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Serious Shooting oneself in the foot: PAP’s screw up of the reserve elections for EP

Papsmearer

Alfrescian (InfP) - Comp
Generous Asset
So, what is the objective of the PAP for the upcoming EP?


Answer: To ensure that one of the PAP’s own gets elected to the office of the Presidency, and hence make sure that no awkward questions are asked and no bills will get vetoed, and everything will be under control.


Isn’t this a foregone conclusion that the PAP candidate will win any EP?


Answer: Not really. The biggest person they fear is Tan Cheng Bok. He narrowly lost to Tony Tan by 0.35% of the votes in the last EP. He is a little big of a renegade, having voted against his own party when he was a PAP MP, as well as incurring the wrath of the Old Man, George Yeo and others with his comments. He is not one that can be controlled by the PAP and given the enhanced powers of the EP, he is the last person the PAP want in that office.


So then, how to block TCB from running in the next elections?


Answer: This is where the first screw up happened. The Presidential Elections Committee approved him to run in the last EP against Tony Tan. But how can they disallow him from running in the upcoming one? They can’t. They have to change the rules of the game, and “fix” the opposition so to speak. I am sure the PAP think tank examined many options, after all they control Parliament, the Judiciary and the current President Tony Tan (Lee Hsien Loong’s Uncle). One might say they have an overwhelming advantage and power to make any changes with the objective of hindering TCB.


Now all changes have to be done to through the law. This is where the first team of Law Minister Shan and AG VK Rajah earn their money. They are tasked to draft the new law, have the PAP majority Parliament approve it, have Uncle Tony sign it into law, and bob’s your uncle, and TCB is out. Of all the cockamimmy hare brained laws they could have dreamt up, these 2 geniuses decided to go with the Reserved Presidential Election, whereby candidates from only a certain racial group can run in the election if their group had not been represented before. Based on this new amendment to the Presidential election, their claim is that the next candidate must be from the Malay community, hence disqualifying TCB by virtue of his race. On paper, this sounds great and succeeds in the objective of excluding TCB.


However, our 2 geniuses forgot 2 things:


1)
They forgot to clearly word the law in terms of exact racial lineage needed to qualify for people in their own group. They simply assumed that a Malay candidate means that both the candidate’s parents are Malays and they are of the Muslim faith. They did not take into account candidates who were a mix race, but still look like Malays. Nor did they build into the law any mechanism on how to ascertain and determine what the race is in the event there is a confusion.


2)
They forgot to ask around to make sure the PAP truly has a 100% Malay candidate that meets all the criteria that they have just implemented.


As a result, you have what you have today. People openly questioning the ‘Malayness” of the prime candidates. Is Halimah a Malay? Not according to the records if you go with the father’s race. She would be Indian. Now the PAP has to direct the Presidential Selection Committee to rule on the suitability of the candidate based on whether they are accepted as Malays by their community, even though that is not what the law says. If Halimah is determined to be a Malay by virtue of her Mother’s side, is Vivian Balakrishnan a Chinese by virtue of his Mother’s side too? The international press has weight in on this too, with recent articles in SCMP. They are digging themselves into a bigger hole every day. Even other potential candidates controlled by the PAP, like Masagoes, are not 100% Malay. Masagoes being half arab himself.



What kind of stupid political party gerrymanders the law, in such a way to ensure their chosen candidate wins. But then did not bother to find out that their own chosen candidate cannot meet their own criteria 100%. That is outright incompetence. We have already seen their performance in the Terrex incident, as well as SCS comments, etc., all proving that they make international cock ups on a regular basis. But to screw up in your own backyard is ridiculous.



The simplest thing for Shan and Rajah to do, and it would be my preference, would be to repeal the Elected Presidency. Just go back to an appointed Presidency. Some of our best Presidents like Sheares were appointed by Parliament. If the PAP wants Halimah as President, its no problem at all for the Parliament to appoint their own former Speaker to the post. Some stupid excuse like the EP elections being too expensive and disruptive could be given. Once the law has reverted back to an Appointed Presidency, the PAP will be assured of appointing any candidate they want, given their majority in Parliament. I thought Shan and Rajah were smarter then this, or is it that LHL himself is too stupid to see the holes in the law they passed?
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
Bro. If pure Malay cannot speak good melayu bahasa but broken bahasa so how?

