Is there a palpable sense that the latest ministerial pay hikes has finally drawn some electoral blood from the seemingly apathetic Singaporean voter?
Flashback to the 1997 GE when the PAP indulged in the bald-faced pork barrel politics votes-for-the-PAP in return for upgrading. By consistently failing to appeal to our better angels - 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 mine) in his hands.
I guess that it is timely to remind the pecuniary puffed PAP politicians during the upcoming GE that that their crown jewels are in our hands and the crows will come home to roost! The 1997 GE saw the voter percentage increase for the PAP - but perhaps a fitting rallying symbol for any voter backlash in the next GE would be the char kway teow plate!
I have never denied that the PAP has done well (more or less) in providing for Singapore's needs in the past but it is the future that I'm fitfully worried about. The ruling PAP government has institutional blindness and international marketplace dystrophy to think that it can manipulate the international marketplace as glibly as it had done in Sinagpore. The Suzhou fiasco, CLOB, SingTel's high-profile jilting by CW&T & Malaysia's Time all point S'pore Inc.'s economic dysfunction - the less sexier version of ED - in a freer marketplace.
The blurring of public office and private enterprise is one of the slipperiest slopes to justify any pay government increases because in public held companies, there is true accountability - where if profits or return to shareholder are not forthcoming - the board will show the CEO the door or else the market will punish the share price. One cannot translate this sort of corporate accountability to a public government system because the ruling party will only do whatever to whoever to consolidate and maintain itself in power!
Allegedly one uses general elections to pass judgement on the ruling party in power but if that ruling party uses all necessary and legal means within the parameters of the law to abuse and beat up the opposition and the population into submission - there is no market (independent) scrutiny.
Public office must come with some sacrifice - it's not supposed to be a cosy job and if you can't take the heat - get out of the kitchen! But in this regard, the PAP seems to want to install super luxurious air-conditioning while the rest of Singapore swelters in the heat of economic uncertainty or at the very least within their overpriced HDB flats.
I hope to speak for any decent, hard-working Ah Kow, Ahmad, Arumugam & Everyman - or in my case a salariman (albeit a well compensated one here in Osaka) -where I, like most others, do not decide whether I get a pay raise myself but upon the assessment of my superiors. There is no accountability of the justification of ministerial salaries increase and it's just a act of self-congratulatory, back-slapping happy dudes. It boils down to efficiency in the marketplace - for years before these salary increases came into effect, the founding fathers of Singapore did wear a gunny sack and serve Singapore for the public good and the odd instance of corruption did surface.
However, even though with the introduction of superscale salaries for the civil servants & politicians - you still had the odd instance of corruption albeit unlike the famed kleptocrapt Indonesian/Vietnamese/Thai politician businessmen - business connections that most of Singapore business (private/qausi-public) did go to bed with at one point or another. So the moral of the story is really simple, this government alone should not think that it deserves a pay raise, Singaporeans are the ones who will pass judgment on that.
What is curious is that the Singapore government is caught in this catch-22 situation. In the increasingly globalized world, the government sends out scholars to the US - where all of them will experienced a Saul-like conversion complete with scales of Singapore insularity falling from their eyes and leave Singapore for a better life and usually better salaries.
So the Govt has tried to use patriotism (not much use) and now they use the big money carrot. But even that doesn't seem to work as Singapore only gets these second string Asian pseudo-talent that are basically just here for the short-term until their US green card application comes through!!
So the crows are coming home to roost when one only uses money to get what it wants (votes for HDB upgrading, higher salaries for better people) - the PAP has given up any other loftier, altruistic means to achieve a loftier goal. I can empathize with the outrage of the leaders of volunteer groups & NGOs who do put on the gunny sack on their head and get beaten up for it!
Some have callously characterized these ministerial pay increases as a victimless crime but a crime is still a crime - like strict liability offenses - once u cross the line, you do the time! There are some bright red lines that cannot be crossed and one of them is unilaterally rewarding oneself in the name of public service!
Now the realpolitik issue is how a credible opposition can use this issue of unfair salary increases to its advantage in the next GE? Sadly, it's up to the political opposition because all this other non-partisan NGO fluff is not going anywhere anyhow anyway. The only way to change is by the ballot box and the opposition needs to wean itself off its martyr-seeking, western media courting ways and get down and nasty with boring and un-western media-worthy char kway teow issues rather than esoteric freedom of speech yada yada yada that gets better western press.
The logic is that if this ministerial pay raise scratches the voters' nerve that much - let the ruling party inherit the wind of the voters' displeasure at the next GE. But it remains to be seen whether those that live by the pocketbook shall die by the pocketbook.
John Tessensohn in Osaka, Japan