NMPs are not politicians.
Mr. Speaker Sir,
I stand in opposition to increasing the number of Non Constituency Members of Parliament. Before I begin, I would first like to ask the Minister how the Ministry intends to monitor electioneering, election advertising and campaigning on the internet, given the proliferation of blog-sites and forums on the internet, many which are anonymous.
Also, would editorials and articles written on these blog-sites, internet newspapers and webzines count as election advertising, especially now that the ban on election advertising now extends to the eve of polling day when we expect most activity, including internet activity?
In my speech on Nominated Members of Parliament, I argued how NMPs cannot be seen as unelected opposition members of parliament, or even an alternative opposition because not only are they not politicians, they should by-and-large not be representing political, partisan issues. NCMPs on the other hand are not only unambiguously opposition politicians, being members of opposition political parties, having participated in a General Election and lost, but also categorically opposing issues that the ruling party stands for.
Sir, people who are proposed to be NCMPs are politicians who stood for an election and lost. Sir, they lost. They lost. I do not know how much more emphatic I can be about this. These are politicians who have stood on a certain political platform, for certain political issues and the majority of the electorate have considered these issues, these politicians and have rejected them at the polls. To then allow them into Parliament flies in the face of the logic of a democratic election at best, and at worst, is a slap in the face to the people who have voted against them.
Sir, I understand the objective of the government to accommodate the desire of some Singaporeans to see more opposing voices in Parliament. However, surely opposing voices are not what is needed and leaving issues of quality aside, but voices that represent the democratic will of the people.
NCMPs are politicians who have stood for elections on their political beliefs, beliefs that have been rejected by a popular vote. If the people wanted these political views to be represented in Parliament, important bread-and-butter views that affect and influence the daily lives of all Singaporeans, they would vote them in. If they do not vote them in, then they can’t still have them in Parliament, because, staying with the bread analogy, they can’t have their cake and eat it too.
Sir, I applaud the ruling party on their incredible generosity in allowing their vanquished opponents a back-door into Parliament. This is such a golden opportunity to the Opposition it would be silly for them to reject it. In the business world, if my rivals who have beaten me then offer a chance for my employees to work in their company, so I have a better chance of beating them the next time, I would be daft to turn it down.
I say all of this with irony of course.
Parliament is not an Opposition MP incubator. Its function is not for beaten opposition politicians to prove themselves, earn their stripes, so that they can compete better at the next election, and then perhaps get elected to Parliament for real. If Singapore wants a good strong opposition, this opposition needs to fight their way into Parliament tooth-and-nail, and not be mollycoddled. This is not only damaging to Singapore, it is damaging to Parliament, and even damaging to the Opposition themselves. The anecdote that Dr. Lim Wee Kiak gave yesterday about the correlation between baby-strollers and retardation was especially enlightening.
If there is a need for more free-flowing debate on Parliament on political issues, rather than the non- political, non-partisan issues that I have argued NMPs should stand for, I call for the ruling party to lift the Whip if they have an overwhelming majority in Parliament, as is the case now. Before I entered Parliament, I was also under the impression that the PAP thinks and acts as a monolithic entity; of course this is ridiculous, for how can so many people think as one, but this impression I had, I am sure many people share. I am now convinced of the contrary.
I am pretty sure the elected backbench members of the PAP are capable of independent thought and may not agree with some of the issues proposed by their frontbench colleagues; more importantly, they were popularly elected into Parliament. If the party Whip was lifted more often, I am confident that there will be more constructive opposing voices in Parliament. The government should be confident of convincing their own party members of their policies in Parliament.
However, sir, even if the Whip is not to be lifted, NCMPs are not the answer. Singaporeans who want opposition MPs in parliament should vote for them. If they reject these opposition MPs at the polls, they should stay rejected. I thus oppose the motion to increase the number of NCMPs.
To quote the retort by NCMP Sylvia Lim :
“I find it quite ironic that someone who came into this august chamber (the Parliament) through an interview can actually attack the NCMP scheme in such strong terms.’
In all, NCMPs boast of substantial support from voters, being candidates that lost by the narrowest margins – while NMPs like Cheng, and to an extent even PAP MPs in walkover GRCs – these people got into our Parliament without a single vote cast in their support.
Isn’t this the clown who didn’t bother to pick up his PAP membership card?
Let us sit down for a moment and compare:
Who has more power to change things: Eric Low or Sylvia Lim? (Of course Sylvia Lim has way more POPULAR SUPPORT than Eric Low, but let us now talk about power.)
I think this guy has already been publicly self-pawned.
And then got it from a PAP minister and a NCMP.
He is one of them and they like him. The minister went v easy w him, some of the PAP MPs were crticised more when they opposed ncmp