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A Young PAP member and blogger from the P65 blog, Mr Fredric Fanthome had lent his support to the “cooling-off” day to be introduced in the next election due by 2011.
All public rallies, door-to-door visits and display of party logos will be banned on the day designated on the eve of polling day itself to enable voters to make a “calm” and “rational” decision.
The P65 blog was set up in the aftermath of the 2006 general elections and was supposed to be an online platform for the young PAP MPs to reach out to netizens.
However, it floundered due to lack of interest and readership and was “revamped” this year – the MPs are no longer blogging and their places are taken over by young Singaporeans from “various backgrounds”.
According to YPAP Chairman Teo Ser Luck, it will now be “open” to all post-65 Singaporeans, who can write about ‘anything under the sun’, from entertainment and the economy to race and religion.
Mr Fanthome began his blog post by pouring scorn on the reaction of the opposition and netizens:
“Predictably there’s been a hullabaloo raised by the opposition who claims vary from it being “a sign of the lack of confidence of the PAP” (Mr. Desmond Lim Bak Chum of the SDA) to it being “designed to hurt the opposition” (Mr. Gandhi Ambalam of the SDP) – not to mention the usual vitriol by the anonymous hordes online who randomly spray venom at every government move from behind pseudonyms.”
He wrote that he doesn’t see how the “cooling-off” day is designed to bolster the PAP and damage the opposition and applauded the ruling party to allow “more freedom in the coming elections:
“There will be more freedom in the coming elections – podcasts will be allowed, the internet will be abuzz – and the government is also putting in place measures to ensure the presence of at least18 non-PAP members or about a fifth of the house in the next parliament regardless of election results. That is remarkable by any standard. No other country gives losing parties anywhere near as much voice.”
Mr Fanthome felt that the new changes introduced by PM Lee will “help” democracy and plurality in Singapore and castigated the opposition’s reaction:
“So instead of constantly finding fault with every measure or decision taken by the government– almost as a knee jerk reaction – where the default is “oppose” and then some reason is found to justify it, it would be good to see politicians being more discerning – supporting initiatives that are good for the people and opposing those they see are harmful – rather than just opposing everything.”
Mr Fanthome’s rather shallow, harsh and insensitive remarks predictably sparked an outcry in blogosphere with many netizens lampooning him on the P65 blog.
In one of his comments, Mr Fanthome revealed that he graduated from a business school which is “harder” to enter than Harvard University.
From the many lengthy and detailed comments he posted, one can’t help wondering where he finds so much time to “engage” the “anonymous hordes” who have read his article.
It will not come as a surprise if he is being paid full-time to write on the P65 blog.
It is amusing that a blog sponsored by the ruling party, run by known bloggers and given extensive publicity in the mainstream media should have a readership less than 1 per cent of The Temasek Review which belongs to the “anonymous hordes” so despised by Mr Fanthome and his fellow acolytes.
Unfortunately, PAP bloggers like Mr Fanthome remains in the minority and they will never be able to compete in Singapore’s blogosphere against “anonymous hordes” like us who will continue to call the shots, whether they like it or not.
In cyberspace, the content of a website matters more than anything else, not the identity of its writers and the more readers a news site has, the more influence it will be able to exert.
As for PAP bloggers like Fanthome who deliberately tried to court controversy in order to boost their site’s flagging readership, the most appropriate course of action is to ignore their existence altogether.
After all, we belong to the “anonymous hordes” and it is better that we are left alone in our own world where we are the ones who set the rules of engagement.
All public rallies, door-to-door visits and display of party logos will be banned on the day designated on the eve of polling day itself to enable voters to make a “calm” and “rational” decision.
The P65 blog was set up in the aftermath of the 2006 general elections and was supposed to be an online platform for the young PAP MPs to reach out to netizens.
However, it floundered due to lack of interest and readership and was “revamped” this year – the MPs are no longer blogging and their places are taken over by young Singaporeans from “various backgrounds”.
According to YPAP Chairman Teo Ser Luck, it will now be “open” to all post-65 Singaporeans, who can write about ‘anything under the sun’, from entertainment and the economy to race and religion.
Mr Fanthome began his blog post by pouring scorn on the reaction of the opposition and netizens:
“Predictably there’s been a hullabaloo raised by the opposition who claims vary from it being “a sign of the lack of confidence of the PAP” (Mr. Desmond Lim Bak Chum of the SDA) to it being “designed to hurt the opposition” (Mr. Gandhi Ambalam of the SDP) – not to mention the usual vitriol by the anonymous hordes online who randomly spray venom at every government move from behind pseudonyms.”
He wrote that he doesn’t see how the “cooling-off” day is designed to bolster the PAP and damage the opposition and applauded the ruling party to allow “more freedom in the coming elections:
“There will be more freedom in the coming elections – podcasts will be allowed, the internet will be abuzz – and the government is also putting in place measures to ensure the presence of at least18 non-PAP members or about a fifth of the house in the next parliament regardless of election results. That is remarkable by any standard. No other country gives losing parties anywhere near as much voice.”
Mr Fanthome felt that the new changes introduced by PM Lee will “help” democracy and plurality in Singapore and castigated the opposition’s reaction:
“So instead of constantly finding fault with every measure or decision taken by the government– almost as a knee jerk reaction – where the default is “oppose” and then some reason is found to justify it, it would be good to see politicians being more discerning – supporting initiatives that are good for the people and opposing those they see are harmful – rather than just opposing everything.”
Mr Fanthome’s rather shallow, harsh and insensitive remarks predictably sparked an outcry in blogosphere with many netizens lampooning him on the P65 blog.
In one of his comments, Mr Fanthome revealed that he graduated from a business school which is “harder” to enter than Harvard University.
From the many lengthy and detailed comments he posted, one can’t help wondering where he finds so much time to “engage” the “anonymous hordes” who have read his article.
It will not come as a surprise if he is being paid full-time to write on the P65 blog.
It is amusing that a blog sponsored by the ruling party, run by known bloggers and given extensive publicity in the mainstream media should have a readership less than 1 per cent of The Temasek Review which belongs to the “anonymous hordes” so despised by Mr Fanthome and his fellow acolytes.
Unfortunately, PAP bloggers like Mr Fanthome remains in the minority and they will never be able to compete in Singapore’s blogosphere against “anonymous hordes” like us who will continue to call the shots, whether they like it or not.
In cyberspace, the content of a website matters more than anything else, not the identity of its writers and the more readers a news site has, the more influence it will be able to exert.
As for PAP bloggers like Fanthome who deliberately tried to court controversy in order to boost their site’s flagging readership, the most appropriate course of action is to ignore their existence altogether.
After all, we belong to the “anonymous hordes” and it is better that we are left alone in our own world where we are the ones who set the rules of engagement.
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