Rally reflections
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
On a day where more than 22 men took the field, on a day where football didn’t do the talking but yet it was thousands of people, waiting to be heard, trying to identify themselves with politicians deemed a class above at the Bedok Stadium. The day was an exciting one for me, even though it was slated to start at 7; I reached at 5:30 anticipating a large crowd. True enough, the stadium flooded with more people than a football game could have attracted. Due to my upbringing, I had thought that the opposition was merely a bunch of uneducated citizens that whined about their personal own inability. I had thought that the people who went to such rallies wasted their time. It seemed a straightforward decision to young and innocent children like me that the People’s Action Party was the best. I was of course proven wrong, people of different walks of life gathered around, on a Saturday night where income and occupation was not a matter of comparison. Everyone was entitled to their own opinion, and the opposition leaders just served as conveyers, or at least pretended to be.
One of the things that the Opposition made sure to do well was to involve the whole community. Commonly used in such occasions was the use of the dialect language, to the older citizens, this served as a reminder of their importance and significance to the society, it was also their way of feeling a sense of belonging. The fact that Malay and Indian representatives were there to speak in their mother tongue, made sure every part of Singapore was well-represented. Also, the reminder of history was also a huge part of their campaign. Track-record as they called it, the Worker’s Party stirred a few emotions linking back to the David Marshall days, and supposedly being in parliament every year since 1981. Also, they created a “sense” of support by having people standing in and around the compound waving the Worker’s Party’s flag and screaming their chants in support.
Lastly, the Worker’s Party crucially expressed itself as one of the citizens and maintained a cynical attitude towards both government speeches and policies. This helped express the sentiments of the public. In the hours long of speeches, the Worker’s Party’s centered on a few main points. Firstly, the Worker’s Party rubbished the recent grow and share package to that of giving $1 and taking back $2 in return. They analogies it to giving a fruit and taking the fruit tree from the citizens. An example widely used was the Goods and Services Tax hike after the last election. Secondly, they went on to talk about that of cost of living, bringing about the idea of income inequality. This was proven as statistics prove that bottom ten percent of households by 13.6% while the rest of the population rises by 2000. Next, the worker’s party went on to question the People Action Parties’ leadership position? Are they bias? Are they too comfortable, increasing their income to around 1.2 million for a minister. Besides, they also talked about that of foreign labour and how it affects job competition and also housing prices too. They attacked Mr Mah Bow Tan’s housing policies on the fact that he was raising the prices of housing like private property, making people to mortgage their houses for 30 years. They also mentioned on how the merging of SBS and SMRT, Singapore’s two transportation companies would help save costs. The most interesting part for me was seeing these politicians attacked Mr Lim Swee Say of the East Coast GRC who claimed to retire by the next GRC.
After listening to the whole rally, a feisty day where emotions were flying high, I must admit I was pretty swayed. But upon reconsideration, just like integrated humanities, it is important to judge the reliability of a source. Well, obviously the purpose is to gain the votes of Singaporeans in the upcoming elections. However, I question the Worker’s Party intentions. Like in Taiwan, elections preparation is done years before. And in a sense this is a problem with Singapore’s electoral system with the lack of resources for the opposition party, particularly the financial and human resource. Also, for example, I think by comparing the Minister’s salary to that of the normal Singaporean skews the figure. Since the figure of 1.2 million is said to be 2/3 of the top 50 earners in Singapore, I think it is justifiable. The fact that politicians are known to be the best talent of the country, if you could just assume that ministers were the top 100 talent of Singapore, then such an amount would no longer be as unimaginable. Furthermore, the fact that ministers that joined later like K Shanmugam, the minister of law and home affairs, enjoyed a successful career in the private sector goes to show that, ministers are indeed capable of earning such salaries if they had they had not entered politics. Is this not why Gifted Education children are said to be future politicians of Singapore? Besides, it is important that the government continue to appeal to the best talents in Singapore, which deserves to be respected by the public. And the only for that to happen, would be based on the minister’s capability.
Overall, I would consider the rally as a good insight into the life of a normal working adult in Singapore. More often than not, Hwa Chong students who mostly have a wealthy background would never understand the hardships suffered across the different levels of Singaporeans, thus it really helped to broaden my horizons.