Recently, I went to have my scaling and polishing done at a dental clinic at a shopping mall. Incidentally, it was owned by my friend who is one of the directors in the dental chain clinics.
This friend of mine comes from a family of medical physicians and dentists. His dental clinic has high class dental procedures such as laser, Invisalign and orthodontists. After studying in ACS, he went on to do his BDS in NUS and from there served his residency in Singhealth dental polyclinics. After his bond, he went to private sector to expand his riches.
While waiting for my turn to be cleaned, we chatted for a while. When the topic came to GE2015, his reply was short and terse. "Why bother to change the status quo? PAP worked fine for me."
I didn't want to turn the conversation into an argument so I declined to speak further.
Many people have likened the PAP to City Harvest. Both share similar traits. They attract the rich and powerful to support them and thus will sue anyone who tries to defame them.
But then, this is just the surface. If you are rich and powerful, all the more you should not vote for PAP.
1) Even if you are rich and powerful, you have witnessed and experienced the full effects of how overcrowding affects you.
You may have no problems meeting your CPF Minimum Sum but then, you have experienced how crowded and congested our roads are, how your condominiums are cramped with so many foreigners in one unit and how our shopping malls are infested with so many foreigners. Our island is simply not made to support 6.9 million. By voting for PAP, you will see the full brunt of over-crowding.
2) Good governance will increase your wealth further.
Having more political parties or neutral parties to take over key Ministerial positions in Temasek Holdings, GIC will promote good governance.
Good governance will mean better quality for the rich, middle income and the poor.
Currently, PAP, Temasek Holdings and GIC are Singapore's best kept secrets. Even if you are rich and powerful, you have cursed how come Temasek Holdings managed to lose billions of dollars due to cronyism and too many "Yes" man in PAP.
And losing billions of dollars will indirectly affect the rich and powerful when we see our whole society deteriorating.
3) Having more opposition parties will help th lower income and middle income improve their quality of lives and thus generate more wealth for the rich and powerful.
PAP has kept its exclusive club to the rich foreigners and elite. By voting more opposition into Parliament, it will ensure that the middle income and lower-income have a better improvement in their lives. With a better quality of life and higher disposable income, it will mean that more Singaporeans will visit / frequent this rich dentist's clinic for scaling and polishing.
It sounds a bit far-fetched but then, if you have studied corporate social responsibility, most rational companies do want their society to succeed so that the society has the means to purchase their goods and services.
4) Even if you are rich and powerful, you cannot escape NS.
Whenever you read about how rich foreigners such as Anton Casey can get citizenship so easily without doing NS, it makes your blood boil.
Voting for more opposition will make sure that these new foreigners don't get away that easily without doing NS.
5) A society which has too high a rich-poor income gap will have a high crime rate.
The rich and powerful may have travelled to Indonesia, Philippines or Dubai where the rich are constantly wary of walking around alone or need to hire armed bodyguards etc.
The rich and powerful needs to understand that this is partly due to the poor being unable to fend for themselves so has to lead a life of crime.
Even when they have children, they constantly need extra security to escort them to school, shopping malls or toilets.
Voting more opposition parties will ensure that the poor will have an equal chance of making it into the society.
CJ
TRS Contributor