“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” who watches the watchmen?
Election season is upon us so all too quickly and oh so suddenly(is that even legal to give such short notice??) and although I am a strong believer that civil society and ground up movements have a role to play in betterment of the community, I also believe opposition parties have a part to play in that equation as well.
Let’s talk about that playing field that isn’t level for the opposition parties.
First off, I think it’s important to note that each opposition party needs to pay an election deposit of $13,500 PER candidate just to run for elections. If you don’t manage to get at least 12.5% of the vote from the voters in the GRC or the SMC you are running in, you essentially lose all the deposit put in. Let’s not forget this is the opposition candidate’s hard earned money that NONE of the ruling party members needed to fork out. Now imagine a 3 or even 4 way fight in any particular GRC/SMC. With more options to defray the votes, the chances of getting back that deposit per opposition party gets smaller. Sure, one can say “let’s hope the opposition parties are not stupid enough to fight among themselves”. I too wish all our opposition parties could be allies together for the greater good in the grander scheme of things. But I also acknowledge that polling day is not the only day of reckoning. The work would have already started and continued for years leading up to each election. If an opposition party has walked the ground of a particular area they are interested in contesting, and have invested much into the emotional bank account of the residents in that hood for years now, pulling out of the area just to get out of a 3 way fight is just not an option. They could contest in an area that is not contested, sure, but without having done the ground work years prior, they really have the odds stacked against them to lose their deposit. When people talk about weighing up the ruling party with the opposition parties with score cards (Greenwatch) and personal expectations (what has so and so opposition party done for Singapore?), I don’t think they considered that the odds were already stacked hugely against the opposition party at the get go, by the system. Without access to the resources and state media, every win the opposition scores for their residents, no matter how small, is already achieved above and beyond the uneven playing field they were laid upon.
Friends have asked me over the years why I have always only voted for opposition parties before, even if they were shitty (and yes some have been so shitty I actually grudgingly checked their boxes on the ballot slip sighing away before). They constantly ask me “why don’t you look at what both have to offer first, before making a decision?” Because the playing field wasn’t level for the opposition party to begin with. The offering from the ruling party that has access to all resources of the State will always appear better. I am putting my vote for the opposition party because I hope I can at least help them get their deposit back, if not something more. My vote cast for them is to hopefully help them retain the dignity of the thankless long haul fight they never had to put up (but chose to do so anyway),in the name of fair politics and best interest of the people.
A ruling party that bullies citizens and slanders opposition party candidates, with timed precision just before the elections, sure sounds fearful to me. It reminds me of the #notmypresident protest at Hong Lim Park back in 2017 that I was a part of, a time where we were robbed of the choice to vote for a president. In this upcoming elections, there is a wave of young voters who are fresh to the power to vote. I truly hope they are aware of our history and know about how we had one admirable president who was not even granted a state burial when he passed, because he was a people’s president who fought too well and hard for the people. I am never forgetting Ong Teng Cheong who will live on in my heart as the only president in Singapore’s history who did right by the people. And even though he seem wiped pretty clean from our history, I hope stories about his moral courage and conviction to take his role of president seriously enough to ask for an audit of the government reserve (and got rejected), continues to be told verbally across the generations, even if online stories of him are sorely lacking.
May we remember the lessons of the previous elections and not be bitter as repeat voters, but continue fighting the good fight ceaselessly. May the new voters go to the polls with discernment and integrity, with an understanding of the history behind politics in Singapore beyond the louder prevailing narrative.
