Are PAP supporters the most deluded kind of people ever?
I was shocked to learn of an open letter written by Teck Siang Sim to the British High Commissioner. (OPEN LETTER TO UK HIGH COMM: I AM DEEPLY OFFENDED BY UK PRESS MOCKING OUR PRESIDENT) Mr. Teck had apparently written to protest against the calling of the President being called "Prime Miniature" by The Sun newspaper during his official visit and has demanded an investigation.
Publications like The Sun have been traditionally marketed as a tabloid, a more extreme version of our local TNP. For a mere commoner and foreigner to intervene and ask that official investigations be conducted when the status quo has been in existence for such a long time is beyond absurdness. This is especially when the President's office has yet to issue any statements themselves.
The facts and circumstances surrounding this controversy clearly stand against Mr. Teck. For him to actually end of his letter with a threat that the favour will be retuned is beyond any reasonably power that he is able to afford in his personal capacity. Nor will this threat be likely to happen given the comparative lack of media creativity that Singapore has.
Further discussing the election results in his letter by attributing the poor election results of our president to Tan Jee Say has been nothing short of absurd. On a very basic level, TJS's supporters have typically been associated with the core opposition demographics and will be extremely unlikely to vote for Tony Tan over Tan Cheng Bock even in TJS's absence.
In fact, his whole letter speaks of stupidity and misguidedness. Labelling our president as such is neither defamatory nor against public opinion: UK case precedent has conventionally required to prove that one's repute has been brought into public scandal and odium. To request investigation into a mockery is gross insult into the time and resources of authorities.
By applying a more appropriate analysis to his words, all the more netizens grouses against Tony Tan would be proven. Yet, this isn't the first time some apparent PAP supporter has attempted to defend policies that are against widespread opinion to reflect their delusion from society.
Remember Gan Thiam Poh's $1 per person basis for computing the PM's salary when politicians' salary has aroused so much anger? Remember Baey Yam Keng's defence of Sun Xu in an era where anger against foreign scholars has been at an all time high?
What we can establish from the trend is that this will cause them votes, votes that will indeed bring about political change.
Joseph Kheng-Liang Tan
*The author is a 21 year-old polytechnic graduate who is currently pursuing his law degree in Australia. Widely quoted for his views, he has contributed extensively in his personal capacity to top socio-political portals such as TRS, TRE and TAV. He is also supremely homophobic and would rather vote for the PAP should the opposition send in a homosexual representative