PAP nervous about New Media, introduces "guidelines"

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Friday, 12 March 2010

Singapore Democrats

The proposed changes to the election rules announced in Parliament yesterday are just another ploy by the PAP to instill fear in the people. As far as the Internet is concerned, citizens should be free to campaign for whichever party and candidate they choose.

The “advertising guidelines” introduced is clear indication that the PAP is running scared of the New Media and how it is a leveler of information flow.

The ruling party also knows that because of its control of the traditional media, more and more Singaporeans are turning to the Internet for information. The overwhelming sentiment in cyberspace is for the opposition and against the PAP.

The Government is thus desperately trying to regulate cyberspace during the elections even though it knows that it is near impossible to do so given the nature of the beast.

The Singapore Democrats has been actively working online through the years to garner support. Even then, we will not rest on our laurels and we intend to bring up the level of our Internet presence and campaigning during the elections with or without the changes to the Internet guidelines.

This is where our strength lies and the PAP is obviously feeling nervous about the use of the Internet by the Singapore Democrats.

The cooling-off day is obviously one such weapon that the PAP will employ to counter the SDP's use of the Internet. While specifying that no new material can be uploaded online during this cooling-off, the traditional media that the PAP controls will not come under such restrictions and this will be used against the opposition.

As for the tweaking to allow for up to two NCMPs from one GRC, it is important for Singaporeans to remember that the scheme is meant to distract voters so that they feel that opposition MPs are elected when in fact this category of parliamentarians have little or no legislative power.

Singaporeans have to understand that they need to vote for the opposition in numbers that will surpass the 50 percent mark in order that we enter Parliament to represent the people.

John Tan
Assistant Secretary-General
Singapore Democratic Party

The above statement was put out in reply to queries by the Today newspaper:

1. Is there anything in the proposed changes to the legislation that gives SDP any encouragement?

2. Based on the information release, do you now find the Cooling Off Day beneficial to your party?

3. What do you think about the specifics released by the Government with regards to the Cooling Off Day?

4. As for the Non Constituency MPs: The proposed changes specified that the maximum number of any GRC is two. Will this make a difference in how your party plans the coming General Election?

5. What do you think about the proposed changes to the Internet advertising guidelines?

6. SDP is especially ahead in the use of new media to engage your supporters. Will the changes give you more space to operate?

7. Finally what do you think of the move to make the election offences - including displaying "any badge, symbols, sets of colours... or posters as political propaganda" - on Cooling Day and Polling Day seizable offences?

In the end only one line was used. Read Today's report here.

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Comments (8)

Sat 13 Mar 2010 2:49 PM | Tan Tai Wei

SDP's suspicion is akin to ours regarding recent election laws effectively ruling out Aungsang Su-Chi from Myanma's coming elections, indeed requiring her expulsion from the party.

(Did the generals learn it from the our policy of bringing defamation suits against the opposition (in a legislature that renders it easier for the plaintiff compared to other judiciaries), resulting in making them bankrupts, and then expediently making election rules ruling out bankrupts from standing for election, indeed even from speaking at elction rallies?)

Not all the rule changes proposed might open to the same suspicion, which itself could be part of the strategising. For then the really suspicious one or two could be more easily hidden among the rest!

Sat 13 Mar 2010 8:06 PM | AnnA

The link is off :P

Anyway.. they sounded like tools to question SDP on behalf of PAP

LoL

Sun 14 Mar 2010 11:17 AM | quantum

Is Singapore a democratic country?

Sun 14 Mar 2010 11:28 PM | Tan Tai Wei

The "Cooling Day" ruling would require all to shut up on polling eve, leaving nothing to distract from the PAP's some half hour campaign on national TV, in a programme where the other parties had to squeeze all they want to say into some two or three minutes "air-time", during that eve of polling "all party political broadcast".

And, of course, SPH and national TV would not stop their reportings of campaign proceedings!

Wed 17 Mar 2010 1:40 PM | Human Rights

Never knew that Singapore's PAP are really a cowardly bunch.I wonder where the constitution is.Dont our parliament have some check and balance minus the two opposition members who dare not speakup in parliament and just warm their seats.Hope it doesnt catch fire oneday!

Thu 18 Mar 2010 4:04 AM | Robox - Cooling Off Day (1)

Everyone knows that Cooling Off Day is a sham befitting of the Mother of all Scammers, the PAP; the implied rationale is that opposition parties are going to work up a frenzy among the electorate, especially over the foreign workers' policy, which would require a whole day of cooling off after which voters will return to their senses and vote the very rational PAP.

Or perhaps the PAP knows instinctively that what goes around does in fact come around, and it's going to come back and hit them real hard this time.

Notwithstanding the above, what is needed in elections campaigns in Singapore for voters to make a true rational decision is not a cooling off day, but a sunstantially longer campaign period.

With all the information - including new information to the majority of voters who don't get their political information online - that is typically thrown up during a campaign, what voters need is *time*, time to *process* all the information that are receiving and then only make their voting decisions.

Rationally.

But here's the problem for the PAP: to vote rationally is to vote the PAP OUT!

And that's precisely what the PAP is afraid of.

Elections campaigns are for humans, and any campaign that doesn't factor in the human aspect of such an event - that processing information by definition takes time and effort - is a conjob of the nth degree.

Thu 18 Mar 2010 12:01 PM | Robox - Cooling Off Day (2)

Another aspect of Cooling Off Day that I would like to address is the fear expressed that the PAP would use the various public institutions to continue propogandizing to the electorate on that day.

It is further feared, fears that are definitely not unwarranted given the PAP's track record in deception, that they would do so under the guise that it is being done as a continuition of the duties of the offices that they are appointed to, for example as the Minister of Health correcting seeming to correct some issues that were raised on health care matters during campaign period.

Should that be the case, I would question the legal technicalities of their actions.

Just prior to elections, the President dissolves Parliament; in our Westminter system, those positions held by the office holders are simultaneously dissolved.

There is no government and the country is run by the bureaucracy.

Were the previous office holders to use their titles or act in their capacity as office holders, it would be illegal, would it not?

I think this is worth investigating; it's a matter of law and order.

Fri 19 Mar 2010 12:54 AM | quantum

PAP's general election results

1955: won 3 of 25 elected seats,NA %. The PAP began as an opposition party with Lee Kuan Yew as opposition leader. The Labour Front won 13 seats and was the governing party.

1959: won 43 of 51 seats, with 53% of the vote (since 1959, voting in Singapore has been compulsory).

1963: won 37 of 51 seats, with 47% of the vote (opposition votes were spilt between the Barisan Sosialis Party and the United People's Party).

1968: won all of the seats, with 84% of the vote.

1972: won all of the seats, with 69% of the vote.

1976: won all of the seats, with 72% of the vote.

1980: won all of the seats, with 77% of the vote.

1984: won all except 2 seats, with 65% of the vote.

1988: won 80 of 81 seats, with 63% of the vote.

1991: won 36 of 40 contested seats, with 61% of the vote.

1997: won 34 of 36 contested seats, with 65% of the vote.

2001: won 27 of 29 contested seats, with 75% of the vote.

2006: won 45 of 47 contested seats, with 66.6% of the vote.

Lee Kuan Yew has won all 12 elections. He will try all means to win the 13th, 14th, ...