Anti-PAP Malay that ungrateful meh?

High Court recently threw out SDP assistant treasurer’s bid for Marsiling-Yew Tee by-election. Hali was the MP there before Why PAP thinks we need a Malay president?

One Faizal Maidin posted on FB 

Marsiling has one of the highest Malay Muslims population in Singapore but yet we have no Malay/Muslim MP to represent us. ZzZzZ This is unfair to us. We have voted for 4 MPs and not 3 ok.

He should go on his knees and thank the PAP for making a Malay a president when the voters want Dr Tan Cheng Bock to be our presient. But to be fair, maybe he thinks “Malay presidency” is “Calling a deer a horse”?

Related posts

— Good crowd at #notmypresident protest

— #hardlymahpresident

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PM, Khaw, SMRT: Apologise like Zuckerberg

Recently, Mr Zuckerberg observed Yom Kippur, the Jewish festival of atonement. He wrote on Facebook: “For the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together, I ask forgiveness and I will work to do better.”

I think Khaw, Desmond and the chairman of SMRT should have followed him Where’s Khaw? (cont’d) instead of doing a pale imitation of Japanese-style apology over the “ponding” problem.

PM and the PAP should also do a Zuckerberg for creating disharmony to ensure the “right” person became president by

— going against the national aspirations of meritocracy and multiracialism by wanting a Malay as president, and

— selecting as the Malay president someone whose i/c says “Indian”.

But let’s be fair. Maybe this is why Why PAP thinks we need a Malay president?

And after the recent London terror attack, only the anti-PAP TRE cybernuts will say that the PAP administration is wrong to try to prevent terror attacks.

 

Good crowd at #notmypresident protest

The figures of last week’s protest range from “hundreds” (ST) to “2,500 — 3,000” according to activist Lim Tean one of the co-organisers.

Not seen an “aerial” photo that can help fix the size of the crowd.

Close to 2000 individuals turned up at Hong Lim Park on 16 September to show their concern and unhappiness over the recently concluded reserved elected presidency

TOC: FB post accompanying video footage

A “2,000” crowd works out to a 24,000 crowd in UK or a 62,000 crowd in a US city. Basis of calculation

Given that this is not an economic issue, unlike immigration, People power in S’pore, a crowd of between 1,000 – 2000 is a pretty decent showing.

 

 

 

Hali: MSM keeps fueling the rage

Juz when S’poreans unhappy about Hali’s appointment as president were getting tired of KPKBing about it, with one unhappy oldie (Maybe Kopi Lim lim kopi with him?) saying on FB,

There is a wise saying: When you taunt or ridicule a person once you can claim that’s lampooning, Repeat it and it becomes a joke in bad taste. Repeat it the second time: that’s persecution ! So, let’s be upright and charitable and not conflate the person and the issues.

the constructive, nation building media decided to stroke our anger

The rise of an ethnic minority to the country’s highest office in the country has enhanced Singapore’s reputation as a meritocratic state, said observers from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Today

The best responses to this “provocation” is too funny not to report

Yeah. Reserving the (s)elections for a certain race is most definitely meritocracy in action. Just like gang rape is democracy in action

And

sure, running a race with no opponents and winning is extremely meritocratic

And

Did they mention anything about the other two candidates being disqualified… even though, they’re more capable than her?

And did they mention about the PM post not ready for non-chinese?

And

My dictionary reads meritocracy is define as government (in this case president) selected according to merit. What merits does she has? Moreover, it’s a “Reserved” appointment.

Dictionary published fake definition?

First Hali, then GCT, and now the the constructive, nation building media are determined to keep us angry until the next GE? Bet u PM will be next to stroke the anger.

Related article: Doesn’t Hali realise that “Speaker” is BS post?

Know this about 1993 PE?

In fact, I recall that in 1993, the Government’s preferred candidate was Ong Teng Cheong. Everyone knew he would win. But Dr Goh Keng Swee still went out of his way to persuade Mr Chua Kim Yeow to stand for elections. Why? To prevent a walkover and give citizens the dignity of expressing their choice”

Tan Chin Bok on Facebook

I must say I didn’t know Dr Goh did this.

Hali humble? What a load of bull

Justin Wee posted this on FB

PAP and the MSM keeps telling us the sham President Halimah Yacob is humble, no doubt to fudge the controversy surrounding the way she was selected in a blatant disregard for the fundamental tenet of the Elected Presidency.

Now, if she’s humble, can we suggest Halimah to dispense with the motorcade and entourage that accompany her wherever she goes?

She’s certainly not deserving of it given that none of us voted for her.

What’s she afraid of if she claims to be a “President” for all?

Is she afraid of S’poreans?

Pix is from Alternative View

https://www.facebook.com/TAVSingapore/photos/a.598097686918234.1073741825.358759327518739/1581134791947847/?type=3&theater

PAP doesn’t think. They juz use standard procedures from the operating manual. They missed a trick to salvage her and their reputations from the mauling they getting from the public. But maybe they juz don’t give a damn. They look at their monthly CPF statements and smile.

#hardlymahpresident

WTF? President is paid millions but we got to do her work for her isit?

This is the implication of what Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said. He wants

 Singaporeans to “help the President succeed” in a Facebook post.

“The process of how Halimah Yacob became President may be highly controversial but she is not a controversial figure,” he wrote on Thursday (Sep 14) afternoon.

Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/do-our-part-to-help-the-president-succeed-goh-chok-tong-9216068l

Jokes aside, while she was not a controversial figure (In fact I tot she could thrash TCB, and I said that I’d have voted for her despite having voted for TCB), she is now a controversial figure because of her complicity in the wayang of selecting a Malay president whose i/c says “Indian”.

She signed up to the wayang, which

— decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which the presidency is held; and

— induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against the presidency and the president.

And taz why she’s now a controversial figure, even taking into account her past good deeds and character. But she’s crying or laughing all the way to the bank, so u think she really cares what anyone thinks about her? I doubt it. Money talks, BS walks.

One thing I must say about the PAP. If they had been in charge of the Jewish council that paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus, they’d have paid him a lot more. But then having worked for the premier Jewish house in the City, Jews pride themselves on being mean. The joke was that to work in Rothschilds, u needed to have a private income. It was like being an officer in the Queen’s Household Brigade.

Btw, I like the Singlish version of #notmypresident. For one, it sums up my feelings better: #hardlymahpresident.

When the Presidential Commission recommended scrapping presidential elections and reverting to an appointed presidency, a government white paper rejected the idea. The reason for the rejection was that it was important to give the presidency a “popular” and “direct” mandate. 

Going by the Wayang

“popular” and “direct” mandate

must now seem to be Orwellian.

(Last two paras added at 11.40am)

Hali cracks a great joke

“Although this is a reserved election, I am not a reserved President. I’m a President for everyone”

There was no election. It was a walkover. How can a “reserved” president that was “not elected” be “everyone”‘s president.

Especially when she implies S’poreans are racists to justify the way she became president, parroting the PAP’s explanation of why there had to be a Malay president even if said Malay has i/c saying “Indian”.

Seriously as someone posted on FB

You know you’re off to a bad start when even your humility inconveniences your neighbourhood.

 

Two cheers for Hali

(For TRE cybernuts like Ng Cock Lim aka Rabble-rouser, pls look up the meaning of “two cheers”)

Because of Hali, “chop” cannot be banned

I am both gladdened and saddened by the National Environment Agency’s reply (Two hawker centres set ‘house rules’ against choping; Sept 2).

It is good that the NEA has acknowledged that “choping” is indeed a problem. But its approach to solving this is not in touch with reality.

The softly-softly approach has not worked ….

ST forum complainer

He’s a real cock (Ng Cock Lim’s twin isit?). Chopping cannot be banned because we juz saw PAP chopping the presidency. If PAP can chop presidency, S’poreans cannot chop seats isit?

#notmypresident protest and me

Gilbert Goh has called for a silent sit-in protest (text below) against the reserved presidential election today from 4.30PM to 6.30PM at Hong Lim Park.

I usually don’t do protests or solidarity.

But in solidarity, I posted yesterday a post on Hali’s inauguration speech that implies we are racists. And later today and tom in further shows of solidarity (I still don’t do protests), I’ll post more takes showing how the changes to the way the president is chosen

— decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which the office is held; or and

— induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against the presidency and the president.

Sad.

Lamentation of the Malay minister’s brudder-in-law https://mothership.sg/2017/09/a-monumental-miscalculation/

Worth a read even if his comments appear in a PAPpy funded publication. Which begs the question, “Why does it appear there?”

What do u think?

——————————-

Dear Fellow Singaporeans,

We have just received the NParks permit to stage a first-ever Silent Sit-in Protest against the Reserved Presidential Election this coming Saturday 16th Sep from 4.30 to 6.30pm.

Its a sit-in protest meaning that we won’t have any speakers for the event with no stage and no microphone speaker system. You can however bring along your placards to show your displeasure with the incoming government-appointed Presidency.

If you feel dissatisfied with the recent events surrounding the controversial PE, this is the time to show up and be counted. You can continue to be a keyboard warrior quietly firing away online but the time to step up is NOW!

Fear has crippled you all this while you are burnt up inside and its time to unleash that frustration by showing up with like-minded Singaporeans together as ONE voice.

People dropping by are encouraged to bring a mat and sit down silently on the park as a sign of protest against the PE. You can drop by anytime between 4.30 to 6.30pm or leave anytime of course. If you can join us for the sit-in silent protest for the whole 2 hours it will be great!

If you bring food and water along do be mindful not to litter the place.

Do wear black so we are united as ONE heart and people regardless of race and religion.

See you soon Singaporeans – Malays, Indians, Chinese and Eurasians are all welcomed!”

Gilbert Goh
Organiser
#notmypresident

Hali wants to unite S’poreans?

Against her isit by branding voters as “racists”. Why liddat?

“I look forward to the day when we will no longer need to rely on the provision to have reserved elections, and Singaporeans naturally and regularly elect citizens of all races as Presidents”

The above implies that we voters are racists despite events like the Bukit Batok by-election where an Indian (with the help of true blue Chinese like Grace Fu) whipped the ass of talk cock sing song Hokkien-speaker and GE2015 where yje same Indian beat Chen Show Mao in the latter’s ward. Only the GRC system saved Mao. Ironic because the PAP said GRC was to protect minorities against orang Cina, not orang Cina from Chinese.

Many S’poreans believe the only reason why we had a reserved election was to ensure the PAP’s wish of having someone whose i/c said “Indian” as the second “Malay” president and first woman. If this is true, then the PAP are the racists, not us. And sexists too.

How to respect someone who uses the presidential pulpit to brand me and other S’poreans as racists?  And in her first speech too as president?

Was I wrong about her. I wrote in early 2016: Malay PAPpy that can thrash Chin Bock. I even said I’d vote for her in a one to one fight with Dr Tan despite voting fot Dr Tan the last time round.

