Benjamin Cheah/ photos by Terry Xu
A wet evening was in store at the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally on Tuesday. In spite of vigorous rain and parking wardens refusing entry to nearby parking lots, the crowd grew rapidly in the shower.
Ms Teo Soh Lung delivering her speech after the rain
Education was the first topic of the night. Ms Teo Ser Lung said the SDP succeeded in making the People’s Action Party (PAP) admit that current class sizes were too big, leading to reduction of class sizes. She was referring to the SDP’s policy of reducing class sizes to a teacher-student ratio of 1:20, and classes for elective subjects respectively. Ms Teo also accused the government of ‘discriminating’ against students in the normal stream. She said that these classes have an average of 40 pupils, and their teachers are placed under a great deal of stress. This stress causes teachers to leave teaching for private tuition. Further, Ms Teo said that special needs children were not catered for by the government, as volunteers, not public schools, had to take care of their education. She also said, ‘We are a first world nation, and education should be free!’ Finally, she said that, if elected, the SDP will check the government to ensure it continues to place a premium on education.
The other speakers raised contentions with Mr Lim Swee Say’s remarks that voting for the opposition would result in a ‘rojak government with rojak policies’. Rojak is a fruit and vegetable salad, named after the Malay word for ‘mixture’. Mr Lim meant that he felt a coalition government was undesirable for Singapore. Mr Tan raised the most detailed objection. Saying ‘rojak is quite nice to eat’, he said that coalition governments were desirable. Mainstream political parties may not represent the interests of the people, he argued, but non-mainstream parties do. Coalition governments therefore represent the people’s every interest. He cited coalition governments in the United Kingdom and Europe as proof that coalition governments were becoming more popular.
The SDP also raised issues with the PAP’s strategy of promising upgrading projects should the people elect them. Mr Alec Tok, in particular, asked on stage if Mr Lee Hsien Loong thought that this strategy was ‘unfair’. He said that the people should not let the promises of upgrading overshadow ‘fundamental problems’. He added that the residents of Potong Pasir and Hougang, who have consistently returned opposition politicians to Parliament in past elections, were not swayed by promises of upgrading.
Ms Michelle Lee
Economics was a hot issue throughout the rally. Speakers consistently asserted that Singaporeans were facing competition from foreigners for jobs and housing, which depresses wages and increases prices for flats. Singapore’s economic model was also questioned. Dr John Tan asked, ‘How can we call ourselves an open market if sixty percent of our companies are indirectly linked to the government?’ Ms Michelle Lee said that the government could control costs of living through Goods and Services Tax (GST), setting prices of housing and public transportation, but failed to do so. Mr Tan Jee Say, citing a ‘university study’, said that half of inflation in Singapore was caused by domestic factors, singling out government policies for criticism. He added that Singaporeans have been ‘overtaxed’, explaining that Singapore’s surpluses were drawn from taxes and criticizing the need to have such a large surplus. Mr Alec Tok bemoaned rising prices of public housing, saying that young Singaporeans now need 20 to 30 years to pay for Housing and development Board (HDB) flats.
In response to this, the speakers unveiled a multi-pronged approach to solutions. Dr John Tan proposed gradually closing down Temasek Holdings and Government-linked companies and supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs in their place. The nature of this support was not described. Mr Tan recommended removing GST on ‘essential goods’, and setting it at 3% for all other goods. He did not explain what these ‘essential goods’ were. Mr Tan recommended growing the service sector. He also raised the most ambitious proposal: a sixty billion-dollar investment in education, services, infrastructure and public healthcare. The money would be drawn from the reserves. Mr Tan said that this investment plan would ‘give hope’ to businessmen, people in creative entrepreneurs, and workers.
Dr James Gomez’s speech was a somber explanation of the SDP’s ‘shadow health policy’, titled ‘Healing with Care’. Dr Gomez began by criticizing the current healthcare ‘funding model’ as ‘problematic’. He said that Medisave does not grant enough money to cover treatment, Medishield provides inadequate coverage of illnesses, and Medifund is a sign that Medisave and Medishield could not pay for healthcare to begin with. Consequently, he added, many patients could not afford to pay for treatment, and healthcare providers would be placed under great stress because they have to ‘implement hospital policy’ in addition to looking after the ill. He did not specifiy what ‘implement hospital policy’ meant.
