Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The topic of the election and whether the opposition is capable or otherwise is here to haunt Singapore again. While this blog has posted several articles on the political system of Singapore (or rather the lack of one), this particular post will attempt to critique opposition in Singapore, analyzing the need for one and the ineffectiveness of the opposition.
Is there is a need for oppositions in Singapore? In a governmental context, the use of an opposition is for a check and balance in the governance of a country. Just as a clockwise and an anti-clockwise moment can bring about equilibrium in a dynamic motion, thus a ruling party and an opposition can aide in bringing a country to its equilibrium. Take the various policies that the ruling party has produced. It reeks of a tendency to pander to the big employing firms, at the expense of the workers and citizens. How many countries can claim to be able to reduce the wages of the entire nation without so much as a protest or demonstration? Well this in itself may not be totally detrimental; the question is how far the ruling party will squeeze the lemon. And to ask the question, we need an opposition in the parliament. Because while we can write into the forum pages and we can go to the Speakers Corner, such questions simply will not be answered effectively unless asked at the right places at the right time.
The justification for an opposition not however, entail that the ruling party will automatically adjust for a opposition candidates to enter into parliament. In this weird pseudo democracy that we live in, there are people who are fortunate enough to live their whole lives without needing to be responsible for the next government and the leadership of the nation. The number of walkovers is simply astounding and the whole idea of elections warped and deformed. On one hand the ruling party wants creative, entrepreneurial Singaporeans, but on the other, we have no right to speak up and when we do, we are told that we cannot for the good of the nation. This is all tinged with a lot of double talk and sadly, there is nothing we can do about it.
Proactive or otherwise, its not that everyone is satisfied. We have just learnt to live with what we have. In a nation that is supposed to have a low inflation level, the cost of education is raising very quickly. How will a University Cultural Centre that have of no apparent educational value help in teaching the next batch of undergraduates? On the same note, how will advertising improve the education standards of the university? The deadweight lost of such project will eventually be borne by a graduating population that will enter the workforce in debt and work for half a decade before being able to pay of the debt. And this is but a same minority of the population. In a nation that is trying to move towards high-end services and technology, Singapore is still strangely trying to retrain experienced middle age workers to clean hotel rooms and sweep the floor. Where is the technological advances that is supposed to allow us to work from home and make a million a year?
Such questions remain unanswered. There maybe an answer, but the real reason why there is no reply is the fact that there is no opposition to ask such questions. But then maybe that is still not the real issue. If we need to have housing quotas and GRCs to ensure that we are cohesive as a nation, then maybe its really asking too much for the people to form even one opposition party that can ask these questions.
12:29 AM
