Yesterday I observed how Donald Trump's trade war has effectively wrecked the whole plan that the domestic opposition in Singapore had for the election – to thrash and blame the PAP for the prices which have gone up in the past 3 years.
PSP briefly tried to accuse the government of fearmongering only to be forced to turn around by the implosion of the stock markets and claim they are not downplaying the risks and would never put the party above the nation.
Pritam Singh, being a more experienced politician, decided to do what he always does when WP has nothing to offer – not step out of line with PAP and call for national unity.
(Covering other parties would be a waste of my time, and they offered nothing novel or constructive either).
Both reactions reveal a fundamental defect of all of Singapore's opposition parties – that they really have no program, they represent or stand for nothing other than themselves and their political ambitions.
Their statements do not provide any valuable perspective on the new problems facing the country, but are a response of someone who doesn't really know what to say at this point and is trying to buy himself time.
I never thought I'd say that as a negative, but they aren't even ideological. They have no beliefs that would be any sort of alternative to the PAP.
Unlike in the West, where you have the left and the right – and often various flavours of both across the entire spectrum – Singapore's opposition is trying to appear to be as close to PAP as possible, while attacking it at the same time.
Say what you want about the left-wing clowns of the West, like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn, they at least have certain beliefs they stood by. You can mock them, but they provide(d) a genuine representation for likeminded lunatics in the society.
But when you look at Pritam, Jamus, Tan Cheng Bock or Leong Mun Wai – can you even tell what they are supposed to represent?
They have no clear platform, they have no ideas, no ideology. You can't tell if they're for more or less freedom, for more or less taxes, for more or less regulation – and if so where, how and to what effect.
They just sit there on the sidelines looking at what the PAP does and attempt to nitpick to justify their existence, repeating the same empty complaints over and over again: that housing should be cheaper, COE is too high, Singaporeans should get better jobs, ticket prices are too expensive, kopi shouldn't be more than a dollar and so on.
Whatever the PAP does they just demand more and better, as if they could ever achieve anywhere near the government of this country has.
Sure, to a degree it's a product of the political system. You can't have, for example, an independent Green Party here (not that you should!), since every constituency is taken whole by the winner, and fringe movements are not able to enter the mainstream if they have to garner support of at least 50% of the voters.
On the other hand, however, it seems unbelievably lazy that the opposition is genuinely incapable of any novelty. Even the ideas that they occasionally do propose as alternatives to the government's are merely copied from abroad (like a nationwide minimum wage), and incompatible with Singapore (often because it already has something better).
Honestly, the only function that the domestic opposition plays in Singapore is being a vent for those for whatever reason frustrated with the PAP, usually blaming the government for their own failures. That's all.
People vote for them not because they are smarter or better in any way, but because they're not the PAP – and it feels good, even if it makes absolutely no sense.
Featured image: Pritam Singh / Facebook
