I return yesterday from camp. It feels so good to be back in Singapore. It was an extra late book out. It is so depressing that the whole school book out on Friday afternoon and our company have to book out on Saturday (late) evening due to a situational test that is conducted till Saturday.
I guess life isn’t really fair.
That’s why we attempt to devise systems to make things seemingly more fair – like voting. People think that voting is more fair. So we vote for the people we think that should be a leader.
In Singapore, we vote for the president. He is considered a leader because his and his wife’s faces are in all government offices. The actual power lies in our Prime Minister of whom we aren’t allowed to vote for.
Some years back, we get a chance to vote for President. The government gave us only 1 candidate – S. R. Nathan – so we can only vote for him. He become the face in government offices and I, being a loyal citizen, considered putting their photos as my computer wallpaper. [It didn't happen, I think I used a Snoopy one instead that time.]
They called President Nathan an elected president, I don’t really know how “elected” works now. Maybe I gotten the definition all wrong. This week, I heard from someone that President Nathan has been re-elected as president again for his second term.
I then questioned curiously who are the other candidates. My platoon-mate told me there was this Kuan-guy who almost become a candidate but didn’t in the end. President Nathan is president again, without an election.
I have nothing against our president really. I don’t like or dislike the president. It’s neutral for me. And my wallpaper… Well, it’s the Empire State building photo now.
Possibly related:
Similar problem here, in September are Parliament’s lower house elections, and there is no party which isn’t crap and bad to elect. So I am seriously thinking about doing no elections this year
by Nafcom (Aug 22, 2005 at 7 PM)So the president is just a figure head in Singapore?
Hmm…
Be grateful you don’t have Dubya for a world leader,lol.
You’re a citizen again! yay! What’s the first thing you will do now that you have your freedom back?
It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.I go back to school on Monday. My summer kinda sucked.
by aurora_starfire (Aug 22, 2005 at 10 PM)There are no elections for presidents but there are elections for political parties and stuff. Singapore’s People Action Party (PAP) always win. They have been winning since Singapore got independent which is 40 years ago.
I have always been a citizen of Singapore and just that I am not a civilian currently, I still have 21 more months to serve, duh…
by Mr. Dew (Aug 24, 2005 at 2 PM)If you have been following the whole presidential race thing, I dare say you would be almost glad that there was no contest.
Ooi Boon Ewe – former bankrupt
Ramachandran Govindasamy Naidu – basically someone with too much free time (a retiree) and stated his reasons for contesting as “trying my luck”. A storekeeper, he did not meet any requirement for presidential race (eg, A presidential candidate is required to have experience as chairman or chief executive officer of a statutory board or a company with a paid-up capital of at least S$100 million.)
Andrew Kuan – His work at JTC was unsatisfactory since his first year there and was asked to resign twice on 2003 and 2004. On his condominium’s management council, admitted to being voted out with 13 council members voting against him, 2 abstaining and 1 voting for him.
And you wonder why only one candidate (Mr Nathan) qualified?
by Grace (Aug 24, 2005 at 3 PM)Well, I haven’t exactly been following. I am disappointed that there is only one candidate again. It makes me wonder if Singapore is so short of talent. Perhaps it’d come a time we start to import people from other countries to become president.
by Mr. Dew (Aug 27, 2005 at 9 AM)“Perhaps itâ??d come a time we start to import people from other countries to become president. ”
I’ve not been following too, but what you said really makes me think. Hopefully that is something that will never happen. Perhaps the talents are unrecognised or are in the woodwork somewhere.
by tsuriken (Aug 30, 2005 at 4 PM)tsuriken: Hopefully, that is not the case. If it really is, it’s kinda sad, isn’t it? I feel that there are lots of people who rather not be in politics. Seriously, we got to examine what causes this problem. Perhaps our politics just don’t encourage people to step up?
by Mr. Dew (Sep 9, 2005 at 12 AM)