I have to reluctantly agree with the ST Editorial "Raising the Stakes in GRCs", December 18, 1996. The PAP's stratagem to have a minister lead every extended Group Representation Constituency (GRC) is a double edged sword. Granted, more residents will have the prestige & honor of having the nation's finest at their parochial beck & call - what better scenario to have the Minister for Environment or Minister for National Development or Minister without Portfolio look into the soiling of the HDB void decks by incontinent pet dogs.
However, by putting Cabinet-par candidates in the line of fire doesn't necessarily mean that the PAP will carry that GRC. Dr. Seet Ai Mee's, Mr. Ng Pock Too's doomed candidacies & even current Minister Mah Bow Tan's teething problems at Potong Pasir are prime examples that all the Cabinet-caliber qualifications in the world doesn't guarantee a seat in Parliament.
The GRCs may have worked in the past where Minister's coattails may have apparently carried the day but the close calls in Eunos & Bedok GRCs in the past should give the PAP lots of concern. Politics may indeed be local but consider the possibility that if the PAP's slate for the GRC goes down, an erstwhile Cabinet potential sinks with it. The nation will be poorer in the long-run. I cannot fathom the PAP's risking the stewardship of the nation in the hope of getting neater and untrammeled Parliamentary supremacy. The PAP already has it and they should work to appear to tolerate the opposition.
Then again, as the Editorial astutely pointed out, such Cabinet potential who cannot cut their teeth locally; don't have a place in parliamentary politics in the first place or at least he tries running again on some safer ground or seat.
The extended GRC is a wild card that the PAP have in their current hand. By banding a motley stew of candidates; the PAP has eliminated the element of choice in our franchise. If we are to have these extended GRCs in Parliament, we will be on the slippery slope in reducing the actual representation, choice of platform of the constituents' interest in parliament. What common ground does the rental roomer HDB heartlander in Tanglin Halt have with nouveau riche of Namly Ave? The decision to reject the slate just to spite the PAP for its ubiquitous arrogance is all the more appealing and easier.
In short, the PAP's move is a blinkered knee jerk reaction to the by-election strategy of the Opposition. If one swallows the logic of the rationale of the extended GRCs, one day, we may see the entire island as one mega-GRC in the future with the Prime Minister leading the whole Parliament bandwagon. This is resiling the sacrosanct representational democracy that was already improved for local circumstances.
Trained as an economist, I can empathize with PM Goh's pursuit of economies of scale but everyone knows that there is a trade off in having cookie-cutter like answers to problems that require diverse and even creative thinking. I'm astonished that for all the feedback apparatus that the PAP has, the one common mantra that people say in the media with ad nauseam is that they want more different voices in Parliament.
Wasn't the rationale for the establishment of the new & improved Town Councils with the MP taking on the Chairmanship a move to devolution of some parochial duties and empowerment in the first place? Isn't the enlarged GRCs an admission that the this empowered Town Council initiative has failed? Now only history will tell whether the extended GRCs will meet the same political grief as the empowered Town Councils of the last General Election.