by Donaldson Tan
So it turned out that the People’s Action Party (PAP) had skipped the biggest political event of the year. Organised by The Online Citizen (TOC), the Face to Face (F2F) Forum, held on 16 December 2010 at the Quality Hotel, had attracted more than 300 members of public. Pointing to the empty chair on stage, the forum moderator Mr Remy Choo said, “We actually did invite the PAP. We sent an email to the Secretary-General PM Lee. We also reached out to a MP. He asked for clearance but didn’t get it, so unfortunately that’s the elephant in the room tonight.”
An elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook. By ignoring the elephant, occupants in the room made the choice to concern themselves with tangential issues rather than dealing with the looming big one. Therefore, it would be erroneous to describe PAP’s absence as an “elephant”. During the 3-hour forum, issues such as affordability of public housing, foreign talent policy, national service and minimum wage were raised. PAP’s policies were addressed, not ignored. The panelists collectively emphasised the need for HDB to provide affordable public housing, called for the abolition of the Internal Security Act, called for raising the quantum for Workfare and discussed their position on defamation laws in Singapore.
What the PAP has clearly missed was the opportunity to enrich the policy debate in Singapore by invoking other stakeholders such as the other political parties, civil society and concerned members of the public. But this is not new. The institution of Parliament has been reduced to a mere rubber-stamp committee through the imposition of the party whip and overwhelming presence of the ruling party in the Parliament that curtailed the need for further debates. If the PAP sees no need to enrich debate in Parliament, why would it see fit to enrich policy debate outside Parliament?
Yes, TOC has been snubbed by the ruling party, together with supporters for a live televised General Election debate. Back in May 2010, the question of live TV debate during General Election was raised in the public sphere. Sure there was raging interest with supporters eschewing arguments such as how a live debate would engage young voters and renew interest in nationhood with the PAP camp dismissing how a live debate would turn policy issues into a question of style over substance. We didn’t see this manifest among the Opposition leaders present at the F2F forum. If PAP proclaims that their leaders are superior to Opposition leaders, then they would even be less likely to fall to the temptation of turning public debates into one where style over-rides substance.
Worst of all, the cost of the PAP’s absence at the F2F Forum was bore disproportionately by the public. The Opposition political parties present were able to capitalise on PAP’s absence by delivering a more candid appraisal of the ruling party and their policies, winning cheers and applauses from the floor. Yet the public is short-changed because they are denied an opportunity to clarify with the horse’s mouth on policies that impact their lives and obtain details on these policies. Furthermore, in the absence of the PAP, the Opposition political parties need not further refine their points and disagreement with PAP on specific policies too.
For example, the issues of raising HDB cost, foreign talent policy, healthcare all points to a larger trend which has yet to be addressed adequately by the Opposition political parties combined – aging population. By 2050, Singapore’s median age will be 54, similar to Japan and Italy. Singapore will be among the demographically oldest countries in the world. There will be fewer working adults to look after more aged dependents. The spillover of the impact of the aging population trend will include national productivity, economic revitalisation, social, transport and healthcare infrastructure.
The F2F Forum is only but one of the instances whereby PAP’s absence has stifled the development of a marketplace of ideas. Without meaningful ideas and information being placed on the pedestral in such forums, it is impossible for any political actors to take substantial action. Unless voters send the message that PAP’s absence would erode its relevance to the public, democracy in Singapore won’t be better off.
The writer is the Chief Editor of socio-political website New Asia Republic.
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Donaldson, I can’t really agree with your point that the absence of the ones who formulate the policies at this forum has impoverish the discussion.
That view is, rightfully, taken from the perspective of precedence – i.e. there is a problem already out there that needs to be addressed. It could be true, but the Face-to-Face Forum need not have taken that approach, if it so chooses or if the appropriate reps are not there.
A fresh perspective, unencumbered by precedence, sometimes work to the benefit of debate, as it explores new possibilities. I was not at the Forum, but I do hope that there was some sense of that and an agreement that, even without the old elephant, citizens can still contribute to the debate.
Indeed, looking at the way we are headed as a nation, I would even dare to say that a fresh perspective is critical. Kill the sacred cows, open up new possibilities, and the like.
“…(PAP) had skipped the biggest political event of the year”.
let’s keep hubris to a minimum please. bigger than NUS Political Forum where the opposition plus the PAP were represented (in the form of Indranee Raja)? What about NUSS Political Dialogue where, again, the opposition plus the PAP (in the form of Chris de Souza) were represented?
F2F was a very laudable initiative by TOC, and I hope there is more to come. However, instead of harping on the obvious, i.e. the PAP has missed a great opportunity to debate or reach out, the article would be better off discussing why the PAP opted out.
reasons:
1. it does not want to lend credibility/legitimacy to an entity like TOC which it cannot control or manipulate.
2. it does not want TOC to set the agenda. if this becomes a trend, the PAP will have to scuttle from forum to forum, from site to site in the run up to GE, something which every political party does, but that which the ruling party deems beneath it. the contest to set the agenda, to determine the platforms for ‘credible’ debate is on. the PAP’s decision to opt out from F2F is the first shot across the bows.
