Bargain Hen invokes LKY name and calls for less personal attacks!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

SINGAPORE — The People’s Action Party (PAP) ramped up the General Election (GE) drum beat today (July 26), when party organising secretary Ng Eng Hen said he hoped to formally unveil its slate of candidates after National Day, as he called for “less personal attacks, but more serious debate” during the campaigning period.

And while there might be some reshuffling required following the newly-drawn electoral boundaries released last Friday, Dr Ng said there “won’t be many surprises”. “For the new slate, almost all our candidates are on the ground,” said Dr Ng, who referred to the impending GE as “GE 2015”.

When elections might be called was for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to decide, but Dr Ng said he hoped he would be “allowed some time” until after National Day. “I hope that Prime Minister will give me some sympathy and not push the button too soon, but that’s a question you’ll have to ask the Prime Minister,” he said.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a community event in his Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representative Constituency (GRC) today, Dr Ng, who is also Defence Minister, said the proportion of new candidates will be around the same as in previous elections, at about a quarter of the seats contested.

The PAP placed new prospective candidates on the ground as early as two years ago, and he and fellow organising secretary Health Minister Gan Kim Yong had started scouting for potential new candidates soon after the 2011 GE.

Introducing the potential candidates early to residents on the ground is new for the party, which previously held its cards close to chest until closer to the date of the writ of election being issued.

This involves political risk, but is in line with the “better type of politics” the PAP wants to encourage, Dr Ng said. “This is how we want to run (the campaign) this time. The new candidates have been actively involved, serving the residents and grassroots organisations,” he said. “We did this purposefully, so that people who they are going to serve can gauge them upfront and have personal interactions.”

Some new faces who have garnered “less than positive feedback” had been held back from the contest, he added.

The party treats elections as serious endeavours, said Dr Ng, who noted that politics in many countries have become a “lottery”. “You’re not sure what you have chosen; different parties make more and more promises - some outlandish, some unlikely to be fulfilled. And negative politics can also come in; you try to claw each other down, try to find personality flaws, you attack each other, amplify them on social media, all just to rile up emotions for that short period of intense campaigning,” he said.

Singapore, he hoped, would not go down this way. “We’d like to remove, as much as possible, the lottery stakes…You don’t do it this way for the spouse you choose, you don’t do it for the bank that you decide where to put your money in, and you certainly shouldn’t do it for who decides how your estate improves and the lives of you and your children,” he said.

Dr Ng also said the PAP has formed a GE organising committee led by him around earlier this year, under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s instruction. It includes new and experienced office holders, among them like Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing, Culture, Community and Youth Minister Lawrence Wong — all whom entered politics in 2011 — and Senior Minister of State for Education and Law Indranee Rajah.

“We wanted them to have first-hand experience, to be in the thick of action, helping new candidates, getting the branches ready, drafting the manifesto…and prepare for the jostling political hustling,” Dr Ng said.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean serves as advisor to the committee. The party will unveil its new slogan and formally introduce new candidates “very soon”, said Dr Ng.

Dr Ng also called the upcoming elections a watershed one, as it will be the first election held after founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s death.

Although the late Mr Lee stepped down as Prime Minister in 1990, he had been involved in giving advice to the two succeeding Prime Ministers and as an MP in Tanjong Pagar GRC over the last 25 years, said Dr Ng.

“For this GE, for the first time, it will be a GE without Mr Lee. No Mr Lee Kuan Yew to tell us what is a better choice, no Mr Lee Kuan Yew to give comments on the choices that we make. This will truly be a General Election where Singaporeans have to decide what is a post-LKY Singapore,” said Dr Ng.

“Once the vote is decided, a certain cast has been laid for Singapore. I think, for that reason, it will be a watershed GE. Every GE shapes our future, and we will have to wait to see how Singapore is shaped by this coming elections.”


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