Half way talk english them how? Must check got potong dicky?
 

Kotekbengkok

Alfrescian
Loyal
I'm not so sure the option you have proposed will be palatable to the PAP. Its just too devastating and too much face loss and will be a difficult up hill recovery from that point. It's also totally out of character for PAP to admit to making a mistake. Never, never never!

The only window of opportunity to squeeze out of this self inflicted disaster is via the courts: Let the courts do the dirty work for them and let the court take the rap or credit as it may be . Make the AGC take the rap, sack or chastise some one there. And all they have to do is send a small message to the 4 men and 1 women team to declare that the counting from Wee Kim wee is wrong. Viola! Problem solved! Major battle won: Can crow that courts are independent, that we are such humble law abiding government so we will now go back to the drawing board. Call a break to take the heat off for a while. Postpone elections. Maybe even get the appointed president thing back as you have said. Meanwhile TCB while winning moral victory of sorts and becomesa hero, he still does not qualify due to the new financial management threshold, so PAP still gets its way in the end. Possible??



So, what is the objective of the PAP for the upcoming EP?


Answer: To ensure that one of the PAP’s own gets elected to the office of the Presidency, and hence make sure that no awkward questions are asked and no bills will get vetoed, and everything will be under control.


Isn’t this a foregone conclusion that the PAP candidate will win any EP?


Answer: Not really. The biggest person they fear is Tan Cheng Bok. He narrowly lost to Tony Tan by 0.35% of the votes in the last EP. He is a little big of a renegade, having voted against his own party when he was a PAP MP, as well as incurring the wrath of the Old Man, George Yeo and others with his comments. He is not one that can be controlled by the PAP and given the enhanced powers of the EP, he is the last person the PAP want in that office.


So then, how to block TCB from running in the next elections?


Answer: This is where the first screw up happened. The Presidential Elections Committee approved him to run in the last EP against Tony Tan. But how can they disallow him from running in the upcoming one? They can’t. They have to change the rules of the game, and “fix” the opposition so to speak. I am sure the PAP think tank examined many options, after all they control Parliament, the Judiciary and the current President Tony Tan (Lee Hsien Loong’s Uncle). One might say they have an overwhelming advantage and power to make any changes with the objective of hindering TCB.


Now all changes have to be done to through the law. This is where the first team of Law Minister Shan and AG VK Rajah earn their money. They are tasked to draft the new law, have the PAP majority Parliament approve it, have Uncle Tony sign it into law, and bob’s your uncle, and TCB is out. Of all the cockamimmy hare brained laws they could have dreamt up, these 2 geniuses decided to go with the Reserved Presidential Election, whereby candidates from only a certain racial group can run in the election if their group had not been represented before. Based on this new amendment to the Presidential election, their claim is that the next candidate must be from the Malay community, hence disqualifying TCB by virtue of his race. On paper, this sounds great and succeeds in the objective of excluding TCB.


However, our 2 geniuses forgot 2 things:


1)
They forgot to clearly word the law in terms of exact racial lineage needed to qualify for people in their own group. They simply assumed that a Malay candidate means that both the candidate’s parents are Malays and they are of the Muslim faith. They did not take into account candidates who were a mix race, but still look like Malays. Nor did they build into the law any mechanism on how to ascertain and determine what the race is in the event there is a confusion.


2)
They forgot to ask around to make sure the PAP truly has a 100% Malay candidate that meets all the criteria that they have just implemented.


As a result, you have what you have today. People openly questioning the ‘Malayness” of the prime candidates. Is Halimah a Malay? Not according to the records if you go with the father’s race. She would be Indian. Now the PAP has to direct the Presidential Selection Committee to rule on the suitability of the candidate based on whether they are accepted as Malays by their community, even though that is not what the law says. If Halimah is determined to be a Malay by virtue of her Mother’s side, is Vivian Balakrishnan a Chinese by virtue of his Mother’s side too? The international press has weight in on this too, with recent articles in SCMP. They are digging themselves into a bigger hole every day. Even other potential candidates controlled by the PAP, like Masagoes, are not 100% Malay. Masagoes being half arab himself.



What kind of stupid political party gerrymanders the law, in such a way to ensure their chosen candidate wins. But then did not bother to find out that their own chosen candidate cannot meet their own criteria 100%. That is outright incompetence. We have already seen their performance in the Terrex incident, as well as SCS comments, etc., all proving that they make international cock ups on a regular basis. But to screw up in your own backyard is ridiculous.