He proposed a series of measures to address this. The Health Ministry’s budget would be increased to ten billion dollars, or about three times its current budget. This would be achieved by drawing from the reserves and reducing the budgets of other ministries, notably the Ministry of Defence. The number of hospital beds and staff would be increased. In the interim period before all the beds arrive, void decks would be converted to clinics to ease the burden on existing healthcare facilities. A national global medical insurance policy would also be implemented to cover Singaporeans around the world. Finally, payments for healthcare should be ‘reasonable and affordable’.
Dr Vincent Wijeysingha
Dr Vincent Wijeysingha’s speech was a message of humanity. He began his speech by telling a story. He covered a day in the life of the average Singaporean, in the process highlighting the problems people face. This included traffic jams, Electronic Road Pricing, competition from foreigners for jobs and the pressure to work harder as a result, prices of food at and rents faced by hawker stalls, healthcare costs, and taxes. He reinforced his colleagues’ earlier points, and spoke about his reactions to the problems people faced. He focused in particular on the plight of elderly people working as cleaners. He said ‘Our hearts bleed for our nation’, adding ‘this cannot continue’.
The party also addressed issues relevant to the constituency. Mr Tok recommended building a polyclinic in the constituency. The flier the SDP distributed prior to the rally promised that SDP MPs would donate half of their allowances to help the people should the SDP candidates be elected.
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The ruling parties have been good for first national building, but they have already lost the balance between national building of well being for people and money making.
And I intend to leave Singapore as much i don’t want to.
AGAIN MARK MY WORDS HERE, Singapore WILL soon become Hong Kong and also even Japan, China and India where housing price and cost of living are too high!! It WILL GET OUT OF HAND.
It is getting harder each day. Pay and pay without knowing why we need to pay more and more, and we piss and piss. Work and work and work for long hours and when we retire still cant take our CPF(maybe cant even fork out any CPF to pay for housing) and think when my retirement age is 80 to 100 years old by then. And I have to pay 30 years for our house.
I guess Singapore Pte Ltd(not Ltd) has just really becoming a Very Very Very Big MNC(s), even bigger after THIS election….
Singaporeans will continue to be unwilling boiling frogs, and will continue in a way that they wont even know how, where and when to voice out publicly although deep inside their heart they are very tired working and paying debts and bills.
I personally guess and believe all these are due to the reserves and loss of GICs and temasek holding that they want to cover up the losses(including in CHINA Suzhou and India and Thailand) that lead to the recent years mania increase of the prices of everything including housing and ERP, non-withdrawal of CPF, retirement age increase.
No ones want to be left, no ones want to be left at home, no ones want to be forced to leave their homes, but I guess we will.
The education system is THE SOURCE of why our policies of meritocracy and elite, but all along it is emphasizing in second place morals, ethics and compassion. That’s why now our ruling parties leaders or rather followers are yes men and also more close to the party than the nation. The quality and non monetary motivation of candidates for this election from non-ruling parties are far better than ruling parties despite all odds and doubts of people fear change for the better of democracy and monopolies, but ruling parties are dividing them and conquering them one by one… The balance of conscience is lost.
Also, the healthcare is too high and also not enough time to take care of health due to cost of living, for example the lower income like contract workers and more than 30000 taxi drivers and many other private bus drivers…
Upgrading of HDB estate comes with a price, which we have to address the false glory behind it as we are driven so hard so fast to work harder and harder, longer and longer each day. Not sure when we can retire is a scary thing.
The government only spend 1.6% of GDP to healthcare, that’s why we have to work hard for our hefty and long medical bills. Plus lack of hospitals and healthcare scheme where we are reminded that we are not welfare state, but remember the word we can die, but we cant be sick or ill.
The lists goes on and on.. I am neither a statistic guy nor a pro-hdb upgrading man(as it is promoting false glory while we work and struggle for livelihood) but I sense as a concerned resident of Singapore and resident of Tampines,
I urge that Mah Bow Tan(MBT) be removed from election so that he can move on to the private sectors to help ruling parties make more money. George Yeo can retire since they are millionaire, we definitely have talents from non ruling parties.
If we vote ruling party WITH LANDSLIDE VICTORY USING GRC SYSTEM and they don’t control the situation well, Singaporean might be swarmed with 1000000 to 1500000(1million to 1.5 million) more Foreigners soon that our next generations are squeezed out of Singaporean even they work very very very hard and fast, till the day they die. Filial Piety may be lost from children to their parents and before that parents can afford to have any child and don’t even want to get married like many of my friends above mid 35s, due to cost of living to even support themselves…
Remember the cooling day tricks… It is not about voting opposition, it is voting for votes of no confidence of ruling party and voting for ourselves and our children not be enslaved by ruling party, be brave and be farsighted..
