Tech bytes for tea?

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the new Cabinet last night. The previous 21-member cabinet has been reduced to 15, with the departure of 9 ministers and introduction of 3 new faces, which includes two freshly elected Members of Parliament.

21 <– ministers in the previous cabinet.

ministers in the new cabinet –>  15

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was the first Prime Minister of Singapore for 31 years from 5 June 1959 – 28 November 1990, while Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong led Singapore for 14 years from 1990 till 12 August, 2004.

Lee Kuan Yew was appointed to the newly created post of Ministor Mentor on 12 August 2004. He is the founding father of Singapore and brought Singapore from a fledgling, newly-independent, former-colonial state barely able to survive – to a modern society able to hold its own.

Goh Chok Tong further brought Singapore forward and steered the nation through the choppy waters of the Asian Financial Crisis.

The 7-day old General Election was a “watershed” election for the PAP in the groundswell of vociferous resentment against the ruling party, especially on the Web. The anger towards a party widely perceived to have become arrogant and who have lost touch with the populace translated on polling day to the lowest overall percentage of support for the party since the independence of the country in 1965.

Although the PAP still won an overwhelming majority in terms of number of seats in Parliament (81 out of 87), the party brought in only 60.1% of the votes nation wide.

MM Lee Kuan Yew

MM Lee had enjoyed the only walkover in this General Election – their would-be opponents having been ruled out of contest for submitting their paperwork 35 seconds late. However, he had drawn the ire of the Malay community through his comments about the Malays in a book he had published just months prior to the election.

MM Lee also drew much flak for his comments during the hustings that the voters in the hotly contested Aljunied GRC (Group Representation Constituency) would have five years to “repent” if they voted out the incumbent PAP team of MPs.

The contesting team of heavyweights from the Workers’ Party won the GRC by a large margin of 10% – the first time an opposition party has been able to oust a PAP team in a GRC.

SM Goh Chok Tong

SM Goh has always enjoyed extremely strong support from the electorate. In the 1991 General Election, he brought in 77% of the vote for his Marine Parade GRC. In the by-election in 1992, he repeated the resounding victory with 73% of the votes. Since then, he has enjoyed walkovers in the next three Generel Elections in 1997, 2001, and 2006 as Opposition candidates shy-ed away from his stronghold.

This election, however, saw voter support for the team of candidates led by him whittled down to 57%, one of the lowest amongst PAP’s candidates. A large part of the plunge in popularity for the team can be attributed to the popularity of one Nicole Seah of the opposing team, and the correspondingly unpopularity of Tin Pei Ling – a member of SM Goh’s team.

Both Nicole Seah and Tin Pei Ling were the youngest candidates in the opposition and ruling parties respectively – roped in to appeal and connect to the young generation of vociferous voters unafraid to voice their political convictions openly on the Web.

Whilst 24-year-old Seah captured the imagination and support of the populace, the 28-year-old Tin was reviled for her perceived relative immaturity.

It did not help his GRC team when some perceived SM Goh as resorting to personal attacks on his former PPS (Principal Private Secretary) who had joined the opposition. Netizens also pointed out that in so doing, SM Goh had violated his earlier statement of not commenting on candidates outside of Marine Parade.

His dismissal of the opposition team in Marine Parade as coming from the No-Substance-Party (pun on their actual party name National Solidarity Party) was also atypical of his image as a kindly and benign statesmen way beyond the name-calling and mud-slinging tactics of lesser politicians.

Turning of the tide

Against this slew of mis-steps were the national issues that the Opposition candidates brought to the fore during the campaign.

These issues include: high costs of living, high costs of public housing, high ministerial pay, overcrowded public transportation system, influx of foreign talent, mistakes such as the under-budgeting of the Youth Olympics Games and escape of terrorist Mas Selamat, the need for more opposition voices in the Parliament, and the perceived arrogance of the ruling party.

Midway through the hustings, the ruling party must have realised that the tide had turned against them. The slew of attacks from PAP candidates – calling the opposition “poison mushrooms”, labelling a potential coalition government as an ineffective “rojak” parliament, questioning an opposition town council’s accounts in the midst of hustings to throw suspicion on their trustworthiness – were not only failing to alienate the electorate from opposition candidates, but were possibly driving voters to support the opposition.

As a last ditch attempt to salvage whatever votes that could be saved, the Prime Minister himself issued an unprecedented apology during a lunch-time rally in the business district for past mistakes and promised to try better. This change of strategy was taken up by other PAP candidates who suddenly adopted a contrite attitude and started to appear modest, apologising profusely and promising to work harder.

I’m sure this helped, in no small measure, to stem the flow of votes to the opposition and I commend the PM for being responsive enough and having the leadership and gumption to pull off this change in strategy so quickly and abruptly. It seemed that he even managed to gag the MM from making further damaging comments after the latter’s “repent” remarks.

Starting from a clean slate

Now that the General Election is behind us, all eyes are on the ruling party – whether it would be able to transform itself into one that genuinely cared and listened to the electorate.

People within and outside the PAP know that this is critical in ensuring the dominance – or even survival – of the ruling party in the next election. And the PM has promised change. The question is whether the mammoth of a party can really change, or will it be old wine in a new bottle.

I am guessing these two resignations are not individually motivated, but have been discussed at length within the PAP, as part of a slew of changes for the party. MM Lee’s departure would hopefully placate the Malays in the populace and convince people that PM Lee has a free hand to reform the party.

SM Goh’s departure? Probably a face-saving move to avoid having MM make a lonesome exit. At any rate, the two will probably continue to be employed as consultants to oversee areas of responsibilities they’ve been responsible for all this while. And that’s being wise considering the extensive experience and competencies embodied in these two senior statesmen, and the networks they have built up over the years.

What remuneration they would get in place of the unpopular but transparent ministerial pays they have been drawing would certainly draw keen public interest.

At any rate, it is a significant and symbolic move by PM Lee to signal how seriously the party is in transforming the party into one that is caring and connected to the people.

Full press statement

Below is the joint-email statement to the media from the two leaders and former Prime Ministers in full:

“We have studied the new political situation and thought how it can affect the future. We have made our contributions to the development of Singapore. The time has come for a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation. The Prime Minister and his team of younger leaders should have a fresh clean slate. A younger generation, besides having a non-corrupt and meritocratic government and a high standard of living, wants to be more engaged in the decisions which affect them. After a watershed general election, we have decided to leave the cabinet and have a completely younger team of ministers to connect to and engage with this young generation in shaping the future of our Singapore.

But the younger team must always have in mind the interests of the older generation. This generation who has contributed to Singapore must be well-looked after.”