General Elections, they are a'comin

In quiet little Singapore, where there are no protest marches, loud signboards or placards agitating for a particular cause, General Election rumours are going around quite loudly. The incumbent government, through its constituencies and wards have, of late, been announcing grand and ambitious civil works over the next few years that will add to the people's enjoyment of their neighbourhood. At the national level, the government has promised to give a once-only subsidy to poorer sections of the population, identified by the type of government housing that they live in. Furthermore, SBSTransit has relented (through government persuasion, perhaps, and certainly through the hard work of Mr Charles Chong, MP for the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) and will open its Buangkok MRT station (closed for over 3 years) earlier than scheduled this Sunday, 15th January 2006, which will add 3,000 commuters to its trains everyday.

Good news rarely come in such a gush or should I say, a torrent. The only conclusion is that the General Elections are coming. It is due 2007 anyway. The Straits Times speculate that this election is going to come sooner rather than later, most likely in March 2006. March is when all the holidays are over so that vacations will likely not be disrupted (an expensive thing from any angle), the students settled down in their schools, and government school teachers are available for election duty for a week in March. Further, we never know how the world economy will be doing in 6 months' time, so the government would want to catch the 'feel-good' factor while it is still there.

I suspect that every opposition party is gearing up for the fight. I expect more new faces to show up in the opposition camps. It will be an interesting General Election - if nothing but to wake up sleepy 'ol Singapore - politics-wise.