Whatever, with comments like this from her, its going to be easy to keep S’poreans angry with the PAP about the way she became president. I had tot that come the next GE S’poreans, bribed with their own money, would forget their anger.

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The only way to make PAP listen to you is through your vote. The way to stop PAP from manipulating the elected presidency is to stop them from having a 2/3 majority. They can still be the government with over 50% of the total seats in parliament but once they obtain above 66%, it means they can change the constitution at their whims and fancy and there absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. GE 2011 has shown that if you want PAP to listen to you, the only way is to stop voting for them, nothing is more straightforward and clear cut than that! Losing 1 GRC already made them panic, imagine what losing another 5 GRCs and a couple more single seats will do to them?! You have the power to bring them to their knees, just be smart with your vote.

FB post by upset S’porean

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If Hali keeps on sounding like the PAP (Remember PM and ministers on need for reserved presidency? They all said we are racists.) maybe we’ll thank her one day. Meanwhile she can look at her bank statement and laugh at Judas. He only got thirty pieces of silver. And Jews are supposed to be really smart.

 

 

Hali is also into “Post-truth”

When I read her FB statement* saying

Thank you very much for your strong show of support.

I am deeply touched by many of you who have signed up as supporters and many others who have given me words of encouragement of well-wishes on my facebook & website.

I coouldn’t but think so “post-truth”.

“Post-truth” is a word that has come to prominence as the Western liberal elites are angsting and spinning about their defeats in Brexit and the US presidential election.

The Oxford Dictionary declared ‘post-truth’ its word of the year 2016. FT added “A less verbose way to describe the same phenomenon would be to say it was the year in which emotion trumped fact. Or cruder still, it was the year of the lie.”

Why Race is BS or “post-truth” at work?

Support? What support? https://sg.news.yahoo.com/overwhelmingly-negative-sentiment-decision-halimah-yacobs-presidential-eligibility-report-070536453.html

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*Mdm Halimah Yacob posted on her Facebook page on the eve of Nomination day, saying that she will be making a pledge to Singaporeans and attached a hand-written letter that is addressed to everyone.

The letter wrote,

Dear Singaporeans,

Thank you very much for your strong show of support.

I am deeply touched by many of you who have signed up as supporters and many others who have given me words of encouragement of well-wishes on my facebook & website.

I will be submitting my nomination form tomorrow at the nomination centre and many of you have indicated your intention to be present.

From the bottom of my heart, a very big thank you!!

I will serve Singapore & Singaporeans with great passion & commitment. I want you to join me in making Singapore a great place by Doing Good, Doing Together.

Halimah Yacob

What walkover means for Hali’s presidency

Kevin Tan,  law professor and constitutional law expert, likes to tell this story

Every time the late President S R Nathan met me, he would always tell people, “Ah this man said I wasn’t properly elected”.

Then one day, I got “a bit fed-up” and told Nathan, “Sir, Sir, I never said you were not properly elected, I only said you were not elected.”

He again told this story more to  the 300 0odd participants attending the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Forum on The Reserved Presidential Election on Sept. 8.

Like Nathan (i/c said “Indian”), Hali (i/c said “Indian”) was not elected.

Mandate from the people? What mandate?

Two PAPpies (Indians if u must know, one a senior minister, the other a M’sian born junior minister) said that “walkover” also confers mandate because no challenger came forward. One senior lawyer posted on Facebook, that while that applies in an election for MP, it doesn’t apply for in a presidential election. The bar to contest as MP is pretty low, while the bar to being eligible to be president is very, very high.

Btw, this is what happens in an alternative universe where Hali is “not elected” president, and Dr Chee is PM after a freak election result, and wants to return our CPF.

 

 

 

 

Why PAP thinks we need a Malay president?

Even if her i/c says “Indian”.

Because it wants to avoid property prices from collapsing?

A Muslim president will keep some Muslims from becoming radicalised and then becoming terrorists because there hasn’t been a Muslim president since Yusof Ishak? (Btw, even at the time, there were questions whether he was Malay. He comes from Minangkabau stock.)  (Btw, Read what a law professor has to say about the definition of “Malay” in our con.

Here’s what an Indonesian Muslim scholar says about Islam and terrorism

… should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam.

Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They’ve appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to “Islamophobia.” Or do people want to accuse me — an Islamic scholar — of being an Islamophobe too?

What basic assumptions within traditional Islam are problematic?

The relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, the relationship of Muslims with the state, and Muslims’ relationship to the prevailing legal system wherever they live … Within the classical tradition, the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity.

Perhaps there were reasons for this during the Middle Ages, when the tenets of Islamic orthodoxy were established, but in today’s world such a doctrine is unreasonable. To the extent that Muslims adhere to this view of Islam, it renders them incapable of living harmoniously and peacefully within the multi-cultural, multi-religious societies of the 21st century.

https://pamelageller.com/2017/09/muslim-scholar-truth-about-islam.html/

Bottom line, PAP wants to keep S’pore safe? Otherwise property prices will plunge if there’s no Muslim president?

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According to law professor Kevin Tan in a talk at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Forum on The Reserved Presidential Election on Sept. 8, the definition of “Malay” in the Constitution is anomalous because he says“who is a Malay?” is a highly problematic legal question.

Source: Singapore Statutes Online

“With Malay candidates, it gets even more interesting, because I think back in 1988, this formula when it was first brought up, they already recognised that it was almost next to impossible to define who is or is not a Malay…Because it is a social construct, we make it up, about race, about who is and is not a Malay, or Chinese or so on. It is actually socially constructed. In the case of the Malay, it actually says, a person belonging to the Malay Community means any person and here nobody else has this phrase ‘of the Malay race or otherwise’. So this means that I, meaning Kevin Tan can say I am Malay, even though I am not of Malay stock, theoretically. “

My take on the “Malay” race: no such race.

Race is BS or “post-truth” at work?

The upcoming reserved Presidential Election is part of Singapore’s overall framework to create a strong national identity, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said.
Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/reserved-presidential-election-part-of-framework-to-build-9199346

Does he mean that a “Malays only” presidency where the only “Malay” candidates have i/cs saying “Indian” or “Pakistani” means that the idea of different races or that the term “Malay race” are really BS?

More like “post-truth” at work methinks.

“Post-truth” is a word that has come to prominence as the Western liberal elites are angsting and spinning about their defeats in Brexit and the US presidential election.

The Oxford Dictionary declared ‘post-truth’ its word of the year 2016. FT added “A less verbose way to describe the same phenomenon would be to say it was the year in which emotion trumped fact. Or cruder still, it was the year of the lie.”

The Economist (the PAP’s bible) got emotional about “post-truth”:

Mr Trump is the leading exponent of “post-truth” politics—a reliance on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact. His brazenness is not punished, but taken as evidence of his willingness to stand up to elite power.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21706525-politicians-have-always-lied-does-it-matter-if-they-leave-truth-behind-entirely-art

And

tempting to dismiss the idea of “post-truth” political discourse—the term was first used by David Roberts, then a blogger on an environmentalist website, Grist—as a modish myth invented by de-haut-en-bas liberals and sore losers ignorant of how dirty a business politics has always been. But that would be complacent. There is a strong case that, in America and elsewhere, there is a shift towards a politics in which feelings trump facts more freely and with less resistance than used to be the case. Helped by new technology, a deluge of facts and a public much less given to trust than once it was, some politicians are getting away with a new depth and pervasiveness of falsehood. If this continues, the power of truth as a tool for solving society’s problems could be lastingly reduced.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21706498-dishonesty-politics-nothing-new-manner-which-some-politicians-now-lie-and

Even Goldman Sachs talked about “misinformation, half-truths, and political spin”, despite having its alumni in the White House.

Well the ideas and concepts behind “post-truth” have been around at least 1900

“They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything.”
―from LORD JIM (1900) by Joseph Conrad

A ship’s crew abandons their human cargo of pilgrims, breaking all naval traditions. A young junior British officer Jim is one of them. At a court of inquiry he is questioned in great detail over what happened and in partucular his own actions; the other members of the crew having run way again. He is publicly censured for his actions, and stripped of his qualifications.

The above quotes reflect the narratot’s view of his state of mind at the inquiry.

*LORD JIM is a classic story of one man’s tragic failure and eventual redemption, told under the circumstances of high adventure at the margins of the known world which made Conrad’s work so immediately popular. But it is also the book in which its author, through a brilliant adaptation of his stylistic apparatus to his obsessive moral, psychological and political concerns, laid the groundwork for the modern novel as we know it. With An Introduction By Norman Sherry. READ an excerpt here:http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/30813/lord-jim/

 

Doesn’t Hali realise that “Speaker” is BS post?

Halimah Yacob says that the reserved election (where all the candidates’ i/cs indicate they are of Indian subcontinent origin, not of Malayan archipelago origin)  is still meritocratic because all the candidates have to meet the same qualification criteria. Err she didn’t tell us that she qualifies only because the post of Speaker is the Escape Card or Joker card from the other cards in the pack or require very, very high standards to qualify to be eligible for president*. It looks like a form of affirmative action for “lesser” minorities that don’t have people who cannot otherwise qualify.

Let me explain.

The post of Speaker in the Westminster system is one of the great offices of state under the Westminster system of government practiced in the UK, Canada, Oz and NZ.

The Speaker of the House of Commons chairs debates in the Commons chamber. The holder of this office is an MP who has been elected to be Speaker by other Members of Parliament. During debates they keep order and call MPs to speak.

The Speaker is the chief officer and highest authority of the House of Commons and must remain politically impartial at all times.

The Speaker also represents the Commons to the monarch, the Lords and other authorities and chairs the House of Commons Commission.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/the-role-of-the-speaker/role-of-the-speaker/

But in the context of a de-facto one party state where the ruling party has a more than two-thirds majority, the post is a non-job. It’s such a non-job that the PAP admin has “cut” the pay of the Speaker substantially. And given her campaigning for PAP candidates, she isn’t impartial is she?

Furthermore while the Speaker is the head of the administrative staff of the parliament, the budget is peanuts compared to any ministry or govt department.

Here’s a post from FB from a senior lawyer who is often pro-PAP who raises another point (bolded by me):

I find Madam Halimah to be an excellent servant of the people with a long record of service I greatly respect, but speaking personally I am un-impressed with the idea that the office of Speaker should have led to automatic qualification.

For one thing, the role of Speaker does not involve, if one may put it quite bluntly, managing any organisation of any financial size or complexity.

Secondly, in terms of the Speaker’s involvement in appointing senior officials within the G, the Speaker is not involved in that either. Nor is the Speaker involved in the making of any decisions on Government policy. Indeed, to the contrary, the Speaker is expected to exercise a degree of distance from policies, or at least politics.

So I struggle to see what particular experience the Speaker would have had in terms of discharging the principal ‘custodial’ roles of the President.

