TR EMERITUS

Tharman Shanmugaratnam has relinguished his PAP membership and minsterial position to contest the presidential election as an independent candidate.This has taken Singapore by storm and boggles the mind how a deeply tainted establishment figure can portray himself as an independent. The die is cast and he is seen to be animinatedly perambulating thrusting himself into all and sundry, the uncles and aunties, to twinkle his charms to beguile them to cast their votes for him as a independent candidate.

What takes the cake are MediaCorps and Straits Times who give such humiliating grandiose propaganda accompaniment that gives an obscene impression that they are treating him still as an establishment figure with lofty rank. Is this at the enjoinment of PM Lee Hsien Loong as Tharman is his pet choice as president? It’s true that publicity service is extended to the other two candidates George Goh Ching Wah and Ng Kok Song but it is done in a perfunctory manner and pale in comparison with the VIP amenities accorded to Tharman. Do the public thank that this justicc and fair to the two rival prospective candidates? I do not think they want to see this gross dispairity going further. If MediaCorps and Straits Times do not see this as a hint to desist or at lease to curb its obscene magnitude, I think it is possible that public patience may snap and Lee Hsien Loong will be landed with a sudden mammoth political rukcus.

No doubt MediaCorps offered its obeisant service to arrange the paraphernalia and audience to give it a captivating effect. With due respect to Tharman’s professed oratorical skills and so-called magnetic personality, I think I find his speeches to be quite drab and is amazing that they did not cause any somnalence to the audience. It sounds incomprehensible that he is accalimed for his oratorical persuasiveness. With humility I think I can do no worse that him in my humble oratorical talent. No disrespect to Tharman.

Tharman has to arrange an array of prominent assenters to prop up his precarious artificial independent image. How the Jamiyah CEO can be muscled in by him is auite a scream. Is he absolutely sure that the Malay rakyat understand his action. There is a Malay saying: usah memterdaykan akal rakyat (Do not cheat or trick the intelligence of the rakyat (people). Is the Jamiyah CEO trying to bumsucks Lee Hsien Loong.

Ho Kwong Ping has a pristine public persona and he cannot be so benevolent to give a self-sacrificial spin to his antic. Is he having some kind of opague gratitude to the befuddled Lee Hsien Loong.

To top it all, Tharman cannot, with all his effort, to masquerade as an independent candidate with the decades-old establishment stain. He may try and he has a strong vainglorious persona and will not accept defeat. If in spite of all the unfavourable forecast of questionable asssertion of independence he is elected as president I think the people will be charitable enough to accept it.

So good luck to Tharman and may God bless you.

Yoong Siew Wah

* The author was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s. Mr Yoong has granted TR Emeritus exclusive right to his memoir, to be published on an independent website (work in progress), upon his passing. 

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