Frankly, public debate for each contested constituency should be the best yardstick for voters to determine which candidate will best serve their needs and that of the country.
pappies are MIWWB
I fully agree that the whole idea of parliamentary set up is to make PAP feels good. If they have an insitution that served as a dome to protect them all the time, why is there a need to go out and engage in debates that they were not prepared and likely to get defeated. That will make them feel like a loser. So better play safe by making themselves absent from public engagement and play with their statistics to fool the public. Such game is nothing new. Luckily we have Leong Sze Hian to tell us how silly PAP were to give contradictory explanations to their own statistics – all the time.
Huh biggest political event of the year??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
as a scalled elected MP..you must represent the constitunecy..it YOUR job
what clearance is the pap mubblin? if every kachanputeh must be approved by the prime minister..why need 80 pap MPs?
in brunei..there is no need for mp..
1 sultan.. 1 finance minister.. 1 defence minister
do you see the sultanate of brunei hav so many problemos?
Hi HL,
Fresh perspective isn’t a replacement for eradicating information asymmetry. I am not trying to hammer the Opposition here but this information asymmetry affects everyone outside the Establishment.
yes get the candidates of the GE to debate within each constituencies. Maybe the election department should hold common rallys within each constituency or GRC at least once during the campaign period inviting the candidates of both parties to debate during this common rally to allow the voters to assess the candidates more objectively before they vote for them.
The fact that Sg’s demography is changing so drastically just hit me, even tough I’ve heard it so many times before. man.
Why would a party want to be represented for such an ocassion when they are under enormous pressure?
You & I know they will be torn to bits.
If the going was good, then that’s a diffrent story and anyway PAP always likes to set the agenda and be prepared for it. That’s politics.
PAP might be worried that this event even took place. Their idea and strategy would be to divide and conquer. However, TOC is doing otherwise to bring every opposition togather to bond.haha
Imgaine, co-ordinated affairs during the GE by these same oppositions, there would be cost savings, rally dates & times aligning well and masses of people forming large groups to hear out the oppositions.
Can you imagine, what it would be like, the opposition euphoria flying in the air.
If I remember correctly, in 2001 they even voiced out about the number of people, turning up in Yishun were not from the same constituency.
If only the oppositions can muster the courage to gel well during the hustings, then its bye bye to many PAP MPs.
The herd mentality sets in. This can be done.(personally I want MBT, LSS aka Zorro &
WKS(might not contest the next GE) taken out)
Thus, forget the empty chair, don’t bother about elephants and lets work on what has been achieved.
I feel the opposition is in gear 3 now, it has to be careful not to burn out and hit the peak at the right time.
However, the people seem to want an explosion of change. I sense most of the commenters here, feel that way.It does not work like that, you can’t get married and have a baby the next day, can you?
Donaldson, I didn’t really get to part about you hammering Opposition, and surely have no intent to. :) Neither did I say that fresh perspectives can replace information asymmetry.
But what I am proposing is that the Forum need not be about addressing information asymmetry. It could, however, be a platform for the honest exchange of ideas to consider new problems and debate on solutions. For that matter, information asymmetry can also refer to issues that were never debated, as much as one-sided information about issues that are already known.
Sure, the issues debated at this particular Forum were definitely in the working scope of the ruling party, but it does not mean to say that the debate ends with the Forum. Participants can raise these issues to the ruling party, and push for change as they see fit, while proposing solutions that were thought off without having been put down pre-emptively by a ruling rep. And no, we don’t need a GE to do that. :)
At the end of the day, such forums are an extension of the public sphere. They are not about politicians, but about politics. Politics belong to the people, not political parties. It matters little who attends, but of those who did, how they contributed.
I agree with the last para of HL.
In almost all articles, the blog discusses issues but not the people’s mentality which is the bottleneck of democracy.
I cannot understand why opposition dare not target this problem head-on.
Singaporeans are not like any other citizens in the world. You cannot do opposition with the style used by other countries where they target the policies. When foreign oppositions charge , they have a strong army of followers behind them. When opposition charge here, there is an army of believers who dare not appear in public.
This is a mentality issue, which i have been highlighting. But no one seems to dare to face the dirty truth.
Truth hurts. Stop living in Denial.
The elephant already drawing the highest salary, so why should it expose itself to justify that it really deserved that pay level in a public debate,
For the MP that didn’t turn up becos’ of no clearance given. Pls lah, no balls say no balls. The calibre of a person is best seen when he/she is acting alone, not as a GRC of 4-5 persons.
The PAP must have felt that by attending the TOC forum, they would have dignified the event and ‘officially’ recognised TOC as a mouthpiece of the common Singaporean.
By attending a forum the PAP’s agenda is to talk down to the rest and not interested in “honest exchange of ideas to consider new problems and debate on solutions.”
Feeling from the ground is that the opposition are ahead of the elephant. In case the opposition has more sits than the elephant after the election I hope all of them will agree the PM position be reserved for SDP, the two DPM will each goes to WP and RP.
Hi Folks
Is Singapore a mature democracy? Look at UK, David Cameron is the PM and his Deputy is from their coalition partners. Can this happen is Singapore? It might not have worked in the 60′s but we are now in a different era and world has changed so much. One party rule will not work in this century. We have to wake up or go to hell !
lets talk about your favourite sport games. i live football – soccer zenit piter number 1! what about you?
Hello world!