To the well-off, powerful and richer people, you might want to rock the boat by allowing GRCs to be biased favourably towards ruling parties, but once the cancer of democracy due to GRC formations are uncurable, the vicious cycle might impact you in vicious cycle manner and even your children in future.
The MAIN, MAIN reason why ruling party don’t want opposition parties is so that they wont check their billions of dollars lost and cannot account for, since the early day Suzhou Industrial Park losses…
Be cautioned in advance my beloved Fellow Countrymen.
Have a GOOD VOTE(there is no best vote, don’t waste your vote to void as opposition need your vote to voice out your real long TERM concerns and NEEDS) using LONG TERM VIEW of balanced multi-parties yet ensure that parties and their candidates are morally, ethically and compassionately and passionately about the people, not just meritocracy and elite system!!
page 5 of 6
Bless ourselves and Bless Singaporeans :)..
Guardians and Forefathers of Singapore help US!!
Hope the positive and pure balanced energies finally flows in Singapore
Let there be no over greed, morally, ethically and compassionate government and people through education from young to nurture with patience!!!
page 6 of 6(final page)
read http://www.goldclubasia.com/forum to see why ruling party are crappy also
IN YESTERDAY’S SHITTY TIME,
someone from harbour board wrote, “thank you PAP for the $3000 i get, it shows the gov is good”, = hello, its your stupid CPF money taken from your acct, which you cannot touch, to BUY YOUR VOTE, dumb.
do you want the statement smelling of ROSES or LILIES, every month, but you CANNOT GET YOUR MONEY.
you stupid or what ???? they said you cannot handle money, so its for them to KEEP YOUR CPF, forever, even your medisave, isn’t it GREAT,
“YOUR CPF MONEY AND TAX MONEY TO BUY YOUR VOTE”
another said, its better to have a track record and high gdp, its good for me = hey, don’t worry, your sons and daughters will ask you later,
“dad, what have you done, SOLD my future and my children’s future, for VOTE dollars and high gdp and good track record when all things were SCREWED up on housing, jobs and inflation”
don’t worry, the day will come when you THE older gen will see and FEEL, yes, FEEL the pain…..OF YOUR FUTURE GEN !!
“YOUR CPF, TAX MONEY GIVEN BACK TO YOU WHEN ELECTION COMES, TO BUY YOUR VOTE”
ANY OTHER TIME, NOTHING ???
Since Real Madrid, the most expensive assembled team can’t deliver much, perhaps it’s good to give the Almerias and Getafes a chance. We need Heart and Ear, which the Elitist may not quite have that.
I support SDP because:
1. I truly respect Dr. Chee Soon Juan. Before 2001, I was reading only the mainstream media, I used to think that he was a nonsensical trouble maker, a “joke” in the opposition party. In 2006/7, out of curiosity, i googled “Chee Soon Juan,” after reading a ST report about him, the search engine returned many results, a lot of them were SDP and foreign press articles. I started reading them and I got a totally different picture of who CSJ is. I started following SDP more closely and I begin to change my view from belittling CSJ to respecting him – how he did not choose to live in a foreign country (i am sure he can find a teaching position in an oversea university) but stay on in Singapore to fight his cause – the cause of Singaporeans. I spoke with friends and families about SDP/CSJ, I realized how many people still regard CSJ as nonsensical (the way i used to see him) and I told them to read beyond local media and they may get a very different picture.
2. I saw the rally given by Vincent Cheng from the Internet. How could this mild-mannered gentleman be a Marxist with a hidden agenda.
3. I read about the 2011 GE candidates from SDP and i believe that SDP focuses a lot on social causes and fighting for the less privileged in our society (a topic that is close to my heart).
I just want to take this opportunity to send my encouragement to SDP and a personal apology to Dr. Chee, how wrong we were when we joked about you (I was in the NUS the year where you were defamed), I really wish that we Singaporeans will give SDP a chance to be an alternative voice in our parliament. We need them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZcyU5eG5g&NR=1
Promises After Promise(PAP)-Liers
Wolves in Sheep White skin
Be our voice for us from Tanjong Pagar