To say that the Speaker represents all of Parliament is quite true, and I do accept that the Speaker’s office is one of high dignity, and I further accept that the Speaker discharges a vital constitutional function in managing and overseeing the hearings, procedures and administration of Parliament, but query if these activities make the Speaker particularly well qualified for the specific custodial duties that a President has to discharge. I have my doubts on that aspect of Singapore’s constitution.

This lawyer’s comments remind me of Grima Wormtongue who in the book “Lord of the Rings” finally turns on his abusive master, Saruman, killing him. Even the worm turns.

As I said, the post of Speaker is the Escape Card from the otherwise very, very high standards required to be president. It looks like a form of affirmative action for “lesser” minority groups that don’t have people who cannot otherwise qualify.

Hali should realise this and just look at her monthly bank statement, smile and think of Marlowe’s Dr Faustus.

The PAP decided that a “desk jockey” in NTUC was the “right” person to be MP. junior minister, Speaker and now president.

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*We may joke about “prata” man’s credentials. But he held senior civil service posts and was chairman of the organisation responsible for print propoganda .

Why there’ll be no presidential election

The short answer is that ST Editor said so leh.

Warren Fernandez said (among many other things about why the presidency sucks: really he did) yesterday that Eddie Teo and his committee should accept that there is only one candidate who qualifies under the present rules spelt out by Parliament. I’m sure he is channeling the views of the ruling party on this matter.

What a polite way of saying the next elected president will be chosen by a “walk-over”.

Seriously, why would the PAP go thru the wayang of wanting an unelected elected president?

A fanboy of Hali

Many good friends and those who have worked with her testify for her character. Thus, it is not difficult to place increased weightage for her to lead as President”

unwittingly gave the answer away when he asked people to vote for her.

He posted on FB

The true test, against all comments posted on and offline regarding how the system discriminates positively in a meritocratic society with a pledge that has the phrase ” regardless of race, language or religion”, will be when she becomes President and has to exercise her independent judgment and call for action against the ruling G of the day for matters concerning Singaporeans and their reserves and related matters.
The support for her will not just be for the “now” but when she calls differently from the ruling party. How many will stand stand up independently and vote with her in agreement.

This reasoning is precisely why there’ll be a walkover. An unelected elected president has no mandate from the voters.

The PM of the day can sneer at her and ask, “Mandate? What mandate?” if she disagrees with something that the govt of the day wants done and in an area where she has “custodial” powers. In an alternative universe, PM Mad Dog will threaten to pee on her if she refuses to sign a law returning our CPF.

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Ownself check ownself check ownself: Paradox of the PAP presidency.

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Think Ong Teng Cheong. In any row with LKY’s govt, he could (and may have) said, “I won a presidential election. I got mandate”. It seems this attitude really got LKY really upset resulting in “you know what happened” after Ong died. Since then, the PAP administration has only once allowed a presidential election.

It would be even more wary after its preferred candidate won by only 3,000 votes thanks to two opportunistic clowns from RI. They didn’t even get 30 pieces of silver each, though TKL’s campaign manager, Goh Meng Seng, is alleged, to have asked TKL for 15 pieces of silver. TKL is alleged to have responded, “WTF. I lost my deposit because of u.”

Another reason that there’ll be a walkover is so that those who voted for Tan Cheng Bock and the clowns can’t give the finger to the PAP. Remember they constituted 65% of the vote in the last PE and many of those who voted for the opportunistic RI clowns have repented. Many even deny they voted for Jee Say or TKL. They get upset when I produce evidence of what they told me before the vote.

Here’s the reason why the PAP wants the president to be compliant kaki lang: When a ceremonial president goes “rogue”

After OTC’s term of office, the PAP realised that they had a problem. In the old days LKY would have found an excuse to revert to old system, while he retot the issue of how to protect the reserves. Instead he and PAP resorted to short-term fixes and things nearly went wrong for the PAP in 2011 (See above). Reserved presidency is another first-aid job. 

One day, hopefully soon, the edifice of the “elected” presidency will be like the MRT system: systematic long overdue long-term repairs must be made because things are going badly wrong

Btw, I wrote this in March 2016 about Hali: Malay PAPpy that can thrash Chin Bock and later (May 2016) Halimah deserves better. But she’d rather look at her monthly bank statement and be happy. Maybe she’s thinking of buying an entire HDB floor on her retirement, given that she has a supersized unit now?

“Reserved presidency” is like Voice’s “Only Mandarin speakers”?

Looks like PM didn’t know about the “Voice” controversy where only “Mandarin speakers” could take part http://www.asiaone.com/singapore/sorry-only-mandarin-speakers-can-take-part-voice-singapore

While they can be of any race or nationality, aspiring contestants must be “fluent in Mandarin, and are able to perform Mandarin songs”, according to the contest’s website.

The condition has drawn outrage from netizens, who questioned the language criteria, as songs chosen for the audition are permitted to be “of any language (except for Dialects such as Cantonese or Hokkien)”.

People KPKBed that

the language restrictions were a manifestation of racial discrimination. While some non-Chinese Singaporeans might be able to speak Mandarin, it is only a small minority with “privilege” who are able to do so, pointed out Twitter user @wtfisnsx.

From FB

Khan Osman Sulaiman

15 hrs ·

For those who dont understand why it’s a bad call to reserve the presidential race for Malays, let me bring you back to a similar incident.

Remember when ‘The Voice’ came to Singapore but was looking only for Chinese singers to participate in its competition? Many were livid. For what? For the same reason why people are sickened when the presidential election exclude certain community from contesting.

That’s what this presidential system has created. Unhappiness among the people.

If for such an inconsequential singing competition can make us feel upset because we are excluded from participating it, the presidential election is on a national scale and such policies from the government creates ill-will between the community.

Race based policies create division instead of strengthening our social fabric.

Let me take you further to an environment where you can resonate better.

Supposed the principal of the school where you send your children to study, decides to bar your child from participating in the school 100m race as he wanted a particular person to win it. What would you have done?

Your answer to the above will guide you to what you would do today and understand why such policies are destructive and we have to move away from it.

“Malay presidency” is “Calling a deer a horse”?

The coming presidential president must be a Malay declares the Constitution and the PAP administration.

But none of the three declared candidates has an i/c saying “Malay”. The PAP’s candidate and a candidate who speaks Malay badly both have i/cs saying “Indian” while the third person has one saying “Pakistani”. Even for me who knows about the thin culture line between Malays and some Indian Muslims* am shocked that there isn’t someone with an i/c saying “Malay” willing to stand. Don’t want to be regarded as selling out to the PAP isit? Or unlike “Indians” and “Pakistanis” feeling piseh to stand in a presidency reserved only for “Malays”.

A retired journalist (and one time strike leader), Yeo Toon Joo**, who knows his Chinese “history”, has on FB called what is happening as regards the presidency the S’pore version of “Calling a deer a horse” 指鹿為馬***.

Explanation from Wikipedia on the allusion

Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, “Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?” Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law and had them executed instantly. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao gained military power as a result of that. (tr. Watson 1993:70)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Gao

An alternative explaination is that Zhao Gao wanted to show the officials that the emperor was under his control. In this version, he had ensured that the emperor was well provided with drugs, women and alcohol so that the emperor was pliant to his wishes.

No good will come of “fixing” the presidency for Malays when only “Indians” and “Pakistanis” want to be the “Malay” president while all the time Mendaki says that if “Malays” want help, their i/cs must say “Malay”.

PAP has opened a can of worms. One of the worms will bite it.

---

*Once upon a time I wrote

[T]his is what a very senior MFA official (Indian Muslim) said to me (and others) in the early 80s: “How do I answer my young daughter when she asks me why she’s Indian but her cousin’s Malay?”. He was always grousing that being classified as Indian hurt his career (he could have been a minister) because of the “quota” system for Indians and Malays. He had to compete with clever Hindus and not Malays.

**He’s also published “Confessions of Lee Kuan Yew’s Simplistic Pressman” More at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-publisher-touch-toon-joo-peter-yeo. Btw, he’s based in Canada now though he comes back regularly. For one thing, he prefers our hospitals.

***Chris K points out “In Japanese, ba ka, translated as horse deer, is colloquial for stupid.” Sums up the PM’s machinations aptly. (This update at 8.10am)

When a ceremonial president goes “rogue”

Nothing much any government can do if it wants to avoid a public row.

This piece tries to explain why die die PAP must get the president PAP wants. And why even then there can be problems. Remember our first elected president?

A look at the relations between India’s ceremonial president (He is the head of the state, and is required by the constitution to act on the advice of ministers) and the governments of the day show how difficult it is to control a president who goes “rogue” ie refuses to act on the advice of ministers even when the constitution says he must.

Our president is more than a ceremonial figure. He is supposed to be a figurehead with some chief jaga duties primarily centred around protecting our reserves. It’s a mixture of ceremonial and custodial functions, thanks to one Harry Lee.

The ceremonial role aspect of our president, a figurehead, is based on the Indian model: he is the head of the state, and is required by the constitution to act on the advice of ministers.

An Indian president is supposedly

a mere figurehead who, in the words of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is a “head that neither reigns nor governs”, and holds a position of “authority or dignity” more than anything else?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40772945

But as a BBC article tells us http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40772945, the so- called “figurehead” can cause the govt of the day a lot of problems.

The seventh president, Giani Zail Singh … had a stormy relationship with the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

In 1987, he withheld assent from a controversial bill passed by the parliament. (The bill was later withdrawn.) There were reports that Mr Singh, who died in 1994 , had even considered sacking Mr Gandhi’s government over an arms purchasing scandal.

The ninth incumbent Shankar Dayal Sharma returned two executive orders to the cabinet in 1996 because they had been “inappropriately” issued before a general election.

And his successor, KR Narayanan, a London School of Economics-educated former diplomat and Dalit (formerly known as “untouchable”), was arguably one of India’s most assertive presidents. He delivered speeches which many believed were not vetted by the government and, in a surprising break from protocol, even gave an interview to a senior journalist.

Mr Narayanan also sent back a proposal to impose direct rule in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to the cabinet, asking the ministers to reconsider it. He bluntly said: “I am not a rubber stamp.”

And he angered many in the government and the media for chiding visiting US president Bill Clinton at a state banquet, provoking the New York Times to comment that “the tensions inherent in forging an Indian-American friendship surfaced with Mr Narayanan’s speech”.

Then there was the previous president

Prof Manor believes Mr Kovind’s predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, a veteran Congress party leader and a former senior minister, was “more assertive than nearly all previous presidents”.

Although he rejected a record 28 mercy pleas of death row convicts during his tenure, Mr Mukherjee defied the advice of the government and commuted the death sentences of four convicts in January.

“Mr Mukherjee had the right to refer those cases back to ministers for reconsideration once, but when they reiterated the advice, he is required to accept it. He refused to do so,” explains Prof Manor.

