TR EMERITUS

OPINION In the aftermath of the "Eric How" fiasco which invited widespread ridicule and derision from netizens, the YPAP appeared to have "retreated" from the New Media for the time-being with its members keeping a low profile on both the YPAP Facebook and the P65 blog. Unfortunately, the opposition seems equally clueless about the New Media as well and has done little to utilize it fully to engage young Singaporeans. With the exception of the SDP website, the other opposition websites all suffer from a poor readership like the PAP's. Few opposition leaders bother to maintain a blog or Facebook. If one goes to the streets and ask 10 young Singaporeans if they have heard of "Kenneth Jeyaretnam", "Desmond Lim", "Justin Ong" or "Hazel Poa", chances are, they will not be aware of their existence. Can they expect young Singaporeans to cast their votes for them on polling day? In today's internet age, a blog is a must-have of every politician who has to prove to voters that he/she deserves their votes, especially with more and more IT-savvy Singaporeans joining the electorate each year. To focus solely on grassroots work while ignoring public sentiments in cyberspace is tantamount to throwing away precious votes which can be easily courted via a blog. Through the amount of effort an aspiring politician put into his/her blog, voters can assess how much dedication, sincerity and passion he/she has in serving them. A simple blog which is updated frequently can achieve the following: 1. Raise the profile of the politician. 2. Establishes rapport with the voters directly. 3. Understand their concerns, fears and worries. 4. Publicizing one's views and stance on current affairs. 5. To garner precious resources such as donations and volunteers. A well-run and widely read blog is winning half the battle even before the election is called. For the purpose of illustration, we shall study the internet strategy employed by the Malaysian opposition party Democratic Action Party (DAP) which began in 2006, 2 years before the 2008 Malaysian general election. DAP had seen an influx of young graduates and professionals into its ranks who managed to persuade the Old Guards to employ the New Media as a medium to reach out to the electorate. Like Singapore, the Malaysian mainstream media is blatantly biased towards the opposition, especially DAP which is often demonized as a "racist" party by the Malay newspapers. One of the first steps taken by DAP leaders was to embrace the New Media whole-heartedly by making every CEC member start a blog including 68 year old opposition leader Lim Kit Siang: http://dapmalaysia.org/newenglish/ta_dap_blog.htm Lim is both the state assemblyman and MP for the constituency of Ipoh Timur in Perak, which is larger than Singapore itself and yet he can find time to update his blog at least once a day. Not surprisingly, his blog is one of the highest read political blogs in Malaysia. He does not need the mainstream media to carry his views anymore and in fact, they have to read his blog to get the latest updates about him! Besides key leaders, young candidates-to-be are expected to run their own blogs to engage with young voters. Examples of new DAP faces fielded in the 2008 elections are Tony Pua, Liew Chin Tong and Jernice Lee, all of whom maintain personal blogs which are updated frequently. Though they were never given any publicity by the mainstream press, young Malaysian voters were already very familiar with them by the time the election was called and they threw their support behind them. All three won by overwhelming margins in their maiden elections, including Tony Pua who defeated MCA stalwart Chew Mei Fun her stronghold of Petaling Jaya. Their victories are not "freak" results. It was achieved painstakingly not only through sheer hard work by meeting the residents in the constituencies weekly, but updating their blogs on an almost daily basis. They have demonstrated their sincerity and desire to serve their nation to the people way before the elections, but what about our opposition candidates? Do Singaporeans wish to cast their votes for candidates who appear out of the blue on the eve of the election or will they vote for somebody whom they are already familiar with? The opposition should not wait for the mainstream media to give their fresh candidates some token publicity on nomination day. It is time to kick-start the election campaign right now through the New Media so that young voters already know who they are by then. Take the example of Singapore People's Party's Alex Tan. Though the mainstream media has tried to portray him in a negative light, he has managed to neutralize it cleverly by taking his battle to cyberspace. The "Vote PAP out" Facebook which he set up has garnered more than 3,100 members in less than two months. He posts on the Facebook daily and interact with netizens. If he were to contest in a single ward in the next election against an unknown new PAP candidate, who do you think young Singaporeans will vote for? Opposition candidates must not shy from the limelight or they should not even be in politics in the first place! Since they are going to be made public figures anyway when their candidacies are announced on nomination day, why not make themselves known earlier? Every new opposition candidate should emulate the example of Alex Tan - set up a blog and Facebook and start telling the whole of Singapore what their views are on issues like immigration, housing policies, education, national service etc. The New Media remains the opposition's best weapon against the giant propaganda machinery of the PAP. The battle for the hearts and minds of Singaporeans starts now. There is no more time to lose.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent In a speech made to a business community in Singapore, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong admitted that the Singapore government has learnt some "hard lessons" from the disastrous Suzhou Industrial Park  joint venture between China and Singapore in the 1990s which saw the Singapore consortium losing millions of dollars. SM Goh said it was not all "smooth sailing" for Singapore during the early years of doing business with China: "Many of our businessmen, especially in the early years, have had to learn hard lessons on the importance of guanxi ( connections) and the challenge of finding reliable partners.....The Suzhou Industrial Park venture provided practical lessons to the Singapore Government and civil servants on 'how best to have a productive relationship with China", he added. The China-Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) was set up in 1994 at the outskirts of the Suzhou City in Jiangsu province with the help of Singapore funds and expertise. Singapore owned a 65% stake in the park. Even as the park was being constructed, the Suzhou City government set up Suzhou New District Industrial Park (SND) right next to SIP. It was the exact replica of the Singapore model. As the Suzhou City government had a majority stake in SND, it largely ignored the SIP and concentrated