The simplest thing for Shan and Rajah to do, and it would be my preference, would be to repeal the Elected Presidency. Just go back to an appointed Presidency. Some of our best Presidents like Sheares were appointed by Parliament. If the PAP wants Halimah as President, its no problem at all for the Parliament to appoint their own former Speaker to the post. Some stupid excuse like the EP elections being too expensive and disruptive could be given. Once the law has reverted back to an Appointed Presidency, the PAP will be assured of appointing any candidate they want, given their majority in Parliament. I thought Shan and Rajah were smarter then this, or is it that LHL himself is too stupid to see the holes in the law they passed?
 
Last edited:

yellowarse

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
If malay is a christian then how? Susah lah pikcha lobang.

That's the trouble when you play around with racial and ethnic definitions for political expediency.

I know quite a few Malay Christian converts. One married my wife's cousin and is ostracized by his community. He's Malay through and through, speaks the language, plays the guitar, but would fail the EP criteria of acceptance by the Malay community.

Another guy I know, Ahmad Mattar's nephew, gave up his religion, is now a free thinker, and married an Indonesian Christian. He would not qualify either.

The whole EP is a farce, and has brought the august presidential office into disrepute.

I've said it before: just go back to the appointed presidential system. The dignity of the office would be preserved, as would the constitution, and Singaporeans would be spared the histrionics of an anthropological-socio-cultural-linguistic-theological debate on what makes a Malay.

The only reason they're not going back to an appointed presidency is that it would be a slap on old fart's face, since EP was his idea. But is saving his legacy worth the cost?
 

melzp

Alfrescian
Loyal
Interestingly, any media sarcasm from neighbouring Mother of all Malay ,
to add more fuel ??
 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
The problem began from the very start. Nobody was keen to contest when OTC was nominated. The initial idea that it should not be political was scuppered. Old man had to persuade then retired Auditor General to run the create an illusion of a contest. And without trying the chap garnered 40% of the votes.

In the very first term of the new EP, when OTC asked for things to fulfill the role, he was repeatedly blocked and they moved him out of the Istana to Command House to teach him a lesson.

Who in his right mind is going to step forward. So they put a running dog for 2 terms uncontested.

When the opposition realised that they can take the EP as a tool to take the govt to task, the panic set on. They flew in Tony from London, another PAP politician and used public resources to fund his campaign. It's showed desperation. Jennifer Lewis GIC PR head became Tony's campaign press head without taking leave. They forced key business people who received govt grants to save their business such as Olivia Lum to endorse him. They used the PA to organise the clans to do the same and yet 65% of Singaporeans rejected Tony.

Everyone agreed that the EP ended up as full blown political campaign pitting the PAP against its detractors.

Tony being thoroughly shamed refused a second term.

To come out of one debacle they dragged the Malays into another where their very identity has become a joke. A position to bring Singaporeans together ended up creating deep divisions. These fissures cannot be healed with time. The Malays have lost their dignity and their standing for failing to push back.

The folly of one old man and his hopeless son.
 

bobby

Alfrescian
Loyal
Sociologically speaking, in any "multi racial" society (like ours) inevitably there will be "inter-racial" elements.

You can never specifically target a nominate group and exclusive accord them the rights and privileges...especially by race.
 

JHolmesJr

Alfrescian
Loyal
so where does the forum stand…..vote for the other guy or spoil vote?

btw I got no problem with viewing this chick as malay….shes been behaving consistently as such for a long time.

the uncool think is barring old man bock….who i must say looks presidential.
 

yellowarse

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
so where does the forum stand…..vote for the other guy or spoil vote?

My stand:

If one candidate is 'PAP-approved', and the other isn't, vote for the other candidate.

If both are PAP-approved, say Halimah & Zainal Abidin, or Halimah & Tarmugi, I'll spoil my vote.
 

Papsmearer

Alfrescian (InfP) - Comp
Generous Asset
I'm not so sure the option you have proposed will be palatable to the PAP. Its just too devastating and too much face loss and will be a difficult up hill recovery from that point. It's also totally out of character for PAP to admit to making a mistake. Never, never never!

