Blogging Break

I haven’t had much time to blog lately as I’ve been trying to engineer (no pun intended!) a career change to an actuarial position, which is a bit of a coincidence given that my last post was on the Presidential elections and one of the potential candidates happens to be an actuary. 

In any case, as a career changer, I certainly have my work cut out for me in a job search. So, expect fewer updates from me in the interim. Later.

What a Non-PAP elected President Means

The Presidential post in Singapore is largely a ceremonial position with no legislative powers. The key powers are veto powers, and frankly, with the comfortable, greater than two thirds majority that the ruling party enjoys in Parliament, those veto powers are largely moot.

Many people have commented on this, and as a result, have taken the view that the importance of the Presidential elections should be de-emphasised. Mr Shanmugam has also downplayed the importance of the role of the President.

The first view is a merely a mistake. The second is disingenuous.

We do not need to look further than Tony Tan to see how seriously the PAP is taking the Presidential elections. Although they have not stated it, it is clear from the extensive glowing coverage of Tony Tan in the “lamestream” media in recent weeks that he is the unofficial PAP-endorsed candidate. If the position was not very powerful or important, why would the PAP care so much about helping their preferred candidate win?

One of the most important ways that the ruling party has managed to hold power over the decades is the way it has managed to control the national conversation on national policies.

I have written on this in a previous post. By controlling the major media levers, the PAP holds the power of framing conversations on national policies (although this power is diminishing in the Information Age). And this has the effect of making it difficult for rational individuals in the population to form coherent and reasoned objections to policies that can then reach a wider audience and garner support. 

A good propaganda system goes beyond simply trumpeting the virtues of such and such a policy. It ranges from setting up straw men counterarguments for the sake of “balance” in reporting, inundating the population with artfully conjured up statistics, redacting unhelpful information that detracts from the nation-building agenda, and taking surveys whose results give the appearance that all is hunky-dory on the surface, but wherein the survey methodology falls apart under even cursory scrutiny. More sophisticated techniques involve setting up and covertly funding or implicitly supporting “independent” think tanks that deliver voluminous research in support of existing or soon-to-be implemented policies.

Seen in this light, it is not difficult to understand why the President, even in a ceremonial role, has considerable power, power that has the potential to detract from the government’s carefully crafted policy messages.

Being a public figure with a public profile higher than the average MP, and perhaps on a par with a cabinet minister, the President may have no formal legislative powers, but he has the power of political patronage. He can make alternative viewpoints more credible. This is something which Yawning Bread wrote on in a recent piece. He can lend the prestige of his office and his voice to various causes which at best, do not enjoy PAP support, and at worst, are antithetical to the PAP’s ideologies.

And that is why the PAP government has a huge stake in the Presidential elections, even if it takes pains to appear distant (and for good reason, given the revelation of its declining popularity in GE 2011). 

A President who does not toe the PAP party line (even if he is not a card-carrying member of the PAP, so to speak) on government policies can strike a singularly discordant note in the symphony that the government perpetually plays in an effort to convince the citizenry that the bitter medicine being doled out is indeed good for them. Who knows? He might even be shriller than the small coterie of opposition MPs in Parliament today.

And make no mistake; the PAP dreads the possibility of a President who is a loose cannon. Perhaps because our government is stuffed with technocrats and functionaries, many of whom were earmarked for the fast track early on in their careers, and who never had to practice at mollifying, scrambling, ‘fessing up and apologising, or just plain rolling with the punches, that the PAP is remarkably bad at dealing with situations that arise because they fall outside of its planning norms.

The very idea that the President was vested with the power to block drawing on the reserves was conceived under the presumption that the President would be a PAP man facing down the temporary anomaly of a hostile non-PAP-led Parliament. And now, the shoe is on the other foot.

The outcome that the PAP fears the most is not a rabidly anti-PAP President. That would be the second worst outcome.

The worst outcome would be a popular and vocal President, with a centrist position that is not in concord with the PAP’s policies, and who has excellent oratorical skills and is not afraid to use them. 

The popularity factor is key. A rabidly PAP President would be an embarrassment certainly, but could be dismissed as “fringe” for the most part, and suitably stonewalled and marginalized.

The PAP’s methods of “managing” a popular and vocal President, however, would come off as unseemly at best. More likely than not, they would be perceived by the public as being ham-handed. 

