Election and Aftermath

Our election station was just below my block. Went at noon with Candy and Ethan and my trusted camera… took pictures and voted. It was fun. Its interesting how having a baby around throws a different light on almost everything.

Regarding the election, specifically the opposition, obviously the tide has changed this time round. But I question the fundamentals of the people who voted for the opposition. From my conversations with those who purported to support the opposition, I’m mostly disappointed with their lines of argument and logic.

For example, there is one issue where a supporter said the government wanted to ship the elderlys to johore for their retirement, thus saying that the government is cold-hearted and materialistic, etc. I asked her would she send her parents to an elderly home? Because her parents would not go to a home if she wants to take care of them. No government in the world could force her to send her parents to a home. Then she started lamenting about the high costs of living, HDB flats, cannot afford, etc. Then I ask her would she consider lowering her standards of living to accommodate her parents? What if in the future her son and his future wife told her they could not support her and have to send her to a home? Then she told me she expected it and in fact is going to tell her son that she would not be expecting to stay with her son and his future wife….. What a silly line of logic! She was non-committal when pressed with the question of sending her parents to a home, and she is going to teach her young son that it is okay to send his parents to a home. All the while she had this planned out, while blaming on the her personal decision to high costs of living and the government’s suggestion of setting up a johore home.

I found out that it is a waste of time to talk to these people about these type of issues. I’ll not learn anything new from the discussion. To her maybe I was being difficult and argumentative, but I was only trying to test out my own lines of logic (which I stand to be corrected). In fact, I’m sure with more intelligent thinking one can find loopholes in my arguments.

The thing about a democratic, popular election is – a vote from an uneducated is the same as a vote from an educated (I know it sounds elitist and exclusionist, but I have no better way of putting it across). LKY once suggested the idea of weighted vote (for more info you have to google yourself)…

“I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man-one-vote is the best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed us.”
- Lee Kuan Yew, 1994

Less you think I agree with him, I stand on record to say I oppose his idea.

Back to time and tide. Well the tide can change… but are we looking at a recurrence of the aftermath of 1991 election where the opposition won a landmark 4 seats, only to fizzle out afterwards? The tide may change, but the fundamentals must too.