Politics in Singapore is unfair and this is mainly due to the the system in which candidates are elected into government once every 5 years.

The PAP government must immediately abolished the system of Group Representation Constituencies(GRCs).



Map of Tyranny ~ !

Singapore is a de-facto one party state because the PAP is able to manipulate the formation of a GRC in is favour. Under a system of a GRC, there is no way the opposition can hope to win seats. This is most prevalent in the 2001 General Elections(GE). 10 out of 14 GRCs were uncontested and 50 candidates returned unopposed to power.(Note: total of 84 seats in parliament), thus making the PAP the majority party even before the elections had even began. 66.8% of eligible votes belonged in walkover constituencies. This is as good as not calling for an election. In a democracy, the people are free to make their own choices and decisions. However, in the case of politics in Singapore, Singaporeans are deprived of this right subtlely.

Another question in which i would daringly posed to the current PAP government is this. How capable are all the 5 candidates that the PAP field in a GRC? There is without a doubt that at least 2 out of the 5 candidates are of a high calibre, based on the fact that they are cabinet ministers and secretaries of states. However, question marks lie over the remaining three candidates. More often than not, they get elected into parliament not based on merit, managment skills or their capabilities, but because the electorate voted for the cabinet minister and the remaining three happened to be there to make up the numbers as required in a GRC.

Even, in power, these "low profile" member of parliaments(MPs) are often over-shadowed by the more senior members in parliament, thus, the electorate would never really know how capable these people are and, was it wise to hand them power in the 1st place.

According to the government, the purpose of forming GRCs lie in the fact that GRCs represent the interests of both the majority and minority social groups within each local community on the island that forms the constituency. Their purpose is to co-ordinate the provision of major services for the combined small estates for better efficiency, and so to overcome the difficulties experienced when smaller electoral constituencies seek to run their own town administrations with more limited resources. The official justification for GRCs is to allow minority representation, as a GRC must contain a certain number of minority race members.

Fair enough argument there by the government but i seek to propose a new arrangement in the poltical structure of electioneering in Singapore, which not only maintain those objectives but also increase competition among candidates.

The PAP government should divide the GRCs into 5 equal proportions, under which one candidate from the government would contest one-on-one with a candidate from the opposition. This mean every candidate would have to battle it out with opposition candidates individually. In this case, the opposition stands a better chance in the elections, but more significantly, there is now a level playing field from which the oppostion could contest.

The PAP could argue that by dividing up the GRC proportionally, the size of the electorate would be greatly reduced that voting becomes insignificant. Interestingly enough, if one were to divide up Jalan Besar GRC(smallest GRC with 92,361 eligible voters), it would still be bigger than the single-member constituency of Potong Pasir with 15,954 eligible voters. So, i see no reason why GRC could not be split up in a proportionate manner.

Moreover, it must also be enforced by law that one of the 5 candidates should be from a minority race. And the overall party that wins in the division would recommend a candidate to the Prime Minister for a cabinet post. Every division should also be overlook by a cabinet minister and all the 5 candidates would have to report to him/her. Under such a revamped system, each elected candidate would have no reason to fail in the running of the Single-Member Ward(SMW) or risked being 'dethroned" in the next coming election.

If it so happens that one of the candidate that the PAP fields lost out to the opposition, then the PAP can do an internal scrutiny looking into why there lost out in that paricular ward. This would only serves to improves and motivates the PAP's rank and file. This applies to the oppostion as well.

As such, it can be seen that a SMW do fulfill the goals that the GRCs serve to achieve in a fair, competitive and free manner and it's high time that the system of a GRC be scraped.

I hereby posed this to the PAP government: Take up the challenge and abolised all 14 GRCs and allowed all capable and aspiring candidates to fight it out without any subtle intervention.

WELCOME !