One Weekend Of Ill-fated Optimism In Singapore

So this weekend happened in lah-lah-land, one where the winds of political change blew through with semi-wild expectations, but left quickly on Sunday midnight with a foul whiff of conventional tastes, when it coalesced from hopeful whimsy to the a firm, dull block of mediocre expectations of the seemingly change-averse majority. 

I spoke with friends in the couple of weeks leading up this election. My friends are mostly polytechnic or university educated with middle-to-high income jobs. One or two are not working, either by choice or were retrenched. Some were very keen on the rally goings-on and others were quietly feeding off the barrage of information, links and other content coming through Whatsapp, TikTok, Instagram and other social media sources. 

Almost all of them felt that change was coming, in a good way. Seriously. Almost no one believed the fearmongering over the loss of Ministers, doubt over the best party to lead the country through a global economic crisis and that change was dangerous. No one expected anything less than a few more seats taken by the opposition.

When I met some friends on election day itself, they ranted over the way they lost jobs to lower wage foreigners, how the civil service was rife with politics and grandstanding, and how arrogant some political higher ups seems to have become. They felt these sentiments echoed through their network of family, friends and neighbours. No one thought these feelings would not find reflection in electoral results. 

When the sample counts started coming in on Saturday night, our prognoses were proved wrong. 

What happened is also a matter of gazillion opinions, now that the proverbial dust has settled. Here’s my two-long winded-cents worth:

1. The WP did fabulously. Folks who attended their rallies and watched the hustings online felt the genuine conviction they had in serving the people. The opposition party in fact grew their Yes count in Hougang SMC by 1 % and in Sengkang GRC by 4%. Here’s the even bigger kicker - if one averaged out the PAP win percentage across the constituencies where the WP ran as well, the PAP average comes to 49.4% versus a WP average of 50.5%. There is a true, palpable swing towards alternative voices in the east. 

2. It’s incredible that unknown Andre Low almost knocked out much-in-the-news Ng Chee Meng for the Jalan Kayu seat. It’s also unfortunate the leaked Whatsapp message with his less-than-parliamentary rant against a member of public came out to perhaps hurt his image, against someone who, from conjecture is a really disliked individual. One friend told me her relative hates him because removed the discount for kopi-o at fairprice kopitiams, haha. The larger dark cloud was his involvement in the botched Income Insurance Allianz buyout. 

New news has come to light too, after the election - Photo with Su Haijin and Poor form at MOE meeting with teachers. What Lawrence Wong wishes to do with these juicy tidbits will be a test for the whiter-than-white sheen of the victors. 

Given his track record, I might go see my MP and tell him I don't like him. Just for my MP for take note of a citizen's opinion. Hopefully more citizens come forth the same way and eventually some degree of redress takes shape beyond public apologies. Because whiter than white. 

3. I have no idea why Paul Tambyah of the SDP saw a massive drop in support. Perhaps it was as a simple as the PAP candidate working the ground well and hard these past 5 years. 

4. “The smartest man in politics” Chee Soon Juan also almost pulled a rabbit out of the political hat - 46.8% in a tiny square of land in Sembawang. Quite a jarring result for the PAP given that the rest of the GRC supported the incumbents by almost 68%. Do all the dissenters up north live in that tiny enclave of 80 or so HDB blocks on 1 square kilometre of land? 

5. Gigene Wong delivered her Hokkien speech to voters with two incredibly, unreal errors in judgement. Some believe as I do that she cost the SDP a good chunk of votes. Here’s why. The Malay and Indian populations where SDP was canvassing are higher than the national average. See table below. 

When she called her colleague ‘elephant’ versus ‘Ariffin’ and described with a racial slur, it hit home and heart with non-Chinese everywhere. It’s a common enough refrain from Malays and Indians who know of Chinese persons in school, the army, and at work who can’t be bothered to properly remember and pronounce their names, to point where truncations and nicknames are adopted. This even made news in Malaysia. Her apologies were naturally insufficient to undo the harm to the line-up’s credibility, despite how eloquent and clever Arrifin presented himself. The SDP should abide by