Gangs of Singapore

If you elect Steve Chia, I'm sorry, he is not (in) my party, if he comes to me and says he's got somebody who is jobless, well, I'll tell him (he's) got to find somebody to help him...But if Mr Gan is your MP and he comes to me, then I'll move heaven and earth to help you. That is our pledge. Lim Boon Heng, current Labour Chief, at a PAP rally on Wednesday night

The PAP and Mr Lim Boon Heng can be sore losers. They may become sore losers. You do not win the people's vote and their hearts by threatening to abandon them. If the PAP abandons the people, that's OK. They will lose the country eventually. But how can the NTUC chief abandon the workers, whether they live in Chua Chu Kang or Ang Mo Kio? That is Lim Boon Heng's mesage to the rest of the workers in Singapore. If they don't vote PAP, he, as the boss of NTUC, will abandon them.

An MP is a duly elected representative of the people. In times past, they are even referred to as the Honorary Member for xxx. Apparently, as far as the PAP and NTUC are concerned, the Honorary title is reserved for PAP MPs only, for how can the NTUC ignore a duly elected honorary MP acting on behalf of its constituents even if that MP doesn't belong to the ruling party? That MP is the people. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, the government is by the people and for the people. We are not a country of gangs with specific turfs to control and protect. If Lim Boon Heng thinks that is what PAP stands for and how a government should behave, then I think Lim Boon Heng must take Parliamentary Democracy 101. Clearly he has no idea what Parliamentary Democracy is all about or how it works. He demeans the ideals and purpose of a Democratic Government by Representation and the process of the General Elections.

He should stop acting like a gangland boss who threatens and cajoles the common folks into joining his gang. Not joining, he seems to imply, will carry unpleasant consequences. If people can only get help from the NTUC through their PAP MPs and not any other Opposition Party MP, then what does that imply? Is the NTUC == PAP? If it is, then it validates all the criticisms leveled against the NTUC for being too closely tied and dependent on the PAP. The workers are the ones who will lose out eventually in such a system. I daresay that Lim Boon Heng is planting the seeds of worker opposition and industrial strive by so closely aligning the NTUC with the political incumbents, the PAP.

Perhaps the 'gang' leader should reconsider and apologise to the workers for hijacking the workers' organisation?