TR EMERITUS

With General Elections (GE) slated for 10th July, the Team@TRE is delighted to see an excellent lineup of candidates from various alternative parties stepping forward offering to serve. While most of the candidates are predominantly male, there is no lack of female candidates with the heart to serve, for example, Sylvia Lim and Nicole Seah of Workers Party (WP). Since Sylvia Lim and Nicole Seah are already household names which require no further introduction, we would like to feature 4 other female candidates from the alternative parties with 2 things in common: they are running for the first time in GE 2020, and have a strong background in volunteer work or social activism. These candidates are not parachuted into the GE 2020 arena, but have a history of community service, although our first featured candidate was already literally parachuting when she was 17 years old. Kala Manickam (PSP) Ms Kala Manickam (click to enlarge) That’s Kala Manickam, one of the Progress Singapore Party’s (PSP) candidates for Nee Soon GRC. Kala is contesting alongside Damien Tay, Bradley Bowyer, Sri Nallakaruppan, and Taufik Supan for the 147,047-voter-strong constituency. In May 2020, in a Facebook post, Kala marked her 30th anniversary of joining the Singapore Armed Forces in its pioneer batch of women officers. Kala was 22 years when she entered SAF, and in the first batch of women cadets to undergo the Tri-Service training (army/navy/air force) alongside the guys. Kala spent 7 years in the military and rose to platoon commander. Not all is regimental with Kala, although she attributes her physical, mental and emotional health to the SAF. A keen sense of compassion started to be fostered in her when she joined the National Heart Centre and the Singapore General Hospital as an adult educator, where she remained for 6 years, working through the very critical SARS outbreak. In her twenty years of experience in training and adult education, Kala encountered many adults who required various forms of assistance, but those issues could only be effectively dealt with at the policy-level. So, naturally, the next step for her, in order to make a difference, is to become a Member of Parliament so that she can walk the talk to “serve the people with all your heart.” Kala entered politics in 2018. Kala’s determination, conviction and belief in education developed at a young age, which led her to take the challenging path of working part-time to support her family while pursuing her academic studies. As an educator, she advocates for a nurturing education system that is holistic, and which respects the uniqueness of each individual, instead of merely getting caught up in “completing and scoring at worksheets.” This will translate into a competent workforce and a happy society in the long term. We certainly hope to see her raise issues on education and workforce development in Parliament. Raeesah Khan (WP) Raeesah Khan is our second featured candidate. Raeesah is running alongside fellow WP members He Tingru, Jamus Lim, and Louis Chua in the Sengkang GRC which has 120,166 voters. Raeesah Khan At 26 years of age, Raeesah is the youngest candidate in GE 2020. That is a moot point however as she is keenly familiar with the political and social spaces in our country; her father is the former presidential candidate Farid Khan; her mother has been volunteering in shelters and orphanages. In fact, she had celebrated a few of her own birthdays with children in the orphanage. Raeesah has already made a space for herself as a social activist and marketing consultant. She founded the non-profit organisation called the Reyna Movement in 2016. The Reyna Movement aims to empower marginalised women through community engagement and upskilling programmes. It operates in Singapore and Malaysia and runs programmes related to psychosocial wellbeing, development, food support, and counselling. Raeesah graciously admits that she comes from a privileged background. We believe that what makes her stand out amongst her elite peers, is how she directed her privileges to bring about constructive change to the community, and thus making her one of us. I’ve had all the opportunities afforded to me. That’s why I’m so passionate about this, because I want to use my privilege for good. According to her Twitter profile she is “passionate about equality and stray cats.” She is a women’s rights activist and young mother. Her reasons for running in GE 2020 are, according to a video and a tweet from 29 June: “I’m running for Parliament to call out the deep-seated inequalities in our current system…” She notes that “vulnerable groups such as low-income families and the disabled are disproportionally affected… There is a need for long-term policy change and the elites should not be the only ones with seats at the table.” Indeed, COVID-19 has made “working from home” a very workable reality especially for the disabled. We look forward to Reeasah taking these issues to Parliament to level the playing field for the socially and physically disadvantaged. Min Cheong (SDP) Min Cheong is the third candidate in the spotlight. The Holland-Bukit Timah GRC is being contested this GE by the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the People’s Action Party (PAP). Min Cheong (35) is running with teammates Alfred Tan, James Gomez, and Tan Jee Say. Min is a writer and marketing communications strategist who joined the party in 2011. Min Cheong In her own words, she hopes to nurture “a real appetite and aptitude for critical thinking and meaningful debate, empathy, as well as an unwavering desire to fight the good fight for people who need support alongside causes worth championing.” One of her other passions is what she calls “workforce wellness,” which encompasses an overarching approach to reform how people in Singapore live and work, covering areas ranging from “socio-economic sustainability, job creation, and innovation, career empowerment, organizational culture, and personal wellbeing.” A confessed “tech junkie,” Min has worked in startups, non-profit organisations, and MNCs in the areas of consumer technologies, telecommunications, and education. We think she will be excellent in the area of