TR EMERITUS

1) Aljunied GRC: WP to hold Aljunied GRC with 52%-53% of votes - PAP will not invest their manpower resource on Aljunied as PAP's priority is to put heavyweight's resources safeguarding East Coast GRC. Likely, it would be Victor Lye, Chua Eng Leong and three other candidates. - SG50 and LKY's sentiments had faded. PAP's propaganda had been stirring AHTC till people feel sick about it and noted that PAP's agenda of stirring AHTC is to bully WP. - WP had improved on their Town Council's management. - WP will heavily emphasis that "If you don't vote for us, there is only zero to one elected Opposition MP in Parliament". 2) East Coast GRC - LTK is the key to win East Coast GRC, together with Nicole Seah, Leon Perera and one new blood. - PAP has not much heavyweight Minister left. Stroke Heng would still be Tampines GRC's anchor Minister, Fish Tank Ong would be Sembawang GRC's anchor and Kee Chiu would be Tanjong Pagar GRC's anchor. Hence, PAP may send Grace Fu, Josephine Teo, Edwin Tong or Indranee Rajah to replace Lim Swee Say. PAP may keep Tharman to attack Tan Cheng Bock. 3) Fengshan SMC - WP have 50/50 chances of winning it from incumbent MP Cheryl Chan. 4) West Coast GRC - The chances of PSP win West Coast GRC are 40-42% (without Lee Hsien Yang) or 50% to 53% (with Lee Hsien Yang).   *Comment first appeared on HWZ.      Read More →

Now that it is vote-harvesting season, the political gimmicks from the PAP’s bag of tricks are coming out thick and fast. The latest is Josephine Teo’s Statement that the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) will be updated to prevent discriminatory hiring against Singaporeans. This is far too little too late. For years, Members Of Peoples' Voice have been unrelenting in our criticism of the PAP government turning a blind eye to what was a very obvious problem which our Singaporean workers faced, that of an unlevel playing field in the labour market. We have written countless number of articles, spoken at rallies and events, and made videos to highlight the problem. We listened to many Singaporeans who shared with us how their jobs had been taken away and given to foreign workers. Young Singaporeans came up to us in our community and house visits and told us how they remained unemployed for years, even though they had good university qualifications, only to find out that the jobs they had applied for had been given to foreigners. I drew the analogy of a Father that had the duty to look after his own children first, but chose instead to look after the children of others, to describe the morality of the PAP’s action or inaction. Such a Father is a bad Father! I am glad that many have now adopted my analogy. For Peoples Voice, any government has to ensure that jobs go to Singaporeans first. When Singaporeans lose jobs, it is not only the individual who is badly affected, but in most cases, his or her family members are directly affected too! It is such situations which lead parents to be unable to pay their children’s school fees, and we now know the consequences that may befall that schoolchild! He or her may have their Exam result slips withheld, leading to humiliation for the child! But more than being able to put food on the table and paying the bills, We also recognise that having a job is for many the biggest expression of self-respect and dignity! Singaporeans are loathe to ask for handouts from government or others because they can’t provide for themselves. When you allow that job to be taken away from a Singaporean, you are stripping away his or her self-respect and dignity! We doubt that Josephine Teo will come out with any meaningful steps to arrest the deteriorating situation for the Singapore worker. We all know the famous Chinese proverb that to cut the weed without removing the roots is pointless because the weed will flourish again when the winds of spring blow. This problem of Singaporeans losing jobs cannot be seriously tackled without addressing issues such as CECA, which allows liberal access for Indian nationals to 127 professions in our country. But of course the likes of Chan Chun Sing and Mr “New Taxes” Heng will sing the praises of CECA until the cows come home.   Lim Tean    Read More →

