BB By-Election: Let’s talk about bread and butter



I’m a resident of Bukit Batok and I’m not really into politics, so it doesn’t matter whose political ambitions gets realised. I’m also not interested in “human rights”, “welfare” and “democracy” because I’m fairly comfortable with how these things are done in Singapore.

In this By-Election, there is only one reason why I’ll vote either candidate. 

Chee Soon Juan




The only reason why I want to vote for him, is just so that our Parliament will become more entertaining. That’s all. I don’t really think that he’s going to be able to do all the human rights and government bashing stuff he says he will do. But man, will it be entertaining with him making a big fuss on a national scale and getting foreign newspapers to criticise Singapore even more.


Murali Pillai




He’s a practical choice. Town upgrading, plans to develop the place, setting up of healthcare co-operatives, job placement programs and an additional senior care center…why not? Moreover this guy is the chief lawyer at the law firm where he works - it’d be pretty useful to have an MP that’s a lawyer whom you can access at each Meet-The-People’s session.

Look at what happened to Punggol East Town Council. When the Worker’s Party won the constituency, they inherited $22.5m. Which is a lot of money. When they lost and returned the town council to the PAP, how much did they return? Only $10m. This is clearly poor money management.



Who is going to pay for the shortfall of $10m? It’s the residents of course. 

Even with some experience in running Hougang town council and purported economies of scale with running Punggol East together with Aljunied-Hougang, the Worker’s Party was not able to make things cheaper and more efficient. 

That's exactly what he said.

Back then, the exact words he used was: "If victorious, the SDP candidate will enter Parliament and the WP will run the Punggol East Town Council." Dr Chee tried to sell the idea of a "win-win situation". That an SDP controlled Punggol East would lay the ground for a larger opposition representation at the General Elections of 2015.



Today, the SDP does not have the benefit of economies of scale. Neither do they have any experience whatsoever. They’re going to face more than a fair bit of teething problems - oh yes, things will go wrong. 

At the 2013 Punggol East by-elections, Chee Soon Juan actually made the very weird proposal that if the SDP had won, they would “subcontract” the management of the town council to the Worker’s Party. Now that’s a bizarre proposition. If he wasn’t confident of running a town council then, what makes him suddenly so confident of running one now?

So, here we are - is it going to be politics, or is it going to be the realities of everyday life. 

I’d go with the practical vote.

I can always turn to Netflix for entertainment.




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