“That was potentially explosive politically, and might have led to a constitutional crisis. But the prime minister and cabinet apparently decided not to make an issue of it – because Mr Mukherjee’s term was soon to end, and because a confrontation would have prevented them from doing other important things.”

So one can understand why the ruling party in a de facto one-party state wants to ensure that the presidency is held by someone who will not go “rogue”, especially given that the job has chief jaga duties.  Remember Ong Teng Cheong?

And just to make sure after the rows with Ong, the chief  jaga can be over-ridden: If the President goes against the advice of the majority of the Council of Presidential Advisers and exercises his veto power, Parliament can override such a veto with a two-thirds majority.

——————————————

Ownself check ownself check ownself: Paradox of the PAP presidency.

——————————————

Whatever, there’s something the PAP cannot avoid: a “rogue” president has the power to publicise via the alternative, new or social media his views when he rows with the PAP administration. So all the more important to make sure kaki lung gets in.

Coming back to Harry Lee who devised the system. He wanted to fix a non-PAP government but ended up tying the PAP administration in knots. The latest twist is a Malay president whose i/c says “Indian”.

Even if she’s really a Malay. 

Oh what a tanled web we weave …

Continue to Pak PAP, but not Pak Halimah

Yesterday, I promised to explain why this is unfair to Hali and her mum and the Malay community.

(Terry Lim’s photos)

The cybernut who did the above, conveniently left out the inconvenient fact that none of the three “Indian” PAPpies had the misfortune of their “Indian” father dying when they were young children.

Halimah had the misfortune (OK, OK, it later turned out to be a winning lottery ticket) of her Indian-Muslim dad dying when she was eight. It was her widowed Malay mum that then brought Halimah (and her siblings) up with the support of her Malay relatives and the wider Malay community.

Halimah was not brought up in the Indian-Muslim community as an Indian-Muslim; but among the Malays as a Malay. No racists, the Malays: if a widowed Malay mother in a mixed race marriage wants to bring up her children as Malays, they support her. Truly tolerant, truly S’poreans. Really Mendaki should reflect this tolerant attitude: not that only i/c matters (See above link) as to who is a Malay.

And as I’ve written before, when she was NUS Law school, she was tot of as a Malay. Even then she wore a tudung, which then wasn’t hip. Btw, an Indian who knows the other female PAPpy Indian says she only started wearing saris when she became a junior minister.

A senior lawyer posted on FB that “the test in the Presidential Elections Act is not a race test, it’s a community acceptance test”. He’s right but the PM framed the need and importance of a Malay president in racial terms: “multi-racialism” to be precise.

So

S’poreans are right to ask to be talking about the issue because the next presidency is reserved for a Malay.  And one of the candidates is “Pakistani” (i/c says so leh) and the other while his i/c says “Malay” has Malays complaining that he’s really Indian because he can’t speak proper Malay.

The view among S’poreans of all races that what is on one’s i/c is a lot of bull* when it comes to whether someone is a Malay is becoming a major problem for the PAP.

By playing the “race” card albeit in the name of “multi-racialism”, the PM created a rod for his back and that of the PAP.

So let us continue to “Pak PM, Pak PAP” on the unreality of Muslim-Indians becoming Malays when the presidency is reserved for a Malay. Good clean fun. And best of all, the PAPpies started the conversation, not us.

But let’s remember Hali’s a decent person that could (and should) have become president on her own merits. She doesn’t really deserve this rubbish both from the PAP and the cybernuts, even though as a PAP Speaker she’s crying all the way to the bank. Wonder if she too has a monthly CPF statement, like Zorro Lim?

———————————-

*Even PAP MP Zainal Sapari says i/c is irrelevant in deciding whether one is a Malay. He’s not expected to stand at next GE.

 

Another photo of president Hali

Further to this

Halimah standing in presidential jeep

No not a fake photo but a photo taken at the lastest NDP parade rehersal  (from TRE). If u think it’s a coincidence she’s standing in for Tony Tan, then u’ll believe she’s making up her mind. And I got a investment juz for u.

Halimah not BSing that she got to consult further

But first

(Happy to attribute if I know whom to attribute this to)

Back to Halimah

Speaking to reporters after a community event at her Marsiling ward, Mdm Yacob said she has been asked this question many times and felt honored and humbled by the support, but she needed more time to consult with her family and colleagues further.

Heard an interesting story from the usually unreliable sources. Though I hear while he’s happy for wife to be president (Who wouldn’t like to will the Toto top prize?), he’s not happy about  becoming the first First Man doing the traditional First Lady duties like being patron of women’s charities and hosting tea parties for women social workers. He’s no male chauvinist but I’m told he doesn’t fancy doing the things Mrs Tan does and Mrs Nathan did.

Hence the delay in his wife declaring that she wants to be president. His role has yet to be defined to his satisfaction.

Doubtless a fair and reasonable solution will be worked out for him a real gentleman, as his friends and ex-collegues describe him. I’m told he’s retired.

Btw, he’s Malay-Arab.

Can a true blue Malay (no cross breeds pls) from the Malaya Archiplego pls stand up.

The term Malaya Archiplego

was derived from the European concept of a Malay race,^[4]which referred to the people who inhabited what is now Brunei,Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (excluding Western New Guinea), the Philippinesand East Timor. The racial concept was proposed by European explorers based on their observations of the influence of the ethnic Malay empire, Srivijaya, which was based on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.^[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_Archipelago

Are our “Khans” “Pakistanis” or “Indians”?

Here I said that the Pakistani wannabe president’s i/c states he is “Indian”. I was wrong. It does say “Pakistani”. But I do know other “Khans”, some really hard-drinking ones, whose i/cs say “Indian” much to their unhappiness. Worse these “Indians” belong to Sinda automatically: cannot opt out. They are not impressed having to belong to what they consider a Hindoo controlled body.

Why liddat?

Well it all seems to depend on whether the Khan in question or his ancestor came here before British India split into Pakistan and India in 1947. If said Khan came before the split, say in the 19th century or the early 2oth century or in 1946, when the Khan or his descendent became a S’pore citizen, he’d he classified as Indian as would his children.

If the Khan came here from Pakistan he’d be “Pakistani”.

Sounds logical.

Btw it’s no fun being classified as Pakistani if you need help: Neither Sinda or Mendaki would help you. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/comment-malay-enough-next-president-093246327.html

Call Pakistan embassy leh? Btw, reading the Yahoo article one gets the impression that there are those who think that Muslim= Malay, something that the PAP administration rejects because it has refused to change the constitution despite requests that S’pore follows the M’sian definition of “Malay”. This requires, among other things, being Muslim.

 

 

 

 

Academic talking cock/ Got such thing as “Malay” race meh?

A really moronic statement from someone who makes moronic statements when he’s trying to justify that the “PAP is always right”

… felt that voters should not be overly-fixated with a candidate’s ethnicity – albeit being an election reserved for a particular race – as it would “detract from the raison d’être of the elected presidency and of the elected president as a symbol of our multiracialism”, as Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan put it …

Assoc Prof Tan said the reserved election “inevitably puts race up front and centre”. However, it is “imperative that we do not get too hung up over the race” of a presidential hopeful, he said.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/reserved-presidential-election-casts-spotlight-malayness

WTF. How not to think a lot about racial identity when the election is reserved for a “Malay” president especially given that it seems that being a “Malay” is a cultural issue, not an ethnic (ie racial) issue.

The constructive, nation-building press quotes two experts on “Malayness” who seem to imply that there really isn’t such a thing as a Malay race:

Malay-Muslim self-help group Yayasan Mendaki has a set of criteria for its financial assistance schemes for students administered on behalf of the Government. Among other things, the recipients “must be of Malay descent” as stated in their identity cards. It spells out a list of what it considers to be “Malay descent”, and this includes 22 ethnicities including Acehnese, Javanese, Boyanese, Sumatran, Sundanese and Bugis. Students with “double-barrelled” race are eligible if the first race is listed on the identity cards as Malay, said a Mendaki spokesman. For example, a student who is Malay-Arab would qualify for the schemes but an Arab-Malay student would not, he added.

However, for the Presidential Election, Association of Muslim Professionals chairman Abdul Hamid Abdullah stressed the need for a “wider definition of a Malay” in Singapore’s context. A narrow definition would be restrictive and could disqualify potential candidates who have been “accepted” as a member of the Malay community, he added. “It is better to be inclusive. Otherwise, (it) may lead to divisiveness in the Malay community,” he said.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/reserved-presidential-election-casts-spotlight-malayness

So my take that Chinese can be Malay is a real possibility isit based on the second expert? Heck, let’s juz say that Indian blood is necessary to be president. Or better still, that from now on, the president must be the result of a mixed marriage. Halimah can set the precedent of the president as a symbol of our multiracialism.

 

Indian blood required to be Prez isit?

I didn’t know that it’s a constitutional requirement that being Indian or having Indian blood is a must to be the president. Did you? When was this change made? Wah really trying to make sure that Dr Tan Cheng Bock can’t be president.

Seriously, so another Indian (He says he’s “Pakistani but his i/c says “Mama” “Indian”, my sources tell me ) wants to be president:

Mr Farid Khan bin Kaim Khan, 62, has officially announced his intention to stand as a candidate in the upcoming Presidential election reserved for Malay candidates.

… who describes himself as a caring person is of Pakistani descent and his wife is of Arabic descent. He regards his family as part of a larger Malay community as his family speak Malay and practice the Malay culture. He has two children, a 24-year-old daughter, and an 18-year-old son.

TOC

Then there’s guy from Second Chance. Yes, I know his i/c says “Malay” but I know many Malays consider him to be “Indian”. These same Malays say “Yaacob’s ‘Arab'”.

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Lines very blurred

Actually lines between the Malay community and some Muslim Indian communities are very blurred. As I explained once, in the 80s there was a really good senior MFA official who was always complaining that he was wrongly classified as Indian, not Malay.  This is what a very senior MFA official (Indian Muslim) said to me (and others) in the early 80s: “How do I answer my young daughter when she asks me why she’s Indian but her cousin’s Malay?”. He was always grousing that being classified as Indian hurt his career (he could have been a minister) because of the “quota” system for Indians and Malays. He had to compete with clever Hindus and not Malays.

——————————–

And juz wondering? What does Halimah Yacob’s i/c say given that dad was Indian Muslim? To be fair to her and the PAP, the Malays community does consider her “Malay”, no matter what her i/c may say. When she was in NJUS Law School (mid 70s), her cohort knew her as a “tudung” wearing Malay.

Whatever, Indians rule OK. There’s Devan Nair, Nathan (two terms) and then the next one too (even if it’s a “reserved” one for Malays). No wonder the Indians are uppity about their place in S’pore’s caste system.

Whatever, again, Khan’s case seems to show that Muslims are beginning to think that being Muslim makes them Malay.

What next? A Muslim Chinese can be a Malay? When the day comes when a Chinese Muslim is considered by the Malay community to be a Malay, then the PAP will have to rethink its Hard Truth that all politics are race-based, with a tinge of sectarianism.