how digital technologies interact and shape the workforce and employment landscape. This issue is especially critical amongst members of the older workforce. We hope to see her propose policies in this area. To Min, as she likes to be called, the love and support from people from all walks of life including those she and her running mates met at Ghim Moh during a walkabout – “keeps us going and gives us the courage and conviction to continue fighting for all of you.” She hopes for “a Singapore we can all be happy in and proud of.” Interestingly, Min is accomplished in Krav Maga, or “contact combat” which is a military self-defense and fighting system derived from a combination of techniques sourced from martial arts such as Aikido, Boxing, and Wrestling Judo and Karate. Min trains with the local chapter of the International Federation of Krav Maga. Wendy Low (PSP) Wendy Low is the fourth, but by no means last in our featured group for this piece. Wendy is an Intellectual Property lawyer specialising in copyright, patent law, and confidentiality-related disputes. This is just one side of her. Wendy has shared openly and with passion, strength, and emotion about how strongly she feels about the inequality and lack of opportunities in our country. Wendy Low (center) Currently 43 years of age, Wendy is with the Progress Singapore Party. She is running in the Tanjong Pagar GRC which has 134,642 voters along with teammates Terence Soon, Abas Kasmani, Michael Chua, and Harish Pillay. Refreshingly, she has shared in Cantonese while on walkabouts and speaking about the election. She was drawn to the party when she heard Dr. Tan Cheng Bock. Wendy has lived in several parts of Singapore splitting her time between Tiong Bahru and Clementi during her primary school days. She jokes about being “a Tiong Bahru kid with a lot of pride.” She shares some personable and close-to-home anecdotes about how she got into law despite difficulties with the timing of the exam. Her nickname at home was ‘big cat eyes’ in dialect. It is truly heartening to see her interview in the PSP online portal in which she does not hold back on many aspects of her life the likes of which enable one to truly feel like they have had a privileged peek into her world. She speaks about how as a Singaporean she/we tend to believe that the homeless are taken care of in contrast to her actual encounters with homeless folks on the ground. She quotes the number of homeless Singaporeans as around a thousand according to a survey and says it is “the situation of them being there when we should have the resources,” noting that the majority are the working poor. She is also concerned about food waste; she compares food shop owners who dispose of their surplus unsold and therefore wasted stocks of food juxtaposed with the groups of people searching the bins for food for sustenance. Other groups she highlights are the cardboard collectors and those who rely on leftovers or items that have been deemed unsellable. Wendy has been interested in the lives of regular people since her childhood. Her empathy for others, in particular, the less privileged and the have-nots is truly an inspiration. The female candidates highlighted above are truly inspiring and have stay grounded on the needs of the community. Their years of experience within the community have given them an intuitive grasp of the problems and challenges that Singapore is facing. Together with their strength of character and professional background, they are ready to serve Singaporeans. Should we send them to Parliament to effect real structural and policy changes for a more fair and just Singapore?   . Please join our official Facebook page here and Twitter here. Do also invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Kindly note that both our Facebook and Twitter pages are updated in real-time via APIs, synced to our main website. 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Simon Lim I have an important announcement to make. My full name is Lim Kay Cheow Jireh and my friends have called me Simon Lim for many, many years now because Jireh is not a common english name such as John or Peter and it can be difficult for many to pronounce and remember. That is why I continue to use it and I am known to all as Simon Lim. Many friends, including my many online friends who have been my regular commentary readers have encouraged me to stand for our 2020 General Election and I am greatly humbled and honoured to announce that I am standing as a Peoples Voice (PV) electoral candidate for Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC. My party's electoral candidates are ordinary citizens just like many of you. We are not elites, generals or scholars. We may not be able to articulate in beautiful English but we are law abiding citizens, we work hard and we look after our families. We understand the value of every single cent that we earn through our labour. Like in my thank you speech after nomination closed, I have said that although PV is a new political party, we are not a stupid, irresponsible or troublemaker party. Our feelings and our love for our country is no lesser than the PAP's love for this country too. Over the years, I have commented widely on our politics and our current affairs and I have always strived to be be factual, credible responsible, and sensible with all my posts and if I had been reckless or if I have posted falsehoods, I would have got myself into trouble with either the government, Facebook or even the POFMA office. I have not. Too many things have gone wrong with our country over the past >5 years. The pap government today is a mere shadow of the strong and very capable pap government of yesteryears that past generations of Singaporeans knew, grew up with, trusted and deeply respected. When things go wrong in our country and they indeed have whether it is job insecurity, the explosion of Covid 19 among our migrant workers, CPF issues, liberal immigration of foreign PMEs taking away thousands of decent paying jobs at our expense, retirement inadequacies, HDB flat decay, depressed incomes, world record low total fertility rates or the ever increase cost of living etc, to take the easy way out of avoiding