Singapore opened the floodgate for hundreds of thousands of Indian workers into the country when it inked the Comprehensive Economic Cooperative Agreement with India in 2005. With no parliamentary discussion, it's left to conjecture whether the means in pursuit of economic numbers were closet decisions by omniscient bureaucrats who never envisioned the backlash and the national perils CECA presents. By allowing the ease of labour mobility to a country of 1.3 b population hungry for jobs, Singapore imported the geo-politics of the Indian sub-continent into the tiny island state. A sectoral, cultural or religious clash influenced by events in exogenous flash points, is a national security threat that the authorities appear to have ignored. On the Dokalam plateau, Indian and Chinese troops stare across the border at each other. It may be Dokalam, it may be any of the several disputed areas in the Himalayas, hostilities can flare up at any moment. The Sino-India border conflict has been going on for decades. However low the probability, Singapore cannot be reticent that the next Sino-India border skirmish may raise national sympathies between the hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals and PRC Chinese workers in the country that spill hostilities onto the streets. Racial and religious harmony is a treasured Singapore identity. True blue Singaporeans are no longer emotionally impacted by events in countries where their forebears emigrated from.  The same cannot be said of new citizens and other residents. As Indian Prime Minister Modi implements the new Citizenship Act, seen as a thinly-veiled religious cleansing war against Muslims, the world braces for a horrific persecution of non-Hindus on a scale far worse than China's suppression of Uighurs. Another India-Pakistan war triggered by sympathies to the persecution of Muslims in India is a high possibility. The spectre of unrest in Singapore amongst Indian workers themselves is not a far-fetched side-effect of the horrors that will likely unfold in the Indian subcontinent. Unrest in Singapore, inspired by geo-politics of the Indian sub-continent, is real and the danger lies in the vast number of Indian and PRC Chinese residents. All that is required is a spark that can create an unrest on a scale beyond the capacity of the small Singapore security forces to handle. It can develop into a full scale destabilising event. The demographics of Singapore since independence has been roughly 70% Chinese, 20% Malays, 5% Indians and 5% Others. Faced with different birth rates amongst the races, the admission of new citizens and permanent residents had been applied in the past to tweak population growth dynamics to satisfy a desire to maintain status quo. The huge influx of Indian nationals comes with a cultural homogeneity shock that is almost inevitable. Not only does it significantly alter the national racial mix, it radically redefines the Indian composition. The inflow of Indian PMETs are mostly drawn from the Northern Hindi speaking part of the sub-continent, in contrast to the Tamil speaking majority of local Indians. Unknowingly, Singapore imports massively a people with an ancient caste culture, the impact of which is slowly being played out. Local Tamils complain of growing Hindi demands for more space in TV, education, places of worship. Will the Tamil-Hindi agitation in the home country take root in Singapore is a question that must be addressed warily. The open door policy for 127 specified job titles without any qualification test is lowering the sigma for labour quality in Singapore. The Indian educational system has very serious quality and authenticity issues. Whereas pre-CECA, there was hardly one single Indian university that was recognised by Ministry of Manpower (MOM), today, Indian degrees across the board are not questioned, even for some from paper mills. Media reports of Indian sub-par degrees have been publicised regularly, the latest coming from Mckinsey that suggests 95% of Indian engineers can't code. Singaporean patients at hospitals are increasingly requesting to be attended to by non-Indian doctors. The competence, efficiency and effectiveness of Singapore Inc reputation, built up over decades, is being corroded away insidiously chip by chip.  In the madness for quantity, the sacrificial lamb is quality. The core stock of older local PMETs are diminishing by the day as cheaper Indian nationals move in. Wiping away a national knowledge base is nothing short of a long term economic suicide. For a government that prides itself on taking objective economic views on all issues, it is incomprehensible that the long term damage this implies is a non-issue. "The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it."  George Bernard Shaw The government is focused on economic growth by population expansion, remaining competitive by wage constraint, and promoting technology sector as the key driver. Labour, vast numbers of them, from India, is a quantitative fit and solution to the desired end. The labour mobility article in CECA is a radical idea that germinated non-egalitarian policies the locals perceive as relegating them to second class citizens in their own country. Is there balance in the fruits of CECA to the dangers that labour mobility present? A million immigrant workers entering a country of 100m people is no issue, but to tiny Singapore with 3.5m citizens, it is a serious threat.   Pat Low *The author blogs at https://chem-post.blogspot.com/  Read More →