Mahah Raj say SG is ready for big change

[k1976]

https://www.google.com.sg/amp/s/www...idate-tharman-101693025813178-amp.html?espv=1

Singapore ready for non-Chinese PM, says Indian-origin presidential candidate Tharman​

PTI |
Aug 26, 2023 12:35 PM IST

Chinese-origin Singaporeans Tan Kin Lian and Ng Kok Song, are also contesting the presidential election.​

Singapore is ready for a non-Chinese prime minister at any time, presidential candidate Tharman Shanmugaratnam has said ahead of the September 1 election, calling it a marker of the society's progress in the country dominated by Chinese-origin population.

Race is a factor in politics everywhere, he said on Friday, citing former US president Barack Obama, who has spoken and written about it.

However, Singaporeans today, unlike 40 or 50 years ago, look at all factors and not just race, said 66-year-old Tharman, a Singaporean of Indian origin.

"They look at people in totality... Singapore is ready at any time. If someone comes up who is a superior candidate for prime minister, the person can be made the prime minister. I believe they can," he said during an election meeting to share his vision for the presidency.

It is a marker of Singapore's progress as a society, added the former senior minister, who resigned from the ruling People's Action Party in July to contest for the presidency.

 

[k1976]

Vote for MahaRaj now ..for a better tomorrow

 

[k1976]

Singapore is ready any time for a non-Chinese prime minister," The Straits Times quoted Tharman, who goes by his popular first name, as saying.

Singaporeans are to vote for the 9th President on September 1.

Tharman, an economist, also said that as important as they are, only government policies cannot make Singapore a fairer and better place.

Instead, things must go much deeper, and the next phase of Singapore's development is to pay attention to things that cannot be measured, he said.

Noting that there are many people who are doing meaningful jobs that are not visible, he said, “Every skill and every job deserves respect. Better pay for the low-paid – but (also) respect and dignity."

Chinese-origin Singaporeans Tan Kin Lian and Ng Kok Song, are also contesting the presidential election.

 

[red amoeba]

Tharman was the only eligible one that would be welcomed. None of the current crop fits. Which non Chinese 4G monster is up coming? Dua lup nee ? Cannot think of any.

 

[k1976]

U forgot, PM ish only voted within Parliament De woh

 

[laksaboy]

BIG CHANGE.

 

[laksaboy]

I love it when these publications use the term 'Indian-origin'.

 

[k1976]

BIG CHANGE.

Meaning more and more Dua Kee?
Ahhhh... I mean the morning wood... Dun get me wrong

 

[gsbslut]

bloody indian and their ceca people

 

[syed putra]

The istana should be renamed the maharaj palace.

 

[CPTMiller]

Most people don't see he will be a winner anyway. This is Singapore.

 

[mojito]

I love it when these publications use the term 'Indian-origin'.

Silent u Chinese origin chink! Our sticks and stones are ready the next time u try to cross our mountain borders!

 

[millim6868]

More snakes, previous one so call malay also Indians, later on ridout rd not enough black n white house for snakes n their family to stay ,lol

 

[k1976]

https://www.google.com.sg/amp/s/www...ores-social-contract-starting-fray?amp?espv=1

 

[k1976]

The PAP has made unbending integrity central to its identity, magnifying the damage the recent scandals have done to the party.
Article by Joshua Kurlantzick, Author
Originally published at World Politics Review
August 23, 2023 11:16 am (EST)







Since Singapore’s independence in 1965, the People’s Action Party, or PAP, has dominated Singaporean politics. Co-founded by the late Lee Kuan Yew—Singapore’s founding father and longtime elder statesman—and currently led by his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the PAP has won every election the country has held, albeit in a political environment Freedom House calls “partly free.”

Yet despite what experts like Freedom House call a restricted electoral environment, the PAP long has enjoyed genuine and significant popular legitimacy for its tremendous accomplishments in developing Singapore into a global financial hub and respected voice in regional affairs. It also won plaudits for creating a national social contract that emphasized meritocracy, a forward-thinking bureaucracy, and the rule of law, underpinned by a sense of fairness in society, at least outside of politics, as Freedom House has noted.