Oxley, AG & DAG-gates: Anti-PAP 30% got a lot to answer for

They shouldn’t blame the PAP or the 70% who voted for the PAP. It’s all their fault that the PAP can suka suka do what it likes.

Recent developments have shown that a president Tan Cheng Bock could have made sure things were done differently, things that the usual suspects like Mad Dog Chee, Jeannette Chong (In two GEs, she was a candidate for two different parties. juz like Tan Jee Say) and Goh Meng Seng (three different parties in three GEs: Parachutist Extraordinaire), and cybernut friends and allies are upset about, and KPKBing about.

Jedi, Terry Xu, updated this https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/10/10/amendments-to-the-elected-presidency-how-pap-stop-at-nothing-to-avoid-checks-and-balance-on-itself/  he wrote last yr to reflect recent developments.

He wrote

A president with Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s character would mean that many questionable requests — not to give clemency to death row inmates, withdrawal of reserves for “welfare policies” and etc — will be made public and having the president to be vocal about controversial policies and appointment of positions by the PAP administration.

One such example of controversial appointments that a person like Dr Tan will find issues with, would be the appointment of Mr Lucien Wong as Attorney-General in November 2016 to succeed Mr V K Rajah S.C for a 3-year term with effect from 14 January 2017. Mr Wong at the age of 63, was succeeding Mr Rajah who is retiring at the age of 60.

On 14 June 2017 in the joint statement of Dr Lee Weiling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang, it is made known that Mr Wong has acted as PM Lee’s personal lawyer on matters concerning 38 Oxley Road from 2015, and unknown when his commercial interest with PM Lee ended, or ended at all. No one knew Mr Wong was PM Lee’s personal lawyer when he was appointed, even when the Minister of Law and Home Affairs addressed concerns over Mr Wong’s appointment in Parliament, he made no mention of the matter to the Members of Parliament.

While PM Lee has stated that he had cleared Mr Wong’s appointment with the cabinet, CPA and the President during his closing statement on 4 July 2017, but this does not make the appointment of Mr Wong anymore justified. Any layman would ask if there is no better lawyer in Singapore who is younger and free of conflict of interest in order to carry out his or her duties as an independent individual to advise the government on legal matters. Despite PM Lee and Ms Indranee Rajah’s praise for Mr Wong’s exemplary performance as a lawyer, many would believe there are quite a number of lawyers who can also be up to the task.

The appointment of PAP’s former MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, Mr Hri Kumar Nair as Deputy Attorney General, is also no more different when it comes to conflict of interest or the lack of public appearance of impartiality.

Plenty of anti-PAP cybernuts KPKB on TOC FB’s wall after “reading” the piece.

My FB avatar commented

How many of those commenting voted for Tan Jee Say or Tan Kin Lian? The 30% who voted for these two should juz sit down and shut up. They had the chance to give the PAP a bloody nose. What did they do? Voted to ensure PAP controlled the presidency.

There was silence.

Seriously, there should be a new exhibit at Haw Par Villa:

 

A 11th court in Hell for Tan Jee Say, Tan Kin Lian, Goh Meng Seng (he prodded TKL into running and was his election adviser); people like Mad Dog, Jeannette Chong and Nicole Seah (remember her?) who openly* supported TJS; and the cybernuts. What were all these people thinking when they were effectively voting for the PAP’s preferred candidate.

With enemies like these, the PAP doesn’t need friends. Roll on, PAP hegemony. The PAP doesn’t need that house.

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*Mad Dog did not publicly endorse him (unlike the other two) but he had plenty of help from SDP activists, help that could come if Mad Dog had approved of TJS.

Paradox of the PAP presidency

I pointed out  here that our CPF could be returned tomorrow (if the govt of the day was willing to do so).

I also said that in an alternative universe when Dr Chee became PM, with a two-thirds majority in parly, he could tell president Yaacob to allow him to draw on the reserves and return our CPF. He would tell President Halimah

I have the mandate of the people. What do u have? How many S’poreans voted for u? None because u won by default.”

Sign or I’ll pee on u and let the mob into the Istana.

Seriously, this is the paradox. How can a president that entered office via a walk-over have the moral authority to resist a newly elected govt that is different from the one that “chose” the “right’ president?

Where does the will of people reside?

Ownself fix ownself

I commend this post where a law professor points out that Nathan was never elected”: he was an unelected president, same like Devan Nair etc. Only Ong Teng Cheong (another cybernut hero) was the real deal.  Within is a video where he points out that the presidency is problematic for the PAP when the PAP is the govt in power. Watch the video to understand how “Ownself sabo ownself”.

This post on the presidential council describes how the PAP tries to solve the problem posed by the professor.

“Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave” which continues “When First We Practice To Deceive”.

Elected President: Oh, what a tangled web we weave cont’d

Further to this on “Ownself veto ownself” procedures on vetoing the president’s decision, if he refuses to make the “right” decision, I reflected further on

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

when via the u/m I double confirmed that the presumptive Malay president’s father was an Indian Muslim.

(Btw, pls read my analysis of this FB post which follows the post)

Facebook post by We want Minister Grace Fu to resign.

In 2013, when Halimah Yacob was selected to be the new Speaker of Parliament after the former one, Michael Palmer, resigned from politics due to his marital affair with a PA woman, ST wrote an article to feature Halimah (‘A strong advocate for workers, women and minorities‘, Jan 2013):

Mdm Halimah Yacob

In the article, it was revealed that her father is an Indian of Muslim faith. He passed away when Halimah was 8 years old. She studied hard and later graduated with a law degree from NUS. Her first job was as a legal officer with NTUC.

PAP invited her to join politics in 2001. Ten years later, she was promoted to become a Minister of State.

When Palmer’s affair surfaced and he was forced to resign, PM Lee nominated Halimah to become the new Speaker on 8 Jan 2013. Six days later, she became the first woman Speaker of Parliament of Singapore.

In fact, news of Halimah becoming Singapore’s first woman speaker also made its way to India. The Hindu described her as an “Indian-origin politician” (‘Indian-origin politician to be Singapore’s first woman speaker‘):

Next President to be a Malay

Last Nov, PM Lee announced to Singaporeans that the next Presidential Election will be reserved for Malay candidates:

This is based on the “hiatus-triggered model”, the PM said.

He also said that the first President who exercised the powers of the Elected Presidency was Wee Kim Wee when everyone thinks it should be Ong Teng Cheong.

“This would be our first after more than 46 years, since our first (Malay) President Encik Yusof Ishak,” PM Lee said. “I look forward to this.”

In any case, since Halimah’s father is an Indian Muslim, it follows that she would also be an Indian Muslim too. That means she would not be able to participate in this year’s Presidential Election, assuming if she wants to or was asked to.

Actually the last para while logically correct is wrong because article 19B (5) of the Con says:

“person belonging to the Malay community” means any person, whether of the Malay race or otherwise, who considers himself to be a member of the Malay community and who is generally accepted as a member of the Malay community by that community;

And to be fair to the Indian Muslim and Malay communities, the lines between the two communities are legal lines, not community lines. I’ll go into this one of these days.

But as a taster, this is what a very senior MFA official (Indian Muslim) said to me (and others) in the early 80s: “How do I answer my young daughter when she asks me why she’s Indian but her cousin’s Malay?”. He was always grousing that being classified as Indian hurt his career (he could have been a minister) because of the “quota” system for Indians and Malays. He had to compete with clever Hindus and not Malays.

Trumpets pls: I said in early 2016 Halimah would be president.

Elected President: Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

I tot of the above when I read about changes in parliamentary procedures which will take effect if the President goes against the advice of the majority of the Council of Presidential Advisers and exercises his veto power.

Parliament can override such a veto with a two-thirds majority.

So now as a FB pal says:

Elected President – Yes Man
Council of Elderly Men in Suits – Yes Men
2/3 of Parliament – Yes Men

So much checks and balances against anyone who may suddenly stop being a Yes Man.

Election for what, waste time and money, may as well revert previous system.

And

Who watches the watchmen who watches the watchmen who watches the watchmen ad nauseum.

to which the reply was

THE MOB SHALL WATCH EVERYONE

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/…/048/burn_house._beat_mother..png

Btw, the above line from Marmiom continues:

When first we practise to deceive!

Surrealism and religious harmony: The PAP way

PAP Minister Masagos Zulkifli’s criticism of WP MP Faisal Manap for repeatedly raising the tudung issue in Parliament and causing division in S’pore, had me in stitches about the surrealism of the scene in Parly when he said it. I mean criticising  Faisal Manap for repeatedly raising the tudung issue in Parliament and causing division in S’pore in front of a tudung wearing Speaker (and assumptive president come September)

sounds so Alice-in-Wonderland

It also reminded me that I had written this sometime back

Religious harmony: PAP’s, Putin’s way

Mr Putin said Russia had been far ahead of its European rivals in establishing a model for co-existence between faiths. In a way, that is true. But co-existence under a common, imperial regime – one that punishes “blasphemers” of all kinds, including those who challenge the regime itself, and colludes with religious authorities to maintain social control – is different from the liberal model of co-existence, where no religion is protected and each must argue its case in an open market-place of ideas.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/01/empire-islam-and-russia

Now doesn’t the Russian way sound very much like the S’porean way? Interestingly both are the products of 19th century European imperialism. In the case of Russia, the imperialism of the tsars. In the case of S’pore, British colonalism.

The British and the Russian tsars ruled multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural empires and needed to keep the natives from killing one another or their masters.

So when Harry the axe man became PM, the laws he (and we) inherited from the British suited him to the T: in response to this on the murder of cartoonists in Paris, a reader pointed out rightly in my view,

During LKY’s time he will come out on TV to gloat that this is why we have sedition act and ISD and why he will string you up by the balls anyone who breaks his hard truths and make you wish you had been just simply killed by terrorists.

…

I’ll end with Chen Jiaxi Bernard‘s FB tots. (He’s a WP member will balls and brains. The “Worthless” or “Wanker” cape doesn’t fit him.)

Quite clear (if it was not already clear enough) who will be our next President. A woman Malay-Muslim president who dons a tudang will indeed show how progressive we are as an inclusive nation. The progress we have made to support the aspirations of women in this country, symbolises by the highest office in the land.

And so we have her, the appointment (the electoral walkover) of Mdm Halimah Yaccob. In an open election, Mdm Halimah will be able to hold her own against any potential candidate*. Wait, it’s reserved for members of her community. Come on, she can stand on her own and win comfortably. I am confident that she will receive more votes (across all ethnic groups) than President Tan in 2011.

Either the PAP has no confidence in their own Speaker or they really have zilch trust that Singaporeans value merit over a person’s race.

The election of Mdm Halimah come September 2017 will be a sad day for Singapore. 50 years of nation building and the ideals taught to students in school surrendered to the narrow and tribal politics of the ruling party. Hypocrisy at the highest level. Sad.

