General Elections 2011 Singapore

Perhaps one of the most exciting and exhilarating events that has happened in Singapore recently could be the General Elections 2011. A general election in Singapore is held every half a decade, but what is so special about this particular year's elections?

The general elections this year is one of the most action-packed elections mainly because of the sudden and massive increase of opposition parties contesting. Out of the 87 seats in parliament, 82 were contested, the most ever. In previous elections, many GRCs and SMCs were walkovers due to the fact that there were few opposition parties and there was no contest. As a result, the public has hardly got a chance to vote in elections. But now that almost every part of Singapore is contested, many people are excited at the chance to vote and try and make a change for Singapore.

One of the other differences with the previous elections is the use of social networking and media. Now that many websites have come on like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and many more, even politicians are using these to communicate with the public, and especially the young adults who are more actively into this. As a result of using these websites though, the parties are able to reach out to more people and thus can secure a bit more voters this way.

In my opinion, i think that the opposition, although most may not get into parliament, has made the PAP work for their place in parliament instead of just the timely walkovers, and has forced the PAP candidates to make an effort to improve resident's lives and not just thank the public for the walkovers. Although the PAP is still the dominant party, having a different say in parliament is beneficial as there will be people to oppose decisions made and to let people think about the policies and schemes etc.

I look forward to this elections as many hopes are up for the opposition to take control of this election, yet the PAP may still have a strong hold on this elections.

GE 2011: Rally

I recently attended the final rally for the General Elections 2011, and I chose to attend the Singapore People’s Party final rally at Bishan Stadium. To be frank, one of the only reasons for me wanting to choose the SPP’s rally on the final night was to see Mr. Chiam See Tong speak, as I thought that his speech would be worth listening to among the other candidates. But I was surprised to find that the other candidates spoke well and were able to sway the audience with emotions despite this election being their first election as candidates.

The rally started with Mr. David Tan, and I felt that his aim was to use the public’s discontent of Mr. Wong Kan Seng and how he handled the Mas Selamat issue. I think that the weak link of the PAP team for this GRC is actually Mr Wong Kan Seng, because many people feel strongly that he should have taken responsibility for the issue and thus is not very popular among the people of Singapore. Mr David Tan’s message was to actually pull down the PAP and promote the SPP. I felt that the fact that he was the first speaker was a good move as his speech acted to rally people for the SPP and prepare the ground for the other speakers to speak.

Mr Sin Kek Tong was the next speaker, and he actually spoke about almost the same topics as Mr David Tan. The main difference though between their speeches was that Mr Sin used humour to get through to his audience and the public, starting out his speech by cracking jokes, instead of using a strong decision-making voice. Mr Sin and Mr Tan both emphasized on the monetary issues of the country, and how the income gap was very large, considering how the ministers are all earning top income salaries. I have to agree that the income of the ministers can be cut in order to provide more funding for the public. Our government has one of the highest paid ministers in the world although Singapore being a little red dot, so I think that it is not right to have the ministers of this country to suck the country’s funding.

The speaker I felt was the most influential was Mr Benjamin Phwee. He used Potong Pasir as an example to show the competency of the party and was straightforward in his stand, and yet had a sense of compassion towards the public. Despite my own constant reminder of trying to be neutral and see the viewpoint of both parties, I could not help but to be swayed by Mr Phwee’s speech. What I felt was one of his strongest topics that he touched on was on the fear of losing ministers through voting oppositions. I felt that he handled that issue well as he talked about how these ministers, although important, are not irreplaceable and so there is no worry when it comes to the minister places.

As the rally was coming to the end, the man of the moment, Mr Chiam See Tong finally stood up to speak. I respect Mr Chiam not only because he has stood and opposed the PAP for 6 elections and won all, but also because of his love and care for the community, the GRC. His speech was short, and I could not catch much of it. But what I could make out was this, “I want to make Bishan-Toa Payoh my kind of place.” I was touched by those few words, as it portrayed fully how much he cares for others and the community.

This rally is only the second rally I have ever gone to in my life, with my first rally being in the 2006 elections and when I could not understand these topics. But now that I have matured and understand what the candidates stand for, I feel a larger sense of national loyalty and cannot wait for when I am 21!

Why should we care about what happens elsewhere?

Current affairs are the events that happen all over the world, be it a royal wedding or the death of a terrorist. But the question now arises: are all these important to us? After all, we are not actually participants in any of these events. So how would keeping up with current affairs help us in any way? The answer to it is simple. No matter where in the world we are, or where the event is happening, we are affected by it and by knowing and understanding it, we can get a better understanding of the world, and then adapt to it.

Firstly, natural disasters that happen all around the world can affect us because if there happened to be an earthquake somewhere in China, its economy would come to a halt, and thus it would effect our trade with them. Natural disasters are unpredictable, and with it comes thousands of people dead or hurt. In order to support the people, the country's economy would slow down to a halt to use the resources in helping to support the wounded or help in rescue missions. This would affect us as our economy would also be affected due to the fact that the country would not be doing business at that period of time.

Secondly, what happens around us technologically can affect us. Technology now is a very important aspect of society, and a lot of things rely on modern technology. If some kind of great new invention were to be created in a country far off, it could help to improve our efficiency of our work or could largely benefit the way people work with technology. Take for example the Apple company's release of the iPhone. The iPhone was a big jump forward for technology, and helped people to work faster and better using smartphone technology. Therefore all of this can affect us through improving the technology world and helping us.

Finally, what happens to other countries largely affects us too. If there was to be a rebellion in a country, like what is happening currently in Libya, the country would not be stable and there would be a lot of changing of rules and would result in the country changing their policy and governments. This would also lead to other countries near there to be affected and could even lead to more and more countries starting rebellions!

Therefore it is important to care about what happens in other countries as no matter what it is, we are always affected in one way or another.