I refer to Messrs. Tay and Baharuddin's piece, "A Look Back at the 1997 General Election", January 10, 1997, The Straits Times.
The rancor of the election had a sour aftertaste to the PAP victory. Indeed I would have not made a different decision if I was in the voters' shoes. The PAP's tactics reminded me of the US President Lyndon Baines Johnson's quote during the Vietnam War. LBJ said that he didn't care about winning over the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese so long as he had their crown jewels (euphemism added) in his hands. The PAP's naked threat was about as close as anybody could get to the crown jewels of every Singaporean.
What is more disconcerting is that the PAP may think that this is sort of choice, or the lack of it, is the only way to bolster sagging popular voter percentage. I cannot empathize this PAP fetish with the total voter percentage. The PAP should remember that with the PAP's near absolute majority; the business of Parliament is a mere formality for most of the Government initiatives. The political cost of being a steamroller and seen as Big Bullying Brother may be tolerated in the short term but it may store deep animosities and crystallize less-than-endearing views for the PAP.
The PAP's scorched earth tactic of shoring up the popular vote is indicative of a resiling of the consensual and consultative style of Government that Prime Minister Goh so attractively mused about early in his premiership. Indeed, those days and talk about a civic society, a kinder and gentler Government are nothing but a sweet distant memory.
The PAP's choice to the Electorate, or the lack of it, was much like a irate parent ordering a child to take a bath. After the bath, there was a ring of scum in the ivory white bathtub. The bath was the votes-for-the-PAP in return for upgrading. The ring of scum? Perhaps, it was that the conscience of the voters? Some political opposition? Could it be the need for alternative voices, checks and balances? Greater accountability to the people? Whatever it was, the PAP felt that the Singaporean voter had to be cleansed of it.
The ring around the bathtub analogy will be a painful reminder in the consciousness of the people. Naturally, by resorting to such blinkered short-term threat of HDB upgrading or else; the PAP is merely postponing the inevitable of the genuine desire of having better and more effective alternative voices in the national discourse. The PAP has given up trying to win over the hearts and minds of the Singaporean voter and this will come back to haunt the PAP.
I'm astonished that for all the elaborate feedback apparatus that the PAP has, the one common mantra that Singaporeans have stated ad nauseam is that they want more different voices in Parliament. The issues of alleged racial chauvinists, extended GRCs and package politics were all sideshows in the election. By throwing the gauntlet of the votes for taxpayer financed HDB upgrading; the PAP has eliminated the element of choice in the Singaporean franchise. The electorate's decision to capitulate to the PAP's naked & harsh caveat was inevitable. But in the long run, even the wounded cornered animal will viciously claw back and that is the day that Singapore will rue.
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