On the day when the ruling party will hail progress, they have blatantly plunged a mortal stab into the social contract that defined Singapore as a nation, regardless of race, language and religion

The biggest loser even in the context of a walkover: Singapore.

One day when our children stopped believing in the “Majulah” in Majulah Singapore and our national pledge, point them to this government and this Prime Minister, the son of our founding Prime Minister. The irony, the utter hypocrisy.

---

*Trumpets pls. I said this early last yr.  A later post.

 

Wrong reason for LKY turning in his grave

After parliament allowed racial discrimination in favour of Malays, a WP supporter came out with this on Facebook. I’m surprised I didn’t see it on Terry’s Online Channel

Jee Say is a cybernut?

Here’s part of a FB post by TSJ that shows he’s gone over to the nutty side.

It is vitally important that we elect a strong President, not a token one, next year to ensure that our reserves are used to benefit ordinary people, rather than provide life support to “natural aristocrats” and their cronies.

TJS must be deluded to think we’ll get the chance to vote for the next president. LOL. But then TJS tot he had the votes to become MP and then president and then MP. The whipping his ass got (three times in row) must have affected his brains which doesn’t seem to reside in his skull.

I mean, the conventional wisdom among the thinking anti-PAP activists and cyberwarriors is that we’ll not get the chance to vote at the next PE.

So what’s he going on about voting for a strong president?

But to be fair, maybe he posted after smoking medicinal weed. I mean the pains from three whippings of his ass must be terrible for someone with his oversized ego.

——– ——

This is what he posted

“Singapore, the new sick man of Asia”

1. “Some economists call Singapore the new sick man of Asia, supplanting the Philippines, whose economy is now growing almost four times faster.” (according to this Reuters piece.)

2. While the Singapore economy deteriorates in 2016, PM Lee was obsessed the whole year with politicizing the Elected Presidency. He has got his priority wrong. It’s the economy, stupid, as Bill Clinton would say.

3. PAP will “raid” our national reserves to save themselves in the next few years.

4. It is vitally important that we elect a strong President, not a token one, next year to ensure that our reserves are used to benefit ordinary people, rather than provide life support to “natural aristocrats” and their cronies.

TJS

---

If you think I’m being nasty to TJS, here are nastier FB posts

Hurray TJS, the sick man of Singapore strike again.
Yes, it must be sickening to fail in GE, PE and GE again.
Yes it must be sickening to fail in the financial arena and in the civil service.
More to the points raised now….
it should be expected that the Philippine economy should be registering reasonably better growth coming from such a low base compared to that of spore. We should be happy for our neighbours’ growth.
As for raiding the nation’s reserves, Spore must be fortunate that someone like you is nowhere near the till.
And yes, its the economy STUPID, and not the politiking.

And

Are you seriously trying to compare a US$55,182 GDP per capita country against a US$2765 per capita one? The Philippines is growing no doubt, but a cooling economy does not a sick man make.

Halimah deserves better

Halimah Yacob was featured in a full-page spread in the inaugural edition of the revamped (now free) TNP last week. And that feature featured in last Friday’s ST. And known and rapid PAPpies are publicising the TNP feature on Facebook.

Starting the spin ahead of PE next year?

Actually I’d really be disappointed if she’s the chosen one.

She deserves better. IMHO she could have whipped Tan Cheng Bok’s ass in a straight fight. I’d have voted for her despite voting for TCB, and never ever voting PAP.

I wrote this in March this year

I pointed out that there was one Malay PAPpy who could thrash Dr Tan and that he and I would vote for that person: he had commended her in the past.

Yes the person in Halimah Yacob. Going by her credentials, she’d sew up the union, core PAP vote (“Any donkey so long as he or she is a PAP preferred donkey”) and wimmin vote. And because she’s such an intelligent nice, no-airs, capable and compassionate person, she’d get a big share of the swing vote. Ftr, we attended the same law postgraduate class in 1978.

My friend could only sputter, “Malay men won’t vote for her.” I said, “So what? The Malay wimmin, all wimmin, NTUC members, hard-core PAPPy voters and many swing voters will.” I added that I tot she could get more than 59% of the popular vote (i.e. more than Ong Teng Cheong in 1993)

Malay PAPpy that can thrash Chin Bock

She’s also consistent in her values. Examples: I think she was wearing the tudung in the late 70s (not hip then) when we were in the same post grad law course. And she toiled away in NTUC for many, many yrs before being talent spotted.

I mean PAP and NTUC so cock that they didn’t identify her earlier. I mean I was near early retirement when she was “spotted”.

I know, I know she sucks as a Speaker, openly campaigning for PAP candidates and is reported to discriminate against WP MPs. But let’s face it, she may be a good person but she’s a PAPpy running dog all the same.

But some running dogs have better attributes than others. Think Tharman the pedigree running dog as against the pariahs.

So I’ll still vote for her against TCB. After all he too was a running dog in his prime.

All PAP running dogs are to be despised, but some are to be despised less than others. I’d put Tharman, Haliman and Dr Tan among the less desposed.

Today the presidency, tomorrow yr CPF

This is what happens when voters keep on giving the PAP a two-thirds (and counting) majority in Parly: PM said in Parliament on 8 Nov that the government is intending to amend the Presidential Elections Act next January to ensure that the next President would come from a minority race:

“Every citizen, Chinese, Malay, Indian, or some other race, should know that someone of his community can become President, and in fact from time to time, does become President.”

He could say that government is intending to amend the legistation because the governing party has a two-thirds majority.

Today the presidency: tomorrow the age of CPF withdrawal goes up to 75 and then the lease of the pigeon loft in sky is cut to 55 yrs from 99? Yes, yes I know that CPF and HDB leases are not in the constitution, so there’s no need for a two-thirds majority.

My point is that allowing any party the power to suka suka amend the constitution is asking for trouble, serious trouble because with a two-thirds majority (and more) can give the government the confidence that really unpopular and unfair measures can be rammed through because come the next general election, with a GRC system and the PM in charge of the redrawing of electoral boundaries, the damage to the governing party can be contained, if the voters hadn’t been bribed off in the mean time, or if memories are short.

 

Some people never grateful/ Left out the “gragoes”

TOC shared this FB KPKBing.

Khan Osman Sulaiman
6 hrs ·
My community raised the issue of discrimination of Malays in RSAF.

My community raised the issue of allowing school children to wear the tudung.

My community raised the issue of allowing Hijabs in uniformed groups.

My community raised the issue of having a ‘halal kitchen’ in the navy ships.

My community raised the issue of having an independent MUIS.

My community raised the issue to legislate some form of discrimination laws.

Having a Malay president isnt the most pressing issue but yeah, it will be ‘given’ as though it’s what we need the most.

We can now celebrate the magnanimous gesture by the Gov.

Seriously, the post explains why the PAP administration had to give the Malays something even if it was only a peanut. Otherwise, they’d think the community was being marginalised.

And here’s another good FB post

Felix Cheong

I hope, at some point in our alternate universe of democracy, there will be a reserved presidential election for:

– Malay woman
– Chinese single-parent gay man
– Caucasian hot male

He left out the Eurasians. And Schooling won an Olympic gold medal for S’pore.

But then Eurasians don’t riot to misquote BG Yeo who said that of Christians. Anyway too few of them to form a rioting mob. Most left for Perth a long time ago

“People are unsatisfied, but we’re afraid of change”

True here too? Especially the bits about “Power and the state … are one and the same,” and “And any citizens’ participation in politics is not expected.”

Think of waz happening to the post of elected president here? The voters use a presidential election when there is one to cock a snook at the PAP administration. In return, the PAP has drawn up more convoluted fixes (think Nathan) rules, and tied itself in knots or avoiding the issues raised when arguing the case for changes in the qualifications to be a candidate.*

MARINA, a middle-aged Muscovite with dark hair and piercing eyes, is unhappy—about rising prices, rampant corruption and even Russia’s confrontation with the West. But she is not ready for a change of course. “People are unsatisfied, but we’re afraid of change,” she declares. “Gorbachev had some nice ideas, but see how that turned out? I don’t want Russia to be destroyed.” So it comes as no surprise that Marina, and most of her compatriots, voted for more of the same when they took to the polls on September 18th for elections to the Duma, the national parliament.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21707388-reshuffle-russias-security-services-may-follow-parliamentary-elections-vladimir-putins

And

Many complain of rising prices and falling wages. “You go into the store and your money gets you nothing,” says Marina (who declined to state her last name, quipping, “Tomorrow they’ll burn my car”). 

Doesn’t this reflect what many S’poreans in the 70% that voted for the PAP feel?

And

The new ministry and United Russia’s dominance of the Duma ought to end any illusion that the Russian system could allow resistance from within, argues Oleg Kashin, a prominent columnist. “Power and the state in Russia are one and the same,” he writes. “And any citizens’ participation in politics is not expected.”

Think of waz happening to the post of elected president here?

——————————————————————————–

*U/m quotes from the constructive, nation-building MediaCorp whose website suspiciously looks similar to N Korea’s internet: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37426725

The Minister for Pets said:

The commission highlighted the “tension” between the President’s two roles and suggested that an appointed body of experts could take over the custodial functions, while Parliament could appoint a President to serve as a unifying symbolic figure. But Mr Shanmugam pointed out: “If you look at the commission’s report, the commission recognise that if a person or body is not elected then they cannot really say no and block the Government.”

Among other recommendations, the commission recommended that the President be obliged to consult the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) before exercising his discretion on all fiscal matters. Nevertheless, the Parliament can override the President’s decision, with the level of CPA support making a difference to the Parliament majority needed. Referring to the CPA, Mr Shanmugam reiterated that the commission recognised that “this body of experts, because they are unelected, the best (they) can (do is) only delay (the decision) and Parliament can still override”. He added: “If you want to give real power then they have to be elected as the commission itself recognise”.

In his letter to the commission, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said he appreciated the commission’s reasons for making the suggestion to consider reverting to a President elected by Parliament. But he stressed that “it would be difficult for a President to exercise custodial powers over the reserves and public service appointments, and veto proposals by the Government, without an electoral mandate”.

… also responded to critics who claimed that the EP changes were politically motivated. “All sorts of statements can be made but (I think they should) get back to basics and look at logic,” he said …

He said that people can disagree with the report, including whether elections are needed to choose a President. If there is a need for elections, it would be sensible to put in requirements for the candidates because the President will have to make important decisions that involve huge sums of money, for instance, he noted. “If you agree that there should be qualifications, I think most people will agree (the Government) should also review the criteria, so the debate and discussion will become better if we deal with the specific issues and questions that I have asked,”..,

Ong Yee Kung said:

“In the end, I think whether the president is (considered to be chosen based on merit) and seen to (have done a) good job has to be judged after he has done the job – and not before he is elected.”

Huh? What cock is this?

