I dun get to vote this time round. Again.
The last time round, I was still underaged.
Now, uncontested.
It was abt 5 yrs back when the rallying lorries with candidates gathering support thru loudspeaker systems doing the rounds at 9am in the morning.
5 yrs back. 2001. When mum and dad receive the voting forms and obediently marked a cross next to the reigning party. It was won 80-20. N I hated the lorries for waking me up early in the morning.
As I looked thru the past parliamentary election results, the west area seems to be a popular place for contests, apart from of cos, the hotspots like Punggol and Sengkang.
Right now, its under Hong Kah GRC, after running a check thru SouthWest CDC. Mayor Amy Khor was my MP (and still is), sad to say, I've nvr seen her in person b4. Even her name doesnt strike a chord in my tiny brain. The only name I recognise was Mr Yeo Cheow Tong, for being the Minister for Transport and appearing on TV ever so often to give a few comments.
If I remembered correctly, we used to be under Jurong GRC and West Coast GRC. All of which used to be popular contest spots. This time round, I have to check and double check to see if I'm under Hong Kah or West Coast, but anyway, half of Singapore is uncontested.
Cant they jus standardise the constituencies instead of splitting wards as and when they deem advantageous fit?
N the nomination fee. $13k? No wonder most of the candidates hail from the higher white collar workers, but understanding that it also serves as a form of filtering out the under-qualified, its quite a reasonable fee (althou it still seems like throwing money down the drain by going against The Higher Order).
Newspaper and news reports are overloaded with reports on the various rallies, which tend to be a wee bit biased. Every night, there will be at least one report on the proposals that the candidates present to the crowd. We dun get to see the magnitude of the crowd other than from independent sources.
As for the candidates, some of them simply do not have the flair for public speaking. Yes, u've mentioned ur point. But the crowd cannot align themselves to ur points bcos they dun find u believable/trustful/interesting/impressive enuff. The big ones expect a clap after EVERY sentence they made (mus be a lot of mosquitoes ard), the no-talents tend to rattle on their agendas with NO expressions on their face, no speech impact, no stage presence at all. The crowd will jus forget ur proposal after they disperse from the rallies.
Being a candidate is like being a salesman. U need the passion to start with. Then u start ur selling, peppering impressive quotes here n there, best is if its able to be acknowledge by the target audience(e.g. speak in dialect). Of cos, ur product mus be strong in its features. Lastly, u need reliability and credibility to encourage repeat purchase (surely u need support in future rite).
Election day is drawing closer, but it is not jus the candidates who r working like bees. Supporters are busy distributing flyers and helping in the campaigning. Bank tellers r occupied since 30th April as hordes of customers stream past their doors enquiring abt the status of the Progre$$ package or withdrawing the $$ out. Sales assistants are busy as people r temporarily more willing to spend $$.
End of the day, the Progre$$ package will be re-injected back into the economy. Quarterly finances will mark an increase in the economy growth (from the additional sales), forecasts will predict more job openings, everyone believed that the economy is going for the better thru excellent guidance. U happy, me happy, everyone happy.
The opposition on the other hand, do not have the luxury to "share" any budget surpluses. Nor r they able to introduce candidates by the truckloads. Nor is the media very willing to carry their reports. They seem to be on the losing end from the start, with no past results to show. They can only hope to convince the voters what they plan to do and that voters buy their proposals.
Thus the few oppositions who won seats have to be truly committed and represent the dropped candidates for long-term trust investments. If the opposition winner carried out his proposal and improved the standard of living of his ward, satisfying the resident's requests, people will generally have better reflection on the opposition, and not stereotyping all of them as talk big no action.
Now that Hong Kah is a walkover, uncontested ward, watching the rallies on TV seems like watching the riots happening in other countries. There's totally no sense of excitement. MPs dun do walkabouts anymore and resides back into the backseat doing work for us.
Pls come and contest Hong Kah the next time round. I propose a manifesto point for u:"Increase the security of the area and the well-being of the citizens", since this place is becoming more and more like a foreigner land. Late-returning students after mugging in school at wee hours and drunk strangers lurking at void decks simply dun go well, esp with the amt of institutions in the west area. And also, dun chance to build a block of flats on every piece of available space when eventually there's no demand for it n it became a darkened pigeon hole. Its simply a crime haven awaiting wrong-doers to venture in.
I wanna vote... I wanna be in the action..