And the real danger in this election is that the President would almost by definition be a popular one. After all, it is because the position comes without legislative powers that party candidacy, gerrymandering, HDB upgrading, political track record, and all the other messy calculations associated with who to vote for in a general election don’t come into play.

In other words, being elected President means being liked. Needless to say, in recent years, the PAP and their ilk haven’t been very good at that.

Republished: The Two-Tier Society

The Asia Mag requested to republish my previous post: The Two-Tier Society. You can see it here.

It's always gratifying when one's work is read and appreciated. Thanks, Asia Mag!

The Two-Tier Society

The Straits Times today featured a fairly bland and benign, even banal story. It was entitled "Premium healthcare grows at a healthy pace." The full transcript is available (for now), strangely enough, at IM$avvy, a CPF companion website. I say strangely enough because the lux health screening packages described in the article are far beyond the reach of the average Singaporean, and yet, if there is one government institution all Singaporeans are acquainted intimately with, it is the CPF.

It has happened in business and banking (think private banking). It has happened with restaurants and fine dining. It has happened in the real estate market (Sentosa Cove, and too many condos to name). It has happened with entertainment venues, like our integrated resorts, and events, like Formula I. And it has happened in our healthcare as well. If the words "medical tourist hub" did not resoundingly ring in your head when you read this story, they should have.

Singapore is also home to the One Degree 15 Marina Club, Jetquay and FreePort. I could have chosen other examples, but these three resonate most with me as symbols of the excess, exclusivity, and expatriateness that define the new Singapore.

We have truly arrived as a first world city. Our level of immigration, connectedness to the global economy, our availability of goods and services, standards of quality, and costs of living, rival those of any of the global cities that Saskia Sassen describes in her work.

Unfortunately, at least for me, I am belatedly realizing that as much as I enjoy the energy associated with living in the "big city", warmth and homeyness are increasingly not what I identify with this city, Singapore, that I currently live in.

Inveighing against the wealth that comes to our shores from afar is a pointless, perhaps even foolish, exercise, given the benefits it brings to our economy.

I am not going to go into the complicated arguments that delve into whether inflation here has been driven up by foreign liquidity, or that medical tourism has indirectly caused an exodus of doctors to the private sector, or the multitudinous pernicious effects that income inequality has on measures of societal health, as detailed in The Spirit Level. That is better left to a day when my dispassionate, more analytical self, feels moved to comment.

But my quieter, more philosophical self senses the ineffable feeling that this city is increasingly being designed variously as a playground, a global bolthole, winter retreat, or Asian gateway, marketed primarily to the wealthy expatriate, and perhaps, incidentally, to the wealthy local (who may be a naturalized foreigner).

The feeling is particularly difficult to dispel when one considers the sorry state of public transportation while struggling to board a subway train at rush hour (with hordes of foreigners who are working class, of which I guess I am one too), or when one marvels at the price of government flats as they spiral ever higher out of reach, until the dream of owning a home becomes mere fantasy.

Each day I turn the pages of our increasingly irrelevant national newspaper, and my eyes glaze over the risibly fanciful names of newly launched condos in property ads, or the expensive marques that tout ever more sophisticated levels of automotive engineering and tasteful design. And I continue to wonder how relevant all this is to my life, beyond the evanescent pleasures of daydreaming that perhaps one day, I could have all this too.

Wishful thinking.

I am not overly worried about my future; not optimistic, but not worried either. I can differentiate between needs and wants, and my psychological constitution is strong enough to withstand the corrosive effects of income inequality.

Still, the feeling that Singapore is Home continues to recede. Feeling is irrational, and it defies logic and explanation. Yet there it is, and it persists in existing.

It is difficult to love a city that doesn't love you back, and that is both cold and hard. And it is not for nothing that cash is described as cold and hard. 

Book List Refreshed! 09/06/2011

I have removed:

Making Sense of Life by Evelyn Fox Keller
Richistan by Robert Frank
Econned by Yves Smith
The Post-Catastrophe Economy by Eric Janszen

I have added:

Brilliant by Jane Brox
The Spirit Level by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson
How to Disappear by Frank Ahearn and Eileen Horan
Dying of Money by Jens Parsson (Highly, highly recommended. Free downloads available in many places) 

Keep the spin cycle on, and get ready to be hung out to dry...

Today's edition of the Straits Times had the headline on the front page: "Government to review drainage after year's worst flood".

