The best thing about Singapore's PE isn't Tharman's victory - I think we all expected that - but a relatively weak result of Tan Kin Lian.
TKL was an incredibly useful candidate, as his presence gave us an opportunity (as I quipped ahead of the vote) to measure the extent of insanity among the local population.
In essence – how much support would a guy endorsed by domestic political plankton of the likes of Lim Tean or GMS (or even a slightly bigger fish like TCB) receive, particularly after the controversies surrounding his bizarre Facebook posts, as well as populist claims made about the presidency, in complete disconnect with the legal prerogatives of the office?
In the end 1 out of 7 voters cast their ballots in his favour – though I think we can assume not everybody was fully aware of his antics, so we can be generous and round it down, meaning that only roughly 1 out of 10 Singaporeans consciously voted for the bumbling uncle (the rest may have simply been a bit clueless – which isn't great, but isn't disastrous either).
This is very reassuring as it suggests that, at the very least, Singapore should not fear some fringe lunacy entering the political mainstream in the parliamentary elections either.
It also shows that the society is, fortunately, not quite as polarised as others are elsewhere in the world, and many people who are otherwise opposition supporters, had no problem casting their ballots in support of Tharman.
Decent performance from Ng Kok Song is a positive as well, proving that even someone who could be perceived as the establishment's man can garner considerable support by being a respectable, civilised candidate, who didn't seek needless confrontation and controversy to focus the spotlight on himself during the campaign.
Finally, all of the frothing loonies flooding the internet with their incessant caterwauling have now been shown how small the echo chamber they're in is. Phew!
Featured image: Tharman Shanmugaratnam's Facebook / Samuel He
