Wednesday, January 9, 2013

It'll be an interesting by-election!

It was kind of expected, it was kind of unexpected. Anyway, there's no need to speculate any further. Punggol East residents get to vote in a by-election on Jan 26 (but, no, there won't be a public holiday). Here's insing.com's story:

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/punggol-east-by-election/id-ec693f00

I can imagine the ruling PAP campaigning on two key points: it has heard the sentiments of Punggol East residents, ie, that they do want a full-time MP to look after them; and secondly, that there are uncertainties ahead, especially regionally and globally, and a resounding PAP win is a signal to investors that Singapore is a politically safe haven.

Unfortunately for the PAP, the party's colour -- attire-wise -- is squeaky white, and that's where many among the Opposition might be having a field day, restrained hopefully by the rules of defamation.

But such attacks will not a campaign to woo hearts and minds make.

Then there's the irony that this is "just" a by-election, just when "big picture" issues have been presented to the Opposition and online socio-political sites, in particular the saga over the raison detre of town councils and revelations about AIM, now known to be a PAP-owned company.

For those who are "blur like sotong" about this controversy, xin.msn has an interesting story cheekily titled "The idiot-proof guide to the Alex Au-AIM saga":

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/the-idiot-proof-guide-to-the-alex-au-aim-saga

I thought this background story in ST (Jan 9) is also insightful:



Finally, can the array of Opposition parties work together to field just one candidate to face the PAP candidate? Seems unlikely, partly because they will want to use the by-election to remind Singaporeans of their "presence". Expect a lot of noisy campaigning.

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Meanwhile, it sometimes seems that politics can be a wayang show, or at least a "battle of the bands". At least one Indonesian politician seems to think so:


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Finally, the US Congress seems to be having a credibility issue, going by one survey:

US Congress less popular than cockroaches: poll

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/weird/us-congress-less-popular-than-cockroaches-poll-1

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