Young Democrat off for 3-month stint in European Parliament

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Tuesday, 12 January 2010

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Muhd_Shamin_Young_Democrats Young Democrat (YD) Muhd Shamin left for Brussels, Belgium on Sunday evening to begin a three-month internship in the European Parliament (EP). The internship program is organised for member parties of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) which the SDP is the current chair.

Mr Shamin has been preparing for this trip for weeks and told friends when they sent him off yesterday: "I am really excited about the trip. Rarely are Singaporean youths given the opportunity to study Europe's political system and to do an internship with the European Parliament."

The Young Democrat will be involved with research as well as drafting position papers in the EP. He will also spend time in Strasbourg, France which is the other location of the EP.

Interns are paid a stipend that will help them with their meals and accommodation.

Apart from parliamentary work Mr Shamin will also be exposed to advocacy initiatives of certain non-government organizations (NGOs) in Europe. Unlike in Singapore, European lawmakers regularly consult and work with civil society to improve on the quality of laws that they make as well as to enhance the process of legislation.

This stint is invaluable for Mr Shamin personally as well as for the party. The knowledge he gains will contribute to the growing experience of a dedicated group of young SDP members who will assume leadership positions in the party in future.

"I hope to establish contacts with groups there and bring back knowledge and experience that I can share with the YD," Mr Shamin said. "Hopefully, this will bring about new concepts and ideas that will contribute towards the struggle for change in Singapore."

While the YD member hopes to hit the ground running when he arrives in Brussels, he was a little more worried about the European weather.

"There's a cold snap going through England," he said warily, "but I guess I'm prepared. I've got my winter clothes ready!"

The internship programme is organized by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and Friedrich Naumann Foundation to give promising young politicians and activists exposure to parliamentary work.

The interns come from the various member parties of the Council Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD). Past interns from Singapore were Mr Charles Tan (who is currently studying in Australia) and Mr M Ravi.

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Comments (4)

Tue 12 Jan 2010 2:46 PM | Newton Heath - Truly Democratic Party

SDP, is a truly democratic party and my sincere respect goes to them and their efforts in sending youths to such programme. I hope the interns in return would be staunch and grateful to SDP n to the spirit of democracy.

Sincere Regards

Tue 12 Jan 2010 6:17 PM | Seelan Palay

Bon Voyage, Shamin!

Wed 13 Jan 2010 2:16 AM | Robox

Re: "The knowledge he gains will contribute to the growing experience of a dedicated group of young SDP members who will assume leadership positions in the party in future."

Anyone who followed the Alex Tan-Sear Hock Rong fracas would have learnt one fundamental truth about the YPAP: the PAP's youth wing doesn't exist to train and groom future political leaders for their party, the reason that youth wings worldwide exist in the first place.

Instead, the YPAP is a space for inducting young, corruptible, and self-serving Singaporeans into the PAP's crony network and entrench even further this system of corruption; this crony network also serves a vote bank for the PAP.

The revelations regarding Sear Hock Rong's too-cosy-for-comfort business relationship wit PAP is hadly an isolated incident.

We need look no further for confirmation of this than at the next elections when the PAP will trot out its new candidates: there is a high possibility - as in all previous elections - that NONE of the new candidates are or were ever YPAP members.

The contrast between the SDP's and PAP's youth wings couldn't be more glaring.

Tue 19 Jan 2010 8:33 AM | Robox

It is very enviable that one of the things that Mohd Shamin will be learning to do is to write position papers.

Position papers are very substantial documents, and publicity for it usually takes place at news conferences which are also filmed by the broadcast media that is present, and then often reported in the TV news. Of course, the media that is contacted is first given a copy of the position paper for their perusal as well as to base their questions on at the news conference. (It is also standard practise for the media liason to first establish good relations on the party's behalf with the media outlets from the outset; the chances of their attendance at the news conference/s are enhanced by this.)

Only the new media has so far been willing to carry news on the SDP, and here I would include some of the more prominent media owners like those who own their personal blogs. I would like to suggest that, should the party have a position paper on any policy, it could hold a news conference where it can field questions - anticipate what they could be first and prepare the answers for them ahead of time - and address them. The media present are then free to report the event in their media outlets; discussion could then pursue and some measure of the SDP's end goal of democracy can then be accomplished even if it is confined for the time being in the private arena.