Queen Jos said

that the President plays a “hugely important role” in being a custodian of the reserves. “He needs to have the financial oversight and decision-making ability, That is the basic criteria he must fulfill,” she said. His ability to command respect still depends on the people’s mandate, she said. She noted the role of former President S R Nathan – who died last month – during the 2008 global financial crisis. Mr Nathan agreed to the Government’s request to draw funds from the reserves to help companies. The decision ultimately helped “save many rice bowls”, she noted. “When it comes to crucial times like this, he has to make a critical decision, and to answer to the people.

What has this to do the changes, Jos never said.

 

 

Why the PAP fears Dr Tan Cheng Bock

The guy is shrewd, classy with a great sense of PR: see below.

Ada standard as a natural aristocrat and as a president.

With him as an elected president, the PAP administration will have to take account of his views, no matter what the legal position is on the powers of the president. He’ll signal his unhappiness or displeasure even when he has to follow the advice of the cabinet.

Well those who voted for Tan Jee Say and Tan Kin Lian, I hope you are repenting for doing the PAP’s dirty work for them. Each of you didn’t even get yr thirty pieces of silver.

And Tan Jee Say and Tan Kin Lian were the rewards of preventing him from becoming president worth it?

This appeared on Facebook

Message to my friends and supporters

Many Singaporeans including Netizens, have expressed their concern that the Constitutional Commission’s report has excluded me from the 2017 Presidential Election.

I have been kept busy assuring them that the Constitutional Commission Report will be tabled in Parliament in the form of a White Paper on 15th Sept.

Parliament will debate it, make amendments, support it, or even reject it.

We should not jump into conclusion that the whole exercise was to prevent me from running.
After all, the people in charge are men of virtue and integrity and would not resort to doing this.

Let us wait for the coming debate before jumping into conclusion. 

 

Why some ex-presidents are more equal than others

What’s going viral? People are wondering why some ex-Presidents get state funerals and some don’t.

(TMG’s attempt to get eyeballs http://themiddleground.sg/2016/08/23/viral-views-why-a-state-funeral-for-one-ex-president-and-not-another/)

Possible answers?

Maybe it depends on whether someone was offended or disappointed?

When Ong Teng Cheong died in 2002, remember one LKY was silent on Ong as president, only praising Ong as NTUC leader: “Ong Teng Cheong’s greatest service to Singapore was as Secretary-General of the NTUC. At a critical time, he renewed the leadership and infused new energy into the organisation. He also broadened the objectives of the trade union movement beyond industrial issues by adding a social dimension to NTUC activities, providing union members with a wide range of leisure and recreational facilities, so that they do not lag behind the middle-class Singaporeans who were upgrading their leisure pursuits. He made a difference.”

And maybe or also whether the president in question was a true believer? Someone who knew his place in the scheme of things? Not a questioner of authourity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Only minorities need apply” presidency is “2 steps back”

I’m sure you’ve seen Alfian Sa’at tots on whether there’s really a need for a Malay president.

In a FB conversation on the piece, someome said: A President is supposed to represent ALL the races. He is supposed to be a UNIFYING figure.

This got a totful response on the presidency in general and the issue that “only minorities need apply” in some years. (Note I’ve reparagraphed rhe piece to make it easier on the eye.)

Sadly IMHO the office of president is NOT a unifying figure in any way shape or form but someone who is respected nonetheless but as figurehead much like we respect royalty (but to a much lesser degree as its a fairly new institution.)

However some presidents are distinguished Singaporeans in their own right before they ascended to the throne so to speak. That figurehead rubberstamp role could have changed if a non PAP or PAP appointed candidate was elected who would not be so biased towards to the ruling party but alas that did not happen yet.

Why can’t a minority head of state improve the lives of minority as any help would be appreciated. It’s not a job role. No one needs to be specifically in Mendaki or CDAC or Sinda to try to do that. Look at how Barack Obama sometimes goes against certain institutions to highlight black issues through his speeches and influence on social media. It’s not his job per say. [This paeagraph doesn’t sound quite right. The second and last sentence should be removed?]

Inclusivity is not just what we are after but more fairness and less racism. Lots of racial profiling and racial biasness and what have you goes on all over the world – Singapore included.

Alfian got this spot on IMHO. And many others have called this bluff long time ago – nothing new in what he said but just awesome that he said out loud.

Singapore should aim higher for colourblindness though it’s hard and we can start but not electing figurehead tokens like a Malay or Indian president just because it would look nice on paper. This brings 2 steps back ..

Cina president: Fixed our minorities?

When TRE republished this piece on the Malay PAPPy that can thrash Dr Tan Cheng Bock (I called him “Chin Bock” in the piece: can’t remember why, “An honest mistake?”), it provoked the usual nuts. But there was a totful response which contains an explanation of the “unwritten understanding” between the natural aristocracy and the serfs from the minority races, which really I should have blogged about.

harold:
March 18, 2016 at 12:53 am (Quote)
Singaporeans need to get this clear.

At Independence, the leaders then came to the agreement that the President shall always be appointed from a minority group, because it was assumed – and not wrongly – that the Prime Minister, being an elected position, would more likely than not be a Chinese.

So far, all Prime Ministers have indeed been Chinese.

That alone shows that given the opportunity to vote for their leader, Singaporeans do in fact vote along racial lines.

The elected presidency reneged on the promise made at Independence. Thus if the rules are changed so as to allow for minorities as president – and by that I mean QUALIFIED – minorities, and I say this because it is more often than not assumed that minorities are NEVER AS QUALIFIED as any Chinese, which is RACISM – then all the government would be doing is returning to the promise made at Independence.

To the poster who made the claim that Halimah Yaacob is not even qualified for the presidency (see what I mean about the racism?): She is.

The Speaker is equivalent to a cabinet minister, which then qualifies her as President.

I would fully support a President Halimah Yaacob.

Two good insights on the PAP’s “divide and rule” the races:

dusky landspace lordess:

March 18, 2016 at 2:02 am  (Quote)

Change We Must:
PAP is a divisive party, why brought up the issue of races. We are all Singaporeans.

Always felt the policies were along racial lines. The help groups are also along racial lines. Hiring policies are also along racial lines. Political candidates are also along racial lines etc …

But must put me at the top of the list when wealth distribution is done.

It cannot be along racial lines as fancied.

I will come and take my rightful share.

And here’s a good dig about that opportunist extraordinaire, TJS,

jojo:

March 17, 2016 at 10:47 pm  (Quote)

TCB would be the current President had it not for the stupid Tan Jee Say. He was a bloody spoiler. He doesn’t know what he wants in Politics. Where is he and what is he doing now, by the way?

Have a good weekend.

Malay PAPpy that can thrash Chin Bock

So Dr Tan Chin Bock wants to be president (For the record, Ftr, I voted for him in 2011.). He obviously hasn’t been reading PM’s lips: that the next president will be a Malay and that the choice of candidates for president will be limited to Malays.

———————————

Yes, yes, I know a nine-member Constitutional Commission led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon is reviewing eligibility criteria for candidates, the role of the Council of Presidential Advisers, and steps to ensure minority candidates have a chance to be elected from time to time. Still hasn’t PM stated his govt’s preferences? And for the commission to go against the elected govt’s mandate (more than two-thirds of voters)  is to show disrespect to the govt and the voters.

——————————————–

Fair is fair as there has been no Malay PM since the first president (Ftr again, his widow lives a few houses down the street). Btw, wonder if PM means Malay-Muslim or juz Malay? Unlike in M’sia there is no legal requirement for a Malay to be a Muslim in S’pore.

The thinking behind any restriction is that us Cina would prefer any Chinese to any Malay or Indian, even if it’s someone like Tan Kin Lian who lost his deposit at the last PE. And if the Chinese man is Dr Chin Bock (a compassionate, intelligent,  generous, gentleman) even Indians and Malays will vote for him.

But this Hard Truth is false because there’s one Malay who can beat Dr Chin Bock. with very little effort.

Last December, an anti-PAP paper warrior and I discussed who could beat Dr Tan.

————————–

He so hates the PAP that even when he uses SingHealth, he KPKBs that he must wait: he expects no waiting at polyclinic. I asked him why he uses SingHealth given his KPKBing and hatred of the PAP administration. He says thru gritted teeth, “Cheap” but quickly adds that PAP made him poor so he kanna use SingHealth. Ftr, he owns a landed property and drives a car: poor indeed.

—————————

He of course said, “No-one”. I pointed out that there was one Malay PAPpy who could thrash Dr Tan and that he and I would vote for that person: he had commended her in the past.

Yes the person in Halimah Yacob. Going by her credentials, she’d sew up the union, core PAP vote (“Any donkey so long as he or she is a PAP preferred donkey”) and wimmin vote. And because she’s such an intelligent nice, no-airs, capable and compassionate person, she’d get a big share of the swing vote. Ftr, we attended the same law postgraduate class in 1978.

My friend could only sputter, “Malay men won’t vote for her.” I said, “So what? The Malay wimmin, all wimmin, NTUC members, hard-core PAPPy voters and many swing voters will.” I added that I tot she could get more than 59% of the popular vote (i.e. more than Ong Teng Cheong in 1993)

He kept quiet. Or rather he switched topics: to the persecution of Amos the Fantastic.

But as elections are no sure things, I doubt that we’d get the chance to vote in a Halimah Yacob versus Dr Tan fight. Sad because if I’m right and she wins, it’d  kill forever the Hard Truth that Chinese will only vote Chinese even if the better candidate is non-Chinese. But maybe the PAP doesnt want to show that this Hard Truth has feet of clay?

——————————

Origin of “feet of clay”

Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. (Daniel 2:31-33)
…

And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)

——————————

Better for the PAP to play games on racial, cultural matters with the aim of perpetuating its hegemonic rule.

I end by commending this post where a law professor points out that Nathan was never elected” he was an unelected president, same like Devan Nair etc. Only Ong Teng Cheong was the real deal.

The truth about Nathan’s presidency

He was never elected.

“Tan also argued that in the case of SR Nathan’s Presidency, he had absolutely no moral mandate as he ran uncontested. An exercise of public affirmation was not undertaken either. Tan shared with the audience about a conversation he once had with SR Nathan at the Istana.

SR Nathan: This man (Kevin Tan) says that I wasn’t properly elected.

Prof Kevin: Sir, I never did say that you were not properly elected. I only said that you were not elected”

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCqlTuqdj6k&feature=youtu.be&t=29m45s

Embedded inside http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/03/highlights-forum-elected-presidency/

Easy way of avoiding rogue presidents

No need to change the constitution. Juz no preferred candidates who were NTUC secretary-generals.

The two presidents that disgraced the presidency were ex-PAP leaders who were NTUC leaders. Devan was drunk when he fondled the Chief Minister’s of Sarawak’s wife in Sarawak at an official dinner.

