by: Ravi Philemon/
picture: Shawn Danker/
There are many reasons out there in the online world detailing why one should not vote for Dr Tony Tan. I am writing this note to say why he may not be half as bad as most of the online world makes him out to be.
When Dr Tony Tan came out and said that he will be contesting in the Presidential Election of 2011 with his speech “How could I remain a spectator?”, I was (I suspect like most in the socio-political blogosphere) extremely skeptical.
After the lunch with Dr Tan (with some other bloggers), I was still unconvinced about him. I wondered if he was engaging without wanting to be engaged.
But the more I thought through what Dr Tan said throughout his campaign period; the more I hear the various (often opposing) views, the more it dawned on me that it is not so easy to ignore him.
Yeah in the ‘Face to Face 2′ Presidential forum, Dr Tony Tan seemed to imply that the detainees of the 1987 ‘Marxist Conspiracy’ were terrorists.
But if you really heard the question MARUAH’s Clara Feng asked (HERE), it was a two-pronged question. She started off by asking about the ISA and then she veered from that question to inject the ‘Marxist Conspiracy’ into it.
Dr Tan may have of course heard the first part of her question, where she started off by saying, “My question is on the Internal Security Act (ISA) and it is directed to all the candidates”, and so his defence too could have been of that particular Act and not of the detention of the ‘Marxist Conspirators’.
Donaldson Tan argues quite cleverly (HERE) how the ISA itself has gone through several revisions since 1987, and even if it can still be reformed further, it remains an effective tool for countering terrorism.
Dr Tan could of course have defended the ISA as it is today, and not the ISA of 1987.
This interpretation seem to make more sense when you consider that later in the same Forum in answering another question:
“On the 25th anniversary of the of the Marxist arrest in May next year, will you if elected as President, take any steps to influence or lobby the government to review what happened in 1987 with a view to clearing the names of those that are alleged to be part of the conspiracy?”
from Senior Counsel Harpreet Singh, Dr Tony Tan answered:
“Next May – it depends on what new information or evidence is made available at that time and I will consider it in the circumstances of the case at that time.”
which seems to suggest that he will not be closed-minded about the innocence of the supposed ‘conspirators’ and will be open to reconsidering it if he is elected President.
He of course went on to say that he will not be able to comment on Cabinet discussions as they are covered under the Official Secrets Act and some have criticised that he had discussed that he repealed the Graduate Mothers’ Scheme as Education Minister.
What we have to remember is that he did not disclose Cabinet discussions, even in the Graduate Mothers’ Scheme, but information which was available publicly.
I, in fact, have the highest regard for people who stand by those with whom they have cast their lot with. It takes a man to stand by a collective decision (whether it is good or bad) made, take ownership of it, and face the music for it.
My respect for Tony Tan would have been greatly diminished if he, in considering the ‘new normal’, had chosen to distance himself from his past.
My participation in MARUAH’s ‘What do you do Mr President’, further reinforced my belief that Dr Tony Tan cannot be written off. For as constitutional law expert, Dr Kevin Tan so rightly reminded, Mr Ong Teng Cheong (whom Mr Tan Jee Say says is his role model), was also a Deputy Prime Minister (like Tony Tan), before being elected President of Singapore.
The machinery of the People’s Action Party probably went on to endorse him and secure his victory, but once he was elected, his allegiance was no longer to the PAP; but he had a mind-shift – he was now aligned with the people of Singapore.
I had initially wanted to rebut The Straits Times’ Zakir Hussain’s assertion that “independence is ultimately a matter of the mind, not of past institutional links”, but now I somewhat agree with it.
Who is to say that Dr Tony Tan if he is elected, will not have a mind-shift of allegiance, from the PAP to the people of Singapore?
Yeah, of course most of the people who spoke at his rally where from the establishment. But did he have a choice? Would someone from the alternative stick out their necks for him and ‘lose their reputation” of being the opposition?
The only person who was willing to be that brave is the Singapore People’s Party member and former-Acting Town Councillor of Potong Pasir, Mr Gunalan. He told me when I met him at Tony Tan’s lunchtime rally, “I’m voting for Tony Tan”.
