Singapore Political Notes

The recent announcement by the Prime Minister of Singapore, PM Lee Hsien Loong, to increase the base number of elected opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) and Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) to a minimum of nine, has raised a flurry of comments in the opposition camps.

At the heart of it lies the fear among the opposition that, since most Singaporeans (presumably) do not understand that a NCMP is NOT the same as a MP, they may simply not vote for the opposition candidates at all. "They will just wait for the NCMPs to fill the opposition seats".

Today, I attempt to present my views with regards to this issue to you my reader, and hopefully you might find a valuable moderate voice in my words below. I wrote this in a comment on a social networking site, so please pardon the bad English! Enjoy...

anyway, abt NCMP.. i say take it! better than nothing at all! (haha, i bit e carrot alrdy.. or did i not?) - in all sobriety, e opposition will LOOK BAD (yet again) to my ppl if you do not sportingly appreciate e PM's "generosity". (I trust tat u guys kn tat much of politics is abt being seen doing e right things, not just being right.)

truth is, e new changes r a great PR move as much as gd show of relating to electorate.... Read More

While most ppl might not kn tat NCMP is not e same as an MP, e way fwd is to embrace tis chg wholeheartedly & magnify e idea tat chg CAN happen - praise e Govt for it, & work towards educating our ppl on "What is an MP? (vs. NCMP)" -- & tat work has to start NOW.

only by doing what I suggest can e opposition hv a fighting chance of NOT being rapidly sunk & buried into e NCMP quicksand.

"S'poreans do NOT like opposition, they like propositions." i stand to be corrected. :)