Ong had an unhealthy obsession about the extent of his powers as jaga in chief. I’ve always tot that he was wasting everybody’s time on the issue of immovable assets and the sale of POSB to DBS. One of these days, I’ll blog on his obsession about keeping the reserves locked up from S’poreans. He wanted us to starve while looking at the gold, noses pressed onto the reinforced plate-glass? See no touch isit?

Tony Tan is an ex-PAP leader and was a leading member of the cabinet. He is doing what the president should do. and (touch wood) he’ll end his presidency on a high note, making the PAP and S’poreans proud that we had an ex-PAP leader who dignified the office, not degraded it, something Ong and Devan did.

They may have been part of the nation-building team of the PAP but they ended their public careers on a really low note esp Devan. Perhaps they went mad in their NTUC days, trying to manage their role as the champion of the workers with their role as senior managers in Harry’s city?

As to the other presidents, non-politicians all, they all upheld the dignity of the office, performing their duties quietly without getting drunk, fondling women or picking fights with the government that had no legal basis. For the last,  there are others who can do the job. There was JBJ, and today there are s/o JBJ, M Ravi, Roy Ngerng and New Citizen and FT Han Hui Hui.

Nathan’s maihum moment cont’d

Don’t sing Majullah Singapura is the suggestion of a reader of this piece of mine when the president takes the salute. juz play Majullah Singapura.

But before reading his reasoning, here’s another great comment by another reader

Remember Pinkie and his meal of MeeSiam MaiHum?

Well, this is Prata’s maihum moment!

Back to why Majullah Singapura should not be sung when the president takes the salute on National Day:

I think all this STUPIDITY coIuld have been avoided if no one has to sing the national anthem when the president make his appearance at all ceremonies and occasions he attends. In fact, it is only appropriate that the anthem be sung at the end of an occasion, such as the NDP, when everyone including the VIPs and VVIPs would rise and sing it. No exception. The band plays the anthem when the president arrives simply because he symbolizes/represents the nation, not because of he (Nathan, Tony Tan or anyone else) the man.

I have NEVER heard the US national anthem, The Stars And Stripes, being sung when the President of the US arrives. Have you? For want of a better way to describe it, a country’s anthem should only be sang either at as part of a group performance, eg. at a concert or on very special occasions, such as at the end of the NDP or when national sportsmen and sportswomen received their medals on the winners’ rostrum in an international meet like the Olympics.

I agree that “God, Save The Queen’ is different. For one, the lyrics clearly referred to the British monarch in person. For those who are unaware, it was ‘God Save The KING’ when QE2 father was on the British throne. It was changed to the now, ‘God Save The Queen’ when QE2 took over from her father, King Geroge the… (you known, the King’s Speech, fella). Whereas, in ‘Majullah Singapura’, there is NO mention of the president, in fact, the lyrics is meant to spur and galvanize, at least in theory, the people and country forward (see English translation below) and compare it with the British anthem below it.

I hope it would shut the mouth up of the PAP acolytes who tried to defend the indefensible egoistic and ignorant blooper made by SN Nathan*. We can see how truly ignorant and arrogant the PAP ba***carrier can become.

Majullah Singapura (English translation):

Come, fellow Singaporeans
Let us progress towards happiness together
May our noble aspiration bring
Singapore success

Come, let us unite
In a new spirit
Together we proclaim
Onward Singapore
Onward Singapore

Come, let us unite
In a new spirit
Together we proclaim
Onward Singapore
Onward Singapore

British National Anthem – God Save the Queen

God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.

Thy choicest gifts in store
On her be pleased to pour,
Long may she reign.
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the Queen.
(From the official website of the British Monarchy –
http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Symbols/NationalAnthem.

——

*Steady brudder. I may mock him but I’m inclined to think he was telling a joke. Bit like Income and Rebecca Lim.

 

 

PAPpies defend D T Nathan

US has its Donald Trump, a billionaire with a big ego,

Well we have S R Nathan, a man who in his 12 yrs as president earned S$16m++ for being Jaga in Chief and Chief Baby Ksser. His ego is bigger than that of Trump despite the Donald being richer than he is (and hence by the warped thinking of the PAP more worthy of respect).

In a recent interview [Link] which was published on 31 Jan by ST, former President S R (Sure not Donald Trump?) Nathan repeatedly refused to be drawn into commenting about the various aspects of the Elected Presidency, which the Government wants to review.

But he did say, “So I often get asked why I keep quiet when everybody is singing Majulah Singapura on National Day,” he quipped. “I reply, ‘Yes, they are singing to me. I’m standing there! This is symbolic of the country. I don’t expect to sing to myself!’”

S’poreans have in my view rightly mocked his pretentions and huge ego. Or if they tot he was telling a joke, his bad joke.

Whatever. The office of president is not the British monarch. The British are technically the monarch’s subjects. While the nuts of TRELand may think we are the subjects of Harry’s family and the PAP, no S’porean thinks that we are the subjects of the president: except perhaps Nathan?

When a lawyer who I’m told is a card carrying member of the PAP (anyway I know he believes in hanging, not helping the elderly poor, or sick: his taxes should go to ministerial salaries) wrote the u/m, you know even the PAPpies cannot really justify Nathan Trupm the Donald.

Many mock President Nathan for saying that people are singing the national anthem to him at the National Day Parade fail to grasp the sequence of events:

a. Parade commander calls parade to attention
b. President arrives and is led to dais
c. Parade commander calls parade to salute president by presenting arms
d. National anthem is played as part of the salute
e. Parade commander calls parade back to attention from present arms position

Since the national anthem is played as part of the salute to the President, it is not incorrect* to say that the national anthem is being sung to him IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL DAY PARADE.

My friend the troll: Nathan failed to distinguish beteen S R Nathan the man and S R Nathan the president. The singing and respect paid is to the president (who juz happens to Nathan) not Nathan. A M’sian financier who advised successive M’sian ministers of finance in the 80s and 90s despite them belonging to rival factions, told me: “I’ ll advise a donkey so long as he holds the post of Finance Minister.”

The PAP lawyer said my friend was trying hard to find fault, which was a fair comment even if it sounded rich coming from someone trying really very hard to justify an ass of a comment.

But another PAPpy Ashok Sharma  wanted to pick a fight perhaps its just you and your kind that failed to understand when the then President, SR Nathan made the comment he meant him as the President and not him as S R Nathan the man? The analogy, by the way, is most inappropriate at least, to me.

To which my friend replied

Nathan used the word “me”. That is not the correct word or term to use if he were referring to Nathan the president. He also dumb as Trump in addition to being as arrogant as the Donald isit? Sounds like it. LOL

And

If Nathan had not said: //‘Yes, they are singing to me// and.//I don’t expect to sing to myself// I’d not have passed comment. But he did. He could have juz said, “I’m the symbol of the country, so it’s right that I keep silent”. But he didn’t did he? Let’s not try to twist his words to attack “just you and yr kind”.

Ashok Sharma** went on to lose his cool calling the troll names. PAPpies all like that isit?

Ashok Sharma tried again at midnight: for the sake of completeness and to avoid any doubt that may have arisen, I reiterate…. There’s really no shortage of idiots who’d complain about everything..

To which my friend replied the next morning. Yup very true of a brown-nosing, emotiomal fool who complains about others who complain about Donald Nathan our very own Donald Trump even he’s worth a lot less. This fool even resorts to name calling when he runs out arguments. Can’t agree with you more..on someone like him There is no point in engaging with these fools who only want to brown nose. They should learn from people like [ ] who can keep their cool when arguing.

It made the troll’s day when the founder of the conservative group he belongs to “Liked” his comment. The PAPpy ASs sat down and shut up.

And here’s another reason why we should sing and play Majullah Jaga Besar when the president takes the salute on National Day. This will show that we understand and appreciate the role of El Presdiente as custodian of the reserves etc. He is more than the ceremonial head of state who must take off his pants in public if the cabinet “advises” him to do so.

—————–

*Why doesn’t he say “it is correct”? He doesn’t because it ain’t correct? Juz not incorrect.

**AS. Add another “s” and it becomes ASs. Delaration of interest. I’m getting a lunch at u/m place for naming and shaming the ASs.

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Play Majullah Jaga Besar on National Day

I refer to this: http://themiddleground.sg/2016/02/12/god-save-the-key/

Middle Ground is ang moh tua kee isit?

Why can’t we just sing Majulah Kunchi (same tune and lyrics as Majulah Singapura with “Kunchi”, the Malay word for “key” for “Singapura” when the command Hormat (i.e. Salute) Presidente is given at the National Day parade?

Better still, we can use “Jaga Besar” (“Chief Watchman”) instead of “Kunchi”.

Mari kita rakyat Jaga Besar
sama-sama menuju bahagia;
Cita-cita kita yang mulia,
berjaya Jaga Besar.

Marilah kita bersatu
dengan semangat yang baru;
Semua kita berseru,
Majulah Jaga Besar,
Majulah Jaga Besar!

Marilah kita bersatu
dengan semangat yang baru;
Semua kita berseru,
Majulah Jaga Besar ,
Majulah Jaga Besar!

We can sing Majullah Singapura on other occasions.

Australian protocol is to play and sing God Saves the Queen when the Queen is present in person, followed by the national anthem. The national anthem is Advance Australia Fair and is played at other times. I think NZ has the same practice.

Tomorrow, I’ll post on why Nathan is wrong to equate himself with the Queen of the United Kingdom.

The Silence of the President

(Responding to this. The author feels that the president should be free to speak out on things that the president thinks the government is doing wrong. I had said the president has to remain silent on many things.)

Singapore had a constitutional presidency. The president was S’pore’s equivalent to the monarch in the UK. The monarch has no discretion and must act in accordance with the advice of the cabinet. There would be a constitutional crisis if the monarch fails or declines to act on the advice of the cabinet.

Executive power lies with the elected government of the day. The monarch is above politics. The monarch is a figurehead performing ceremonial functions, but does not exercise political power. This power ultimately resides in the parliament, because the elected government rules only if it is able to command the support of the majority in the parliament.

Substitute the word “monarch” with the word “president” in the preceding two paragraphs and you had, in a nutshell, the legal position of the president.

But this changed with the Elected Presidency amendments in 1991. They introduced a rojak approach. The president was to be elected, with some veto powers over executive decisions. These veto powers may be exercised by the president in his sole discretion, i.e. he does not need to follow the advice of the cabinet on such matters.

But on all other matters, the president continues to be bound by the advice of the cabinet. In this ceremonial or figurehead role, the president, like the monarch, has no discretion. Because they have no discretion, they are above politics. Whatever they do on advice, they cannot be criticised because they are only doing their duty.

By extension, because the monarch is above criticism, the monarch does not give her views on government policies actions, or decisions; or anything faintly political. Have you heard the monarch give her views on anything that could be controversial?

One way of looking at it is as follows: Since she cannot be criticised, the monarch should not put herself in a position where she can be criticised. Another way of looking at it: The monarch cannot have any independent view when she is carrying out a ceremonial function.