I also agree with Terence Lee, editor of New Nation’s comment on Facebook, “IMO, Tony Tan has the most well-run campaign so far”, and because he has run the best campaign of the four, he cannot be overlooked.
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One person, one vote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFbvxkiLZ_U&feature=related
I invite the citizenry to look at the long view and not the short one of who should withdraw so as to give way to another candidate on the same path or even what each candidate says he will do if elected. Such analyses do not explain the true state of affairs.
We are in a desert as far as opposition members are concerned.
Fact is that the PAP candidates TT and TCB have been on TV and the newspaper for decades while the non PAP candidates are Johnny -Come -Lately. Why so? Because the PAP has systematically eradicated all non PAP by thuggery of the political police and compliant judges for more than 4 decades.
If the PAP thuggery continues, then opposition parties will waste their lives trying to get elected in any future elections. LKY has engineered this society very well, gagging the citizenry by fear of the political police and by rule of Law, control of the press, TV and any written words, changing election boundaries at each election, and all these are achieved by the political police and a completely compliant judiciary. It is to be expected that the citizenry will be moved to vote for candidates who they see often on TV or in the press. If the man’s face appears only at election times, fat hope that he will ever get elected. The PAP controls all media in Singapore except the Internet. It will take another generation for everyone to be using the Internet and I have lost all hopes that any other system of governance but the single party system PAP will pertain in this country for at least 25 years.
Unless of course a miracle happens. But LKY’s stated miracle is that he will rise from the dead to direct matters. Which miracle will happen? Your guess is as good as mine.
@doppelganger
PAP will be in power for now, but not for the next 25 years. Eventually, the call for fair play will be too strong for PAP to ignore, and the PAP will have no choice but to give up its weapons of the past, e.g. changing of electoral boundaries etc.
First, PAP will lose their 2/3 majority in parliament, which will strip away their power of changing the constitution or overruling the President’s veto.
Next, depending on PAP’s performance and the restiveness of Singaporeans, PAP may even lose a GE if they are not careful.
One thing for sure, the good old days of PAP’s absolute power are numbered.
Tony Tan will be Singapore’s great President.
I’m going to have to disagree a lot with the writer of this article.
Firstly, the writer argues that maybe Tony Tan supports the ISA of today, but not the ISA that was used in 1987 against the so-called “Marxist conspirators”. He feels this way just because of one sentence quoted from Tony Tan that he would look into the issue of the 1987 arrests if there is new evidence by then. Just from Tony Tan’s interruption to Tan Jee Say’s speech is more than enough to spell out his intentions and thoughts about the arrests of 1987. The usual threatening manner of using libel and lawsuits to derail his opponent from speaking extensively on the topic is very much observed of the PAP in the past, and also shows that he doesn’t take well to anyone trying to stand up for the alleged “Marxists”.
Secondly, the writer argues that because Ong Teng Cheong was from the government, and holding a very high position of deputy prime minister when he was, that’s why Tony Tan “may not be half as bad as most of the online world makes him out to be.” He even quoted a ST article “independence is ultimately a matter of the mind, not of past institutional links” to justify that. Well, I do agree with that statement, that sometimes, past institutional links does not necessarily affect independence of the candidate, as shown in Ong Teng Cheong. But lest we forget, most of the time, past institutional links do very much affect the independence of a candidate. In fact, the past institutional links argument can mostly be used to counter against claims of the candidate being independent. Mainly, this is all just hopeful speculation by the writer and no proof to substantiate the claim that Tony Tan is not as bad as we think.
So, am I saying we should overlook Tony Tan? No. I think we should give him a chance, as he deserves it, just as any other candidate does. But the thing is, on issues such as the ISA and independence, we have already given him many chances to prove himself through many of these forums and statements he made to the media. And unfortunately, I already am disappointed.
It should be clear now that TOC’s endorsement of TJS turned out to be actually benefit Tony Tan. TJS split the “non-PAP” vote resulting in TCB losing by a small margin. TKL was not even in the race. The wide margin of votes (over 100,000) between TCB and TJS shows that TJS did not really have much of chance in winning. Giving a COE to TJS even though he did not strictly meet the criteria was PAP gamble that paid off big. Both TOC and TRE endorsed TJS. They got played by the PAP big time. What a bunch of fools.