To be fair, there has always been significant income inequality between ethnic Chinese, Malays, and Indians. Nevertheless, that sense of fairness and meritocracy permeated the island-state.

 

[k1976]

In addition, the PAP delivered consistently high economic growth, shepherding Singapore through various stages of development and moving the city-state up the value-added chain. Meanwhile, the PAP attracted some of the brightest minds and most capable people on the island and gave them room to think independently within the bureaucracy and government. The party then used that talent to dominate the few weak and tiny opposition parties come election time.

But now Singapore’s social contract increasingly seems to be breaking down. The PAP is battling corruption scandals and struggling to find the same level of talent to fill its ranks. Meanwhile, the Lee family is at war with itself, and the bureaucracy is reportedly losing its ability to come up with groundbreaking ideas. To top it all off, the PAP now faces credible challengers at the ballot box.

 

[k1976]

The PAP’s troubles began in early July, when the special police unit designed to fight corruption arrested Transport Minister S Iswaran in a graft probe. At the same time, it arrested a billionaire Malaysian tycoon, Ong Beng Seng, for questioning about his dealings with Iswaran. Shortly before those arrests, there had been significant public scrutiny of Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan for the prices they paid for prestige properties, but a review cleared them of wrongdoing. Then, in late July, it emerged that the speaker of parliament, Tan Chuan-Jin, was having an affair with another member of parliament and fellow PAP member, Cheng Li Hui, forcing both to resign from parliament and the party.

The scandals may not compare to those in some other countries. For that matter, two top members of the opposition Workers Party also recently resigned after they admitted to having had an inappropriate relationship. But that incident received less attention, because the Workers Party has not made unbending integrity so central to its identity. The PAP has, magnifying the damage the recent revelations have done to the party. Channel News Asia, the national broadcaster that is essentially controlled by the state, has called the fallout from the scandals the “most severe crisis of public confidence in recent times.” The Straits Times, the national newspaper that is also essentially owned by the state, ran a column under the headline, “Is the PAP brand in trouble?”



Such coverage of the ruling party, which almost never would have been seen in these outlets in the past, is an indication of how shocking the scandals have been to the Singaporean public. In a speech in early August, Prime Minister Lee himself admitted the PAP, which has made unbending integrity so central to its identity, had “taken a hit.”

 

[k1976]

Meanwhile, the Lee family, which has been a kind of glue for the city-state, has become embroiled in a long-lasting and increasingly bitter quarrel that could do lasting damage to its prestige.

The dispute centers on how to handle family patriarch Lee Kuan Yew’s home. Lee supposedly wanted it demolished after he died so that he would not be turned into a lasting icon, but the government wants to keep it intact as a monument to Singapore’s founding father.

The dispute has resulted in a police investigation of Lee Hsien Loong’s brother and sister-in-law, who want to destroy the house, for allegedly lying about Lee Kuan Yew’s will. The couple subsequently fled into exile, claiming they would be unable to get a fair trial in the city-state.

 

[k1976]

But politics is not the only area where it increasingly seems to many Singaporeans that Singapore’s sense of fairness and standards are deteriorating. Income inequality has also become a focus of attention and popular resentment.

In one high-profile online incident earlier this year, a middle-class woman published a social media post celebrating a modestly priced bag she had purchased as a “luxury” item, only to be mocked by more affluent Singaporeans who could apparently afford much pricier fashion accessories.

Inflation has also taken a bite out of Singaporeans’ wages, while affecting the poor and middle-class more. And all this in a city that has been ranked as one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

 

[k1976]

What’s more, as Farah Stockman noted in the New York Times, the Singaporean judiciary—famous for its fairness, at least in nonpolitical cases—has recently seemed like it holds different standards for the rich and the working class.

Stockman noted that in one case, a forklift operator in a container yard was sent to jail for two months for taking bribes of $1 each and roughly $7-10 a day over the course of two years, in a scheme that allowed truck drivers to jump to the head of the line for loading and offloading their cargo.

Meanwhile “executives from the Singaporean conglomerate Keppel—who paid millions in bribes, according to the U.S. Justice Department—got off with ‘stern warnings.’” Singaporean judicial officials have said they do not have a strong enough case against the Keppel executives to bring it to trial.