on promoting the SND instead. After incurring losses of some US$90 million over 5 years, the Singapore consortium lowered its stake to 35 percent, raising the Chinese consortium’s stake to 65 percent from 35 percent and reducing the Singaporean share from a planned 70 sq.km. to just 8 sq.km One year after Singapore lowered its stake, the park made its first profit of $3.8 million. Till today, it was not known how much money did Singapore lose exactly in its Suzhou misadventure. Singapore’s latest foray into China, led by the Ministry of National Development to develop an eco-city in the northern metropolis of Tianjing appears to be turning into another Suzhou nightmare too. A Singaporean, who has lived in China for over a decade and works for a company with close dealings with the Eco-City was quoted in an interview with the Straits Times as saying: “We may have another Suzhou Industrial Park tangle on our hands.” One problem which continues to plague the project as in Suzhou is the difference in priorities between local officials and the Singaporeans. Though the project has received strong support from the central government in Beijing, it is the provincial officials the Singapore team have to liaise with and many do not share the vision of their Singapore counter-parts. To the Tianjin officials who are there only for a short stint, they are desperate to produce quick results which will earn them promotions elsewhere. For example, while Singapore would like to have Housing Board-style public housing that will cater to low-income Chinese, Tianjin officials have been lukewarm to the idea because they worry over who will stump up the cash to subsidise the apartments. A Tianjin official apparently told his Singaporean colleague: “By the time the public housing project is completed, many of us Tianjin officials would likely be promoted elsewhere. Who would still be around to ensure that it is really the poor people who are relocated to this public housing estate?” Singapore appears not to have learnt its previous lessons from Suzhou – that written contracts count for little in business transactions in China and local officials are often more interested in securing promotions for themselves than the welfare of the people. Singapore's economic model is based largely on a state-capitalist system where its major companies are mostly controlled by the state via a gigantic sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings owned by the Ministry of Finance. In a recent speech made at the Civil Service College, US-based political economist Prof Huang Yasheng urged Singapore to “rethink” the “Temasek model” and warns that Singapore’s state management model has “milked this system for all it is worth.” “The private sector is the best way to grow the economy. It has the most productive, most innovative and entrepreneurial culture. The state-owned enterprise system doesn’t give you that….You are already hitting the wall. Retaining this strategy could mean sacrificing future growth that is possible only through a bigger, more dynamic private sector,” he said. Prof Huang felt that governments should not get involved in venture financing as they are using taxpayers’ monies and questions how the government can defend its decisions to invest in “failing individuals and projects”: “Nine out of 10 investment projects fail. Does the government have such a high tolerance for risk? It’s taxpayers’ money, right? I don’t think, politically, it’s legitimate for the government to keep investing in failing individuals and failing projects. How do you defend these decisions?,” he asked. As in the Suzhou debacle, there was never a need for the Singapore government to defend its (dubious) decisions since Temasek Holdings is a "commercial entity" and the unique Singapore system is built entirely on "trust" and nothing else, to quote the words of Finance Minister Tharman.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Channel News Asia (CNA) is living up to its "reputation" as Singapore's  KCNA or "Korean Central News Agency" (of North Korea) by spinning stories on behalf of the PAP regime to promote "social integration" of the new immigrants of late, never mind if the story does truly reflect the reality on the ground. After sending a TV crew to film an Indian PR having reunion dinner with a Singapore Chinese family, the Malay community (or at least that of the People's Association) is roped in to lend some form of legitimacy to the nationwide effort to "integrate" the new citizens which has been foremost on the PAP's agenda. While in other countries, it is the immigrants who are expected to adapt to local culture and norms, it seems to be the other way round in Singapore. In October last year, the Ministry of Youth Development, Community and Sports unveiled a $10-million dollar Community Integration Fund to make the newcomers feel "welcomed" in Singapore, courtesy of Singapore taxpayers. According to a CNA report yesterday, the PA's Malay Activity Executive Committee Co-ordinating Council or MESRA has been making an active effort to "promote social cohesion in Singapore's multi-racial society" by putting up Malay dance and silat at community events. Malay dance and silat are items put up at community events by members of the People's Association Malay Activity Executive Committee Co-ordinating Council or MESRA. Mustaffa Abu Bakar, chairman, MESRA, said: "I think in a way, we have taken things for granted. We have been quiet and maybe we have to partake in the integration exercise by sending our tarian, our silat. But I think more needs to be done." How Malay dance and silat are going to help the newcomers from mainland China and India "integrate" into Singapore society is anybody's guess. Perhaps the PA is able to entice them to attend the events with free food and drinks after which they will simply leave with little or no interaction with the locals. Due to the ruling party's liberal immigration policies, foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Singapore's population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, an increasing number are born overseas. As too many foreigners are allowed into the country within too short a period of time, Singapore is now experiencing a grave problem trying to integrate them. Many of the newcomers prefer to mingle around within their own communities rather than to reach out to Singaporeans because there are already significant number of their compatriots in Singapore. In fact, certain parts of Singapore like Geylang now resembles more like cities in China than Singapore itself. It is little wonder that they don't feel out of place in Singapore. At the rate the ruling party is mass importing foreigners to replace native Singaporeans, it is only a matter of time before we become a minority in our own nation. CNA's reports are getting more and more "divorced from reality" that they are putting even KCNA to shame. Even the latest article from KCNA on Kim Jong IL's birthday being "observed" in various countries cannot be compared with this "masterpiece".  Read More →