What is left of the PAP after 50 years in power? Superficially there is still a little fading glory of the past to hang on for a while. There is still some historical evidence to claim it has done good for the people. What else is left of the mighty political machine that could devour any opposition in its path effortlessly at its prime? The confidence, the war cry and the fake jeering of expecting and wanting stronger and more worthy opponents, the walkovers and the lame wishes to win an election the respectable way to enter Parliament were long gone.
Today, PAP is going to fight for its survival. Yes it is going to fight for its life or death in the next election not another 10 or 15 years There are so many very serious issues that it could not solve and could not sweep under the carpet. The people are demanding for answers that were not forth coming. The problems will not go away, the people will continue to demand for answers till the very last day of the GE, or else.
The team of politicians in PAP’s stable is like a list of has beens or understudies. The olds are too feeble to do anything. The young are too young to make any impact, all lightweights that could be blown away by a gust. The senior ministers that were dependable to carry their own weights have discredited themselves to beyond redemption. Some were just waiting to be shown the exit.
Where is the strength of the PAP today? Where or who are the leaders that could call the shot and carry the day? Is there anyone out there of such illuminating stature that could captain the team to victory? As for the run of the mill MPs, what the heck are they doing? Finding little silly faults with the opposition? Is that clever, a wise thing to do when living in a big glass house, wholly transparent and with all the problems waiting to shatter the glass to pieces? The more these MPs try to diminish the opposition for the slightest flaw, the more ridiculous they looked. And the more they remind the people of the hypocrisies, of the big issues not mentioned, the white elephants everywhere.
PAP is like a headless mammoth machine going nowhere. Where are the brilliant policies to give hopes to the people of a better future other than more shopping malls, more ‘affordabl’ housings, more food courts and more foreigners to bloat the already over populated city state? What kind of good life is there for the people other than higher and higher cost of living and lower and lower income? What aspirations are they when people are being prodded to ride bicycles, to become taxi drivers and security guards, not to pursue tertiary educations, and being replaced by foreigners from God forsaken places and from universities with names like Apapa and Amama? The better ones would produce certificates from the like Unversities of California, Harward, Cambrick, and more infamous brands.
There is also this dark force in the social media messing around with netizens. Unfortunately the quality of these insurgents and internet brigades (giving a false impression of who they are) are doing a great disservice to whoever is behind them. If they are what they portrayed to be, their hooligan and gangster behaviors and aggressive tactics are doing more harm than good.
With only a handful of safe candidates, the rest are touch and go with many more on the side of go. And for bragging about how they would fight for every inch, somehow it is not convincing and more like putting up a bad pretension. The next GE will find every PAP candidate fighting for survival on their own right with little room for comfort. Never has this state of affair happened in the PAP’s dominance record except for the early years when they were fighting the Barisan Socialis for their dear life.
History has come full circle. It is back to the days of fighting a life and death battle this time round. Can the PAP win the hearts and minds of the people again?
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/