Kelvin Teo
The focus of past elections have revolved around the ‘faux pas’ of certain opposition candidates, which have been blown out of proportion, and upgrading. Upgrading falls under the category of estate management. This meant that little time was spent on addressing specific policy issues.
The pertinent question is will the next elections be based on policy debates or personality (blown out of proportion emphasis on the mistakes of certain candidates) and estate management issues?
Policy debates
Where possible, a wide net should be cast to address policies that affect a wide spectrum of voters. For instance, during the 2006 General Elections, Miss Sylvia Lim selected her pet topic of means testing for wards. Whilst it is true that we would probably require healthcare at some point of time, not all of us will require healthcare every time.
A party shouldn’t be narrowly focused on a particular pet topic, which will see them losing out on attracting other groups of voters. The policies to be addressed should be planned in such a way that the interests of a wide demographic group of voters should be addressed.
Here is an example. A party chooses to address healthcare issues such as step-down care in order to target the voters whom are senior citizens. The second policy it chooses to address is on the CPF minimum sum scheme, which was increased from $106,000 to $117,000 in 1 July 2009, and will be increased to $120,000 come 2013. This means that not many will be able to see their CPF monies in their retirement at 55 should their CPF savings fall below the minimum sum.
Addressing CPF issue, for instance, will attract the whole spectrum of voters that includes those in our workforce, and will be of special interest to those in their late 40s and early 50s whom are near the mandatory age of 55. The third policy that the party can choose to address is the open-door policy, which can itself be narrowed down to specific areas.
For instance, questioning the allocation of scholarships and subsidies to foreign students, and quotas in our universities would appeal to young voters not far from the age of 21, and their parents, especially those who require subsidies for their university education. Questioning the criteria for the allocation of work permits will be of interest to all working adults. And addressing the issue surrounding placements of local primary one students in comparison with their foreign counterparts will cater to the interests of young parents.
There is obviously no such thing as a one size-fits-all policy approach that appeals to all voters. Instead, the party has to make a wise selection of policies to cast a wide net and cater to a wide demographic group of voters.
What happens if a particular candidate is targeted for a small mistake?
During the 2006 General Elections, we all witnessed “Gomezgate”, which all started with a mistake made by James Gomez during the filling up of his minority forms. Throughout the hustings, Gomez was subjected to a barrage of accusations, allegations and criticisms from the ruling party. It turned out that this targeting of Gomez led to sympathy from the voters, who felt it wasn’t appropriate to pick on an honest mistake.
Thus, the question is – what course of action should be taken if a candidate repeats the same minor mistake and becomes a target of such attacks? Perhaps, a leaf can be taken out from a usual cyberspace practice when Internet trolls are encountered – the old saying “Leave the trolls alone and do not feed them”.
There is actually no need to respond to such attacks. The public will definitely sympathize with the targeted candidate if the attacks go overboard, and there will be an added bonus of sympathy votes. If there is five minutes of the campaigning time, it should be spent on addressing a policy like CPF that appeals to working adults, especially those in their late 40s and early 50s, rather than to respond to the attacks. The net should be cast to catch as many fishes as possible despite the howls from the winds.
As most of us netizens would know, trolls merely attempt to deviate the flow of an online discussion. Thus, there is no need to respond to such character attacks, but rather ignore them and attempt to address issues that interest voters. (note that it is never to the attempt of this article to call those responsible for character attacks on rival candidates “trolls”, but it is rather an allusion to an online practice)