The only window of opportunity to squeeze out of this self inflicted disaster is via the courts: Let the courts do the dirty work for them and let the court take the rap or credit as it may be . Make the AGC take the rap, sack or chastise some one there. And all they have to do is send a small message to the 4 men and 1 women team to declare that the counting from Wee Kim wee is wrong. Viola! Problem solved! Major battle won: Can crow that courts are independent, that we are such humble law abiding government so we will now go back to the drawing board. Call a break to take the heat off for a while. Postpone elections. Maybe even get the appointed president thing back as you have said. Meanwhile TCB while winning moral victory of sorts and becomesa hero, he still does not qualify due to the new financial management threshold, so PAP still gets its way in the end. Possible??

Well, right now, they are losing a lot of face too, and the EP campaigning hasn't even started yet. Postponing it will result also in lost of face.

As for punishing the AG, that would not happen. The amendment was crafted by the old AG VK Rajah. The new one Lucien, had nothing to do with it. As well, Lucien was Gay Loong's personal lawyer. So whacking Lucien is not an option.
 

Papsmearer

Alfrescian (InfP) - Comp
Generous Asset
so where does the forum stand…..vote for the other guy or spoil vote?

btw I got no problem with viewing this chick as malay….shes been behaving consistently as such for a long time.

the uncool think is barring old man bock….who i must say looks presidential.

U start down a very slippery slope. What if the next EP election is reserved for a chinese candidate, and they want to run Vivian. Is he accepted by the chinese and living as one? After all, his mother is chinese as Halimah's mother is malay. He is married to a chinese woman, eats chinese food, his kids look chinese, he speaks mandarin, etc. So, by your standard and that of the PAP, he would be Chinese. See where this is leading too?
 

fupikee

Alfrescian
Loyal
My stand:

If one candidate is 'PAP-approved', and the other isn't, vote for the other candidate.

If both are PAP-approved, say Halimah & Zainal Abidin, or Halimah & Tarmugi, I'll spoil my vote.

Very good stand......sar port...sar port....

BTW, somehow strange that tarmugi and zainal are very quiet....both formerly from st.....I guess the fact that whether tarmugi or zainal have real 'malay' fathers would not really be an issue....I guess, they have been living their lives as 'malays'...unless some people in the know come out to say otherwise....
 

Kotekbengkok

Alfrescian
Loyal
Since it was the previous AG who crafted this, me thinks it looks even better for the PAP to blame him. Nothing sweeter than blaming the previous guy. Very PAP style.. look at Khaw blaming Liu Tuck Yew. Lucien can than take the credit for setting things right haha. Win Liao lor!


Well, right now, they are losing a lot of face too, and the EP campaigning hasn't even started yet. Postponing it will result also in lost of face.

As for punishing the AG, that would not happen. The amendment was crafted by the old AG VK Rajah. The new one Lucien, had nothing to do with it. As well, Lucien was Gay Loong's personal lawyer. So whacking Lucien is not an option.
 

JHolmesJr

Alfrescian
Loyal
U start down a very slippery slope…..See where this is leading too?

if jordans queen can be american…an italian can be the leader of an indian political party…then our little mix breed surely shouldn't raise much angst.

the real issue is barring a candidate who might well trounce her.
 

yellowarse

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
if jordans queen can be american…an italian can be the leader of an indian political party…then our little mix breed surely shouldn't raise much angst.

Queen Rania of Jordan is a full-blooded Arab, born of Palestinian parents in Kuwait. She did work for Citibank before her marriage though.
 

halsey02

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
so where does the forum stand…..vote for the other guy or spoil vote?

btw I got no problem with viewing this chick as malay….shes been behaving consistently as such for a long time.

the uncool think is barring old man bock….who i must say looks presidential.

I have spoilt the votes..ever since the voting for EP started...we are paying too much money for their own people, whose job is to " kiss babies", " rubber stamp documents", " attend official functions"..."stir nasi briyani once a year"...a job, in which, we can get anyone to do for say 30K a year, other than paying one that reaped millions...no wonder that the "ex-jaga" daughter , is putting up a classic Indian Movie moves..." want, don't want!, shy, coy!"..might as well, dance round the coconut tree.

The point is, I do not see the need for an EP..especially the candidates are always "their own people", it is an insult to our intelligence....as usual, I will spoil the vote.:p
 
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