[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Indeed. The strongest opposition party, the Workers' Party, wrested control of Aljunied GRC and thus toppled two Cabinet ministers from power, including the widely respected foreign affairs minister George Yeo, reputed to be the most "liberal" and most erudite among the current generation of Cabinet ministers.

So, if anything, this General Election shows how warped the "Group Representation Constituency" system is. If not for the GRC system, voters wouldn't have had to put up with what they consider a lightweight MP-elect, nor would they have been forced to choose between a good team of opposition candidates and a Cabinet minister most people liked.

Speaking personally, I strongly feel the GRC system must be abolished. It warps democracy and I don't believe any Singaporean other than a PAP cadre truly thinks it ensures minority representation.

Ha! I don't believe even many PAP cadres believe the GRC system is truly there for its spoken purpose of minority representation. I'm pretty sure most of them are aware, especially given this election's results, what it really is for... and this is where I stop, lest I recieve an invitation for a kopi session.

And, believe me, it's not just the PAP that is worried, but many older voters too, including people of my generation, the tail-end of Generation X (those born in the 1960s to 1975). It's not that we don't sympathise with the grouses of younger voters, but that we worry that idealistic youth just don't understand the kind of risks they are playing with (for example, Ms Nicole Seah, who parleyed strawmen polemics to her great advantage).

Huh. I personally find it hard to believe that many Singaporean youth actually sincerely believe that this year's Elections had the potential for much change of any significance. Hell, I'd take a wild guess that the Opposition in general did as well as they did this year because the youth are all too aware of that fact. Who cares if whatever the Opposition is saying makes any sense or not; if you lack the fear of the PAP that your fathers do, if you know the Government probably isn't going to change whether you vote Opposition or not, and the only reason to vote against the PAP is to tell them "no, fuck you", why wouldn't you?

Personally though, the best take-home message for me is how online media completely fails to be representative of "mainstream" opinion in Singapore. If one reads online media alone, you'd think that all of Singapore was ready to throw out their present "masters". Well, the results speak for themselves: so-called "objective" (lol) online media represent only the usual tiny group of whiners who make the loudest noise. They are the kind of people who would ask for the Sun when you give them the Moon, and proceed to ask for the galaxy when you deliver the Sun.

Your "professional" tendency towards smearing the competition is showing through here, TRL.

The way I see it, the online media aren't representative of "mainstream" opinion; they're representative of the POV of the group of people who are most familiar with usage of the Internet; once again, the younger generation. And yes, I'd dare claim that much, since that includes those of the younger folks who are "pro-PAP" or "objective", who are as free as any of the "pro-Opposition" guys to make their POVs known online. And I should know, given that there were more "objective" thinkers within my circle than I expected over the last few days.

So once again, this goes back to the numbers game; yeah, the current Government still has the majority for now. However, give or take several more Elections, a couple of age groups newly of age and eligible to vote, and a couple more safely ensconced in urns and out of the picture, who knows?