This is refreshing. The Straits Times is often deployed for spin damage control every time the government can't cover up mismanagement bad news. The rule appears to be: Cover up first. If not possible, then obfuscate, mislead and distract. And if that fails, underplay and de-emphasize. We now have a new fourth stage: pre-empt criticism and be seen to be DOING SOMETHING.

The front-page story read in an almost surreal way. Talking about review of drainage before describing the floods was putting the cart before the horse; I wasn't even aware that there had been floods yesterday before I picked up today's newspaper (I was holed up at home with a book over the weekend). The Straits Times seemed to be assuming that everyone knew about the floods before the story was printed today (not an unreasonable assumption to make in light of the digital age), but it certainly carried the faint scent of resignation of old world media.

Keep it up, nation-building press. The PAP government has your jobs, but with its continual expectation that you comply to its spin demands, the importance of those jobs will be eroded as the years roll by.

Conventional local media is already distrusted; it won’t be long before it ceases to be relevant altogether (especially when the older folks that depend on it die off). Then the SPH management will question the very need for investment into conventional media. What will follow will be smaller operating budgets, reduced headcount and dismal attempts at new media (to be repeated at X-year intervals with refreshed roadmaps / business plans).

The local print media need look no further than Mediacorpse to see the future. Diminished mindshare since fewer people tune in to free-to-air TV, diminished production values due to reduced budgets, and diminished advertising revenue due to irrelevance to consumers. Talent flight is a further result (as well as an accelerant to the crisis).

I don’t watch TV anymore, although my parents do, but it hasn’t escaped my attention that many TV ads, particularly outside primetime, are either ads about advertising on Mediacorpse or trailers for other programs. The Straits Times itself too carries its own advertisements exhorting subscriptions, as well as touting lucky draws for new subscribers. A sign of the times indeed.

I would cease reading the Straits Times if not for the fact that my family subscribes to it and it makes for convenient breakfast reading. However, I spend as little as 20 minutes reading the papers. I can often dispense with the Home Section in just 15 seconds; the Forum page is always ignored.

A few years ago, I might flip through past editions of the papers after returning from vacation. I no longer do so. In fact, now, if I do not pick up the papers at my appointed breakfast hour (usually because I have an early start that day), that day’s Straits Times edition will be left untouched, permanently. Reading the Straits Times is a function of my breakfast. It is not a goal in itself.

Even for someone like me with newspapers at home, the Straits Times no longer holds my attention. And I am just over 30. To younger Singaporeans, local newspapers are fast becoming an anachronism.

PS: Although causation is difficult to prove, one does have to wonder if road raising works along Orchard Road to deal with previous floods have shunted the problem to the Tanglin area. This could well be the flooding version of whac-a-mole.

GE 2011 aftermath, random quick thoughts, and prognostications.

This post is going to be written stream-of-consciousness style...
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Is the PAP going to mend its ways, or is it going to be business as usual? I would like to think the former will happen, but I am very skeptical. Many PAP politicians seem too ideologically wedded to their positions (Mah Bow Tan, Lim Swee Say, Lui Tuck Yew, the list goes on...). Certainly, few if any would publicly backtrack on their stated policies. The PM apologised in this election for his government's performance (garnering a 3.2% improvement in vote share for Ang Mo Kio relative to GE 2006), but tellingly, no other politician did, least of all those who were responsible for policies causing the most grief to the electorate (e.g. Mah Bow Tan). Still, given the apparent act of contrition by the PM, a wait-and-see approach seems warranted.

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More people will be willing to step forward to stand for elections for opposition parties, particularly the WP. The risk-reward ratio has changed with the WP's success in Aljunied. The WP can only grow stronger with their increased popularity and rising public profile. I have no doubt their efforts at recruitment of quality candidates from the private sector will be far more fruitful than the PAP, as I have previously stated.
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The practice of slipping in weak PAP candidates into Parliament via "safe" GRCs helmed by prominent politicians will be reassessed by the PAP. That doesn't mean that the practice will be abandoned, only that it will be exercised with greater care. Frankly, the fact that the PAP had to scrape up a Tin Pei Ling from the bottom of the barrel to make up the numbers betrays the difficulty they have in recruiting loyal, quality candidates in number. The parachute tactic will continue to be a necessary part of the PAP's election arsenal as long as Tin Pei Ling-types continue to be selected.

