Decidedly Pro-Singapore

D said she found it hard to believe I am not anti-PAP on our way home yesterday when I thought aloud that the light drizzle last night was perhaps heaven weeping for Singapore and the choice we made at the polls yesterday.

I think it would have been more unimaginable that I was actually jumping for joy when the dominant party won an unprecedented 75 percent majority vote at the 2001 elections.

I had thought it was a good thing that there was strong support and the government could continue to be "efficient" given the little opposition in parliament. I remembered being very convinced that Chiam See Tong would go at the next elections since he only won by a 751-vote margin then.

How things have changed since the last elections.

In 2001, I was a 19-year-old who was igorant and unaware of the crucial dichotomy between state and society in a democracy, among a whole host of other things. I also held great respect for people like George Yeo who was in my mind, a brilliant intellectual.

When PAP introduced their new candidates back then, I remembered the candidacy of Vivian Balakrishnan and Raymond Lim particularly struck me.

I remembered them as being fierce critics of the government, so my first feeling was that of bewilderment - have they sold out, I wondered - but I later bought the prime minister's rhetoric, that PAP was now more ready to accomodate alternative view points.

5 years down the road and 5 years older, and after being exposed to two years of a social science undergraduate education, while it would be too presumptous to say that I now know it all, I think I can safely say that I am now more aware of the need for more greater political diversity.

Make no mistakes about it. I still think PAP, led by Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong and now Lee Hsien Loong, has done a great job by transforming Singapore into what it is today.

But why settle for a good government, when we can have the best?

And in my opinion, the best that is yet to be, can be achieved by ensuring greater political opposition in parliament, which was why I was disappointed that the Workers' Party did not win Aljunied GRC at yesterday's General Elections. That I did not even get to vote perhaps compounded my disappointment.

There needs to be greater debate on what constitutes Singapore's best interests. Surely it goes against the very grain of human sense and nature to suggest that a single party, with the imposition of a party whip, could properly represent the spectrum of Singapore society.

Take a read of my favourite 2 books on Singapore - Chua Beng Huat's "Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore" and Garry Rodan's "Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia - Malaysia and Singapore" - and you would probably realise that while the method Chee Soon Juan employed in raising the issues that he did might be wrong and unconstructive in every sense of the word, the issues he raised remained inadequately resolved.

At the end of the day, what still remains a massive puzzle is the ever increasing social inequalities in Singapore and the mystifying meritocratic explanation for this that people are poor and cannot make it because they are lazy and cannot make it due to their "nature."

This is just but one of the many questions that are left lingering in my head.

What about the moral authority of the leaders to proclaim their "right" to lead Singapore when they are paying themselves obscene salaries? I mean, as others have probably said before me - if they are so selfless and want to serve the country, then a salary half their existing amounts, would also suffice?

As GE2006 come to a close, I still don't get a sense of how PAP is projecting Singapore into the future. All I see is how they use basic municipal issues like priority for estate upgrading as election carrots, and how PAP has made enough boo-boos in their election campaigns to last a lifetime.

They first started the whole first-world government rhetoric, yet descended into third world politics by making a mountain out of the molehill that they even called "Gomez-gate."

He said that the progress packages were not election ploys, yet he was reported by the national paper to actually be getting people to vote for PAP "so that (they) can continue to enjoy more progess packages." He failed to mention also, that the money is not PAP to give - it is really taxpayers' money.

Also how our PM had to issue an apology for using strong words like "fixing the opposition after the elections" and how more opposition in parliament means they have to spend more time dealing with them and thus curtailing the efficiency of his government.

I don't know man, but maybe there is some truth to the irony how the people who have been labelled quitters by the gah-men in the past, are actually the most pro-Singapore people. It has been pointed out to me that they leave because they cannot bear the pain of seeing their beloved country turning into the way it is.

I am pro-Singapore, but that does not mean that I should be for the dominant party. But it also means that I am not against the dominant party, neither am I totally for the opposition.

People should veer away from adhering to such strict distinctions. This would severely limit our decision making capabilities because we should not feel compelled to follow a party blindly.

Oh well, till the next elections in 4/5 years then - if I am "lucky" enough to be able to vote in my democratic country that is.

Am I more aware or "bitter" or even worse, still "naive" after all these years?

Well, I guess it works both ways.

While I should continue to work on whatever bitterness I have within me, I should also be aware of how greater awareness can potentially add to this bitterness. Instead of allowing greater knowledge to manifest itself in cynicism, I should perhaps find ways to decrease my ignorance in this sense as well.

Nobody, and certainly not me, can ever claim to be not ignorant, that would surely be arrogance. Perhaps what counts is how we reconcile and appreciate different perspectives and where they are coming from.