By Phil Loh
What will you be voting for?
This will be one of the biggest question some voters will be asking themselves come the next General Election. Yet for others, it will be business as usual because they simply care less or would rather put themselves in no position to exercise their choice.
After the last GE, Singaporeans came to realise that there were more than half of Singaporeans who were in favour of the PAP taking Singapore forward for another 5 years; 60.9% to be exact. What this meant for the 39.1% on the opposite camp was the stark realisation that they have to wait another 5 years see if their dream of a balanced political landscape would materialised.
We may have a heavily doctored electoral system where gerrymandering is not fully questioned by voters but accepted as the norm. We have an electoral system where the incumbent ruling party has the media and key institutions under its thumb and at its beck and call. We have an electorate that is too afraid to rock the boat and which cannot see beyond life without the PAP. We have a combination of a wolf in control, scaredy cats that do nothing for fear of the unknown, and trumpets that proclaims wolves as angels.
Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Yet, that’s what we are. We recognise the wolf before us, but we keep telling ourselves that this is a kind wolf which will look after us. We are scaredy cats because we refuse to do anything for fear that we will lose our lives as bums. We believe in the sounds of the trumpets that the wolves in sheep (white) clothings are angels and our friends.
I sometimes wonder what we are? I look around and there is one creature that describes us best. It is none other than that creature which would bury its head in the ground for fear of seeing what is real. We dare not take calculated risks. We rather stick with the known – even when we know we are being taken for a ride – we tell ourselves that the ride isn’t going to be that bad. We do not even want to consider that the ride being offered by another may just be the ride we are looking for. We shortchange ourselves because we are afraid.
Do we then expect things to change for the better? Fat hope! We have seen how the PAP government are quick to see your votes as endorsement to do things at will. What this means is that the next GE victory will embolden them to pursue Singapore – unfriendly polices which they believe have your support.
Which brings me to the next question. When will you be broken? At the rate we are going there has to be a breaking point. If it is not during your generation, it will be during your children’s generation. Are we leaving it to our children to face the music? Don’t we want to leave a better social political landscape for our children while we can? Are we being scaredy cats in the hope that our children would be lions?
So; what will you be voting for in the next GE? Would you vote to keep the PAP in power because ‘they have a track record’ or because you do not see any opposition having the ability to run Singapore? LKY was a novice when he took Singapore forward. He was able to do so because Singaporeans stood by him. We too can stand by any figurehead good enough to care for us.
Would you be voting for yourself and your children – for once at least? Think about it. For me, I would like to step forward to show my children that their father has the balls to seek a better socio-political landscape for them. If anything, that will be the legacy I am seeking to leave behind for my children and for my legacy. What about you?