However, I am grateful for one thing. Thanks to the fact that Marine Parade GRC was actually contested in GE 2011 (the last time it was contested was in 1991!), it is now possible to quantify the effect of the parachute tactic on vote share (the "Tin Pei Ling effect").

Marine Parade GRC, helmed by Goh Chok Tong in 1991, secured 77.2% of the vote share, versus 56.65% in 2011. The average PAP vote share in 1991 was 61%, versus 60.14% in 2011, virtually the same. The TPL effect could hence have accounted for as much as a 19.69% [(77.2%-56.65%)-(61%-60.14%)] swing in vote share.

This estimate is a high ceiling estimate; the swing in vote share can also be attributed to Goh Chok Tong's diminished popularity, the fact that he is no longer PM as he was in 1991, the generally inferior quality of opposition party candidates in 1991, and of course, the polar opposite "Nicole Seah effect". Granted all that and the fact that 1991 and 2011 are literally 20 years apart, but I think the TPL effect is probably good for a 5% vote swing against the PAP.

Given that the PAP's average vote share in GE 2011 stands at about 60%, that means that a GRC "lifeboat" can probably only comfortably accommodate at most one low quality free-rider, assuming linear additivity. More than that and the PAP risks sinking the entire GRC.

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Prof Jayakumar has noted that the fact that an Opposition had won a Group Representation Constituency (GRC) proves that the political system in Singapore works and does not benefit only the ruling party (see here). This statement is disingenuous. The fact that it has taken this long for an opposition party to win a GRC, with a team clearly superior to the one fielded by the PAP in Aljunied, in a more favorable political climate, and almost all constituencies contested that hence diluted the PAP's strength, is an exception that proves the rule that GRCs disadvantage opposition parties.

It is possible that with the loss of Aljunied, the PAP may rejig the GRC system to stack the deck further in its favor. Jayakumar's statement above provides the perfect validation for such a tactic.

It is especially important for the PAP to adjust the GRC system if more Tin Pei Ling-types are to be put up by the PAP in future elections. Lifeboats need to get bigger for a wider margin of safety. Equally, the PAP is having difficulty recruiting quality candidates in number to "hold down the fort". Cabinet ministers and other heavy-weights can only be spread so thinly over so many constituencies. We may see the advent of 8-member GRCs in the not-too-distant future.

Perhaps a more stringent requirement to have not one but two minority race candidates in each GRC. Perhaps even a hard requirement to have one Malay and one Indian candidate in each GRC. This would raise barriers to entry for the opposition even higher than they already are now.

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One of the most startling things I observed when I stepped into a polling station for the very first time was the sheer number of old folks streaming in to vote. They came on walkers, canes and wheelchairs. Singapore's population has aged, and the oldest, staunchest of the PAP's supporters are literally aging and dying.

Lee Kuan Yew *may* have been right in saying that the young don't know better to vote PAP don't appreciate the struggles that we have gone through as a nation. Nonetheless, even the PAP has to acknowledge the relentless tide of mortality that is carrying away its most loyal bloc of voters. It must adjust its strategy and tactics accordingly if it is to remain victorious in the elections ahead. The Generational Shift Effect is starting to make itself felt, and it will grow stronger in the years to come.

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If the recent PAP campaign is any indicator of how the PAP manages its internal affairs in planning and implementing public policies, then I am apprehensive what the future holds.

We had ministers saying things that contradicted each other, unilateral party reform proposed by one minister, and blame-shifting. Not to forget the MM's vote-WP-and-repent threat. Or the PM's apology that was followed by conspicuous silence by all the other ministers.

Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that we have preliminary indications of schisms and factionalism within the PAP itself. If this is what happens in public, what happens behind closed doors?

Then there is that vexing matter of who the next PM should be, as there is no heir apparent waiting in the wings at the moment. That means that the issue of succession is still very much undecided.

The PM can reshuffle ministers and redeploy those who are the most unpopular but who were nonetheless re-elected (Mah Bow Tan comes to mind). But every time he does so, he expends just that much more of his political capital within the PAP. If you were Mah Bow Tan and you kept insisting that housing was affordable, how kindly would you look on the PM deciding to reassign you to a different portfolio? You can only push people so much before they start pushing back.

The electorate is changing and demanding more choices. Is it possible that the PAP may also be changing and becoming more individualistic? And what might that mean for policy-making in the future?