talking about them, too lazy to think deeper about them or simply refuse to blame the useless lhl government for their policy mistakes and failures out of blind loyalty that resulted in what is happening and more is not patriotism or good citizenry. It is the mentality and attitudes of slaves and sheep. I have also said to my children that my life is at the sunset phase while theirs is sunrise. I fight and I hope to leave for them and all younger Singaporeans a better Singapore than the one that I inherited growing up. If the status-quo continues, it is totally possible that in my lifetime, I will be able to see younger Singaporeans leaving their families behind to look for better job opportunities overseas just like what many talented Filipinos and the Malaysian Chinese are doing. If things on the employment front continues to be depressed and make worse by us being the world's most expensive country under this pap government, things will be real bad. While there is no minimum wage in Singapore for our citizens, pap ministers know how to pay themselves minimum wages at the top. It seems to me that they are left with the ability to create good paying jobs for themselves and not many others. I can easily go on and on... If elected, we will do our level best to voice out fearlessly the aspirations, hopes and fears of the majority everyday men and women in Parliament and when votes are taken, we will never, never sacrifice the interest of the residents who have placed their trust in us by meekly voting along PAP's party line like all pap MPs do because of their party whip. This is a big promise that I am making and a promise that I now give to Pasir-Ris Punggol residents if I am elected. A promise that I intend to keep. Please support the oppositions and my PV team mates who are contesting in Jalan Besar GRC, Pasir-Ris GRCs and Mountbatten SMC. Kindly encourage your family and friends to support us too. Please help us to help yourselves. Together, we can again make ourselves and our country a proud people and an outstanding country again. Kindly Share My Post Widely. Think. Simon Lim Member, Peoples Voice Party  Read More →

The recent live telecast debates among candidates was the first of its kind here. What emerged was the importance of having alternative parties in parliament and the need for not only a check on a party saturated with the arrogance of power but the need to have more clarity, transparency, and accountability in politics. For instance, after the opposition raised the issue about Deputy PM Heng Swee Keat’s purported support for a 10 million population, the latter had to clarify the issue himself subsequently, stating he had not proposed that kind of population size in Singapore: it is now on the record. Without questioning those who have been in power for too long, no such clarifications would be forthcoming. No clarification of any sort would be provided if there was no one to challenge the complacency of those who have created sinecures for themselves in public office. Imagine how much more will be cleared up that has remained hidden when a sizeable cohort of alternative parties have been voted into parliament in the next elections? There would be an inverse proportion effect shown for the more alternative voices with diverse ideas are voted into parliament the less the arrogance, complacency, and obfuscation (of issues) in parliament. As for the increased number of NCMPs (Non-Constituency Member of Parliament), it can understandably be seen as a ploy for less alternative parties in parliament: notwithstanding, we must follow the logic through. If the ruling party thinks it is necessary to increase the presence of NCMPs and even give them equal voting rights as fully elected MPs, then it shows the importance of having fully elected MPs in parliament. This move is, alas, a reductio ad absurdum, for what it does indeed imply is the importance of having as many elected alternative MPs as possible for they would provide that crucial voice and votes to enrich debates and keep unchecked power in abeyance. But this kind of thinking through does not happen as there is no substantive challenge to the dominance of groupthink within the ruling elite. Again, almost with the precision of Newton’s inverse square law of gravity you can see more absurd ideas proposed with a small presence of alternative members in parliament: count on it, there will be less absurd ideas proposed (or more sensible, feasible, and acceptable ideas raised) with a large alternative parliamentary presence. Mr Heng has also been known not to favour debates and the sense given is that he does not favour parliamentary debate (see “A Party That Is Lost, Confused, And Unclear”); yet we now have live telecast debates before a general election. How is this to be accounted for? Did Mr Heng indeed not favour such debates at all or has change occurred since they now recall the need for more NCMPs with full powers (i.e., the importance of debate and the valuable signals an increased number of differing votes cast can send). Is the present slew of ruling party candidates their ‘own men’ or are some others pulling their strings? Is Mr Heng for or against debate? Perhaps, instead of having to clarify what others raise as valid points in democratic debate without being present, he could be present himself at the next live debate to speak for himself and respond to his political challengers. This would be good preparation for anyone who aspires to be PM; and as part of Singapore’s democratic evolution there may be even a PM’s question time in parliament. But that will not come to pass unless there is a significant alternative presence in parliament. Another way to look at it: the greater the opposition presence, the greater the need for the ruling powers to stand up and account for themselves (akin to Newton’s third law). And you don’t need to be an Einstein to see this. Sanjay Perera *Writer, and founding editor of Philosophers for Change. The post first appeared at: Kafkaville. He is also the author of A Leap in the Dark; Trauma Inc. and Other Works: or, How to Read the World and End It; and the novels Golem & Traum, and Perfect iSland. [Picture: idlehearts.]    Read More →