Fri. Mar 22nd, 2024
<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/malaysia-elections/4384202.html">via</a>

TL;DR – Have some self-respect and loyalty please.

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A Facebook user, Surya Kumar, published a Facebook post explaining why he’s surprised by the anti-government sentiments expressed by some Singaporeans after the revolutionary Malaysian General Election of 2018 (GE14).

Here are the four points he made:

1. Singapore shouldn’t follow Malaysia

Surya highlighted that some Singaporeans are saying that Singapore “should follow Malaysia and create a wind of change here”. But Surya wondered who we would replace the PAP after ousting them.

He believes that the PAP is “a clean, efficient and extremely forward looking goverment who have always had the people at heart”. He suggested that most citizens in the region would wish for a government like ours.

2. No reason for PAP to be scared

Some Singaporeans say that Barisan Nasional’s loss have shown that a dominant party can lose. These same Singaporeans think that should cause PAP to be scared that the same thing would happen to them.

Surya pointed out that this isn’t the first time that regimes have changed in the region. Suharto ousted Soekarno, Suharto himself was ousted, Marcos fell, Aung San Suu Kyi rose to “power”. But none of that really worried the PAP. They are still in power. And PAP’s 60 % popular vote in 2011 became 70 % in 2015.

3. No need for PAP to apologise to Dr Mahathir

Some Singaporeans think that PAP has somehow “wronged”  Dr Mahathir and should thus apologise to him.

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But why?

Yes, relationship between Singapore and Malaysia was rocky the last time Dr Mahathir was PM of Malaysia. But that was because we were standing our ground, not letting another country intimidate us, and advancing our interests.

READ MORE:  Three lessons Malaysia is teaching the world through how it is dealing with Singapore

Some of the demands that Dr Mahathir made of Singapore when he was last PM weren’t reasonable. Would we be happier if we gave in to those demands and had to pay more for water? Would we rather have replaced the causeway with a crooked bridge that in no way served our interests?

Surya pointed out:

“Singapore works with other nations through diplomacy and relationship building ….. not by sucking up to others. If we did the latter, I would most likely be posting this in Bahasa … with apologies to the people of all ASEAN countries.”

4. Changing our government won’t solve all our problems

Surya pointed out that Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand changed governments many, many times whilst the PAP has remained in power. And it’s clear that Singapore is still in a far better shape than those countries.

In fact, Dr Mahathir had even said that he wants Malaysia to be more like Singapore. He’d said in his Lunch with Sumiko interview a couple of months back that he sees Singapore as both a competitor as well as model.

 

Happy for Malaysia, but no need to be anti-government in Singapore

Surya ended his post by pointing out that while it’s true that Singapore isn’t perfect, there really isn’t a place that is indeed perfect. So, while we should be happy that Malaysia has gotten a new beginning that might allow them to get to where it can be, or should have been right now, the situations in Malaysia and Singapore are very different.
 

By Joey Wee

I am nice, most of the time!

2 thought on “A Singaporean is surprised by anti-government Singaporeans post Malaysian GE”
  1. Few points. In the GE14, Malaysians showed us that there are better days if only the electorates believe and dare to act and they have acted and a new day with a brighter sun is rising across the Causeway and fresh new breeze blowing across their country. Secondly, the fell of Suharto, Marcos and Thaksin could not be described as a mirror image of Singapore. Malaysia and BN are vastly different and they have too many similarities. Both countries, since independence only know one dominion ruling party that became arrogant and complacent over the years etc and also with similiar racial composition. What happened in the GE14 are totally possible to happen in Singapore. I agree with point No 3. On point No 4, of course changing government will not solve all our problems and it is unrealistic to expect so, still, changing of the pap is necessary step to embrace a new beginning. In fact, the pap government is the root cause of many of our problems, be it cost of living, mrt unreliability, widening wage gap, lack of decent employment opportunities or the sending of the citizens’ sons to Syria but what about the ministers’ sons etc? So, that us be brave and be optimistic and believe that for our country, the best is yet to be. Pap is the status-quo but still, many of our citizens are not astute and smart enough to realise that the quo has past its status. Sticking to a sinking ship is slow death but it will still be eventual death.

  2. Criticism does not equate to anti-Singapore. We can criticise PAP gov’t but we’re not anti-Singapore. PAP is not Singapore and Singapore is about PAP. Typical Sinkies growing up in Singapore have been conditioned to think criticism of PAP’s policies means anti-Singapore. Sinkies have a lot to make up and catching up. Sad.

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