-balji-3-steps-disaster-ivan-lim-affair

While Ivan Lim’s “arrogant” behavior got most of the online attention, the most crucial factor to the story was the fact that there was an allegation that he was involved in a corruption scandal in Brazil. While no evidence of wrong doing has come to light, the question is, how did a ruling party, which places so much stress on its integrity in governance, even consider someone who had an allegation of corruption attached to his name? Surely, the ruling party of the world’s most famous hypercompetent government would have screened a potential candidate more thoroughly. While Ivan Lim has denied he had any involvement in the corruption scandal in Brazil, there are reports that things may not be as he says:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/ivan-lim-keppel-brazil/

I don’t disagree that high achievers can be difficult to work with. It’s often said that it is the “unreasonable man who gets things done.” Visionaries like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and dare I say Lee Kuan Yew were difficult but they had a vision and got it done. 

However, the Fawning Follower misses the point completely. He fails to distinguish between personality and character. Ivan Lim’s personality is not the issue, it’s his character. Issues of arrogance can be forgiven if they are compensated by hyper competence. Issues of character and integrity are different story. Let’s remember, we are talking about someone who wants to represent people at the highest of levels. Why should we, the paying public, employ him to speak for us if there are reasons not to trust him?

Let’s leave the issue of the issue of corruption in Brazil aside. There was an allegation that he was willing to put lives of foreign workers at risk:

Once again, the accusation has not been substantiated. However, there is an allegation of behavior that would suggests that Ivan Lim is not suited for public office. 

Any normal person running for any elected office would have to be aware that one’s skeletons would be exposed. While nothing has been proven, he has merely denied that accusations and ran away as fast as he could. Is this the behavior you want in your elected representative? The fact that the Prime Minister himself had said that he was accepting the resignation because there was no time to hold a proper inquiry? Is this the reaction you’d expect from a leader whose told that there are serious issues about one his men? 

Running for an elected office is entirely about character. Ultimately, the electorate can forgive you if you’ve got personality issues and if you make mistakes along the way. What they will not and should not forgive is dishonesty, particularly when you’ve been asked about serious allegations. 

Thank You Ivan Lim - You've Proven the Case for the Opposition!

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

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:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ge2020-paps-ivan-lim-breaks-silence-criticisms-over-character-says-he-will-stay-course?fbclid=IwAR26ALaCjfsJyiVFzaNwy5xLPtno2Zw8fVBfW1mrrv8MufPQISMACAi0P7Y; and

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

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. 

You’re Lucky We Let You Live

I usually don’t have much to say about Singapore Elections. The results, like any libel trial involving our senior political leaders, is a forgone conclusion. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is an expert at using the vast powers and resources of incumbency to its advantage and our opposition remains fragmented and too filled with different egos to focus on the main prize. Furthermore, if you work on the principle that elections are not won by opposition but lost by governments, the PAP government, while having made some serious mistakes, has yet to do enough to lose the election.

Having said that, it’s been unfortunate that a member of the ruling party has decided to put display a very disturbing attitude towards ethnic minorities. The background is as simple. Dr. Tan Wu Meng, a member of parliament (MP) for the ruling party took issue with the playwright, Alfian Sa’at.

I must admit that I’ve never read Alfian Sa’at’s works. However, from what I’ve heard of him, he’s by no means a violent revolutionary nor has he ever suggested that he’d support any damage to Singapore. What he has been is critical of certain government policies and certain members of high society. In short, Mr. Sa’at is not much different from the rest of us when it comes to discussing politics. He is merely more vocal. He was described by Professor Tommy Koh, one of our most respected diplomats as a “loving critic” of Singapore.

Dr. Tan, however, decided that Mr. Sa’at was not a loving critic but a dangerous “anti-Singaporean” and when Dr. Pritam Singh, leader of the Workers Party (the only opposition party with seats in parliament), defended Mr. Sa’at in parliament, Dr. Tan decided to go for the proverbial jugular and in doing so, put on display one of the worst displays of “Chinese Privilege” ever seen:

Dr. Tan’s point is this simple – he, as part of the ethnic Malay minority in Singapore was ungrateful for the fact that Chinese majority Singapore had given him an education and allowed him to make a living. The argument was simple, had he been born as an ethnic minority elsewhere, he wouldn’t live the life he lives or even been allowed to live.

Nobody denies that ethnic minorities don't have it easy. In Southeast Asia, the ethnic Chinese minorities, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia have had to live with, at best legal discrimination or been at the wrong end of a violent mob, as happened to Indonesia’s Chinese back in 1998.

While Singapore’s ethnic Malays have not been on the wrong end of violent clashes, Dr. Tan misses the point. Just because ethnic minorities get it worse elsewhere, it doesn’t make treatment of our own ethnic minorities right nor does it make Dr. Tan’s attitude correct.

For a start, the attitude of “You the ethnic minority are lucky” goes against the ethos of what Singapore is supposed to be. I cannot stress enough that the ruling party, which Dr. Tan is a part of wrote our national pledge as “Regardless of Race, Language or Religion.” Our national pledge is based on us being “Singaporean” first rather than our ethnicity or faith.

Sure, racial prejudice does exist on a personal level and you can’t expect these prejudices to vanish overnight. There is no doubt that ethnic minorities will have to deal with personal prejudices on a personal basis. However, you’d expect that elected representatives of the people would have a duty to combat such prejudices in the public sphere rather than to use the fact that ethnic minorities are just that and to use that as a threat.

Mr. Sa’at was educated in Singapore and makes a living here. Isn’t that the right of every citizen of Singapore? Why is that even an issue?

I am sure that there are plenty of issues that one can take up with Mr. Sa’at but the fact that he’s an ethnic minority that had the good fortune of being able to receive an education and make a living in Singapore should not be one of them.

The leader of the ruling party should demonstrate that we are serious about being “regardless of race, language or religion” and make Dr. Tan pay with his seat in Parliament. There should be no room for politicians to use the race card in a progressive society.