Lets ignore the well known incidents of Mas Selamat, Orchard Road floods and Youth Olympics. Lets just say those are clear cut displays of poor leadership and planning. No need to argue about those.
The major leadership errors in the past 4 years:
1. Failure to create a clear and powerful vision for the future. You get a sense that the country is drifting like a raft in rough waters. There is no vision in place on how life should be made better for Singaporeans. They tried to paint a "globalised city" as a goal because they flooded this place with foreigners and Singaporeans find it hard to associate that with how their lives will improve. Life actually got worse and there is widespread feeling things are sinking without a clear vision to anchor us.
2.Failure to do simple things. Simple things like making sure the MRT system is not overcrowded to the point of discomfort became too hard for the PAP govt to do because they privatise SMRT and have to compromise service with profits. Simple things like ensuring enough car parks for certain areas. Basic things like ensuring safety by containing gang activity. For investors here, simple things like not allowing sale of complex toxic financial products and allowing lousy companies to list on our stock exchange...they can't even prevent straightforward fraud like Sunshine Empire and Profitable Plots - too slow to act. Inside the 4 years, our public hospital became overcrowded ran out beds before something was done (send our sick to Malaysia?).
3. Losing the moral high ground, Leadership that keep hiking their salaries and benefits as a growing segment of the populace struggle due to cost of living increase. Many Singaporeans are now very wary of the side effects of capitalism's greed which has manifested in the form of excessive compensation of executives - this problem was in the spotlight due to the high pay of people who caused the financial crisis. The PAP govt shows itself to be connected to this greed.
4. Failure to change the political system. Look at the change sweeping across Egypt, Tunesia and other middle east countries. People everywhere want a democratic system and full human rights. Until today, the PAP govt refuse to recognize and sign the Declaration of Human Rights. The continue to have undemocratic laws such as ISA, laws against freedom of assembly and free speech. Young Singaporeans would like to have a democratic society as stated in our pledge. The failure to match the aspirations has resulted in an expiration of the patience of many Singaporeans....just like the people of Egypt and Tunesia.
5. Failure to manage the income gap. They keep blaming it on GLOBALISATION and did nothing but other govts have the cow-sense to keep income gap low with various measures like minimum wage, social safety nets, proper progressive taxation to redistribute wealth and fair labor laws and policies. The PAP primary focus was GDP growth and kept its policies geared to achieve growth. The approach lack balance and ultimately the people disadvantaged by the income gap will not support the PAP anymore.
6. Failure to contain the cost of living While it is commonly argued that inflation is a worldwide phenomena, there were many things the PAP did to make it worse. Housing was very much under the PAP govt control with HDB being the biggest supplier of housing in the country. They mismanaged the supply causing a severe price increase that hurt many Singaporeans.
7. Failure of accountability Whenever problems surface, be it toxic minibonds or Orchard Road flood, the 1st instincts of this PAP govt was to deny responsibility. They repeated this pattern of behavior many times while they collected the highest salaries in the world. This gave Singaporeans the sense that when things go wrong the PAP will blame something else and leave them to solve the problems. We saw this pattern of behavior in the 2 PAP participants at the CNA forum whenever a problem was raised, they either deny there was a problem or blame something else or explain why the govt cannot do more. For the record and for investors here, the HK govt handling of the minibond debacle eventually resulted in all HK investors getting all their money (95%) back - in Singapore the outcome was poorer.
8. Failure to connect and communicate. Key policies have to be explained clearly to the public so that they understand how their interest is served. In the past 4 years the PAP govt has failed to convince people of the benefits of many of their policies and why these policies are good for the ordinary citizens. Why is the foreign influx of workers good for Singaporeans? Why is CPF Life good? Why is the GST hike necessary? It is one thing to implement unpopular but good policies, the rationale is explained clearly to the people. However, the failure to communicate and convince the public in recent years could be because these policies are unbalanced and actually not good for ordinary Singaporeans but seek to favor, placate and retain the rich segment of the populace with low taxes.
The PAP further compounded its leadership problem in its choice of candidates for the coming elections. The selection of people from the establishment such as the Chief of Army, members of the NTUC and civil service means that what is wrong with the PAP govt will continue to stay wrong. Furthermore, the choice if Tin Pei Ling as a candidate is really hard to fathom and has shattered the myth that the PAP "has better qualified candidates" - a myth that has helped the PAP in the past. Her husband's job as the Private Secretary of the PM does not reassure us that ability take priority over everything else in PAP's selection process. ....We can find able people elsewhere and the PAP has no monopoly on talent. If it does not have the monopoly on talent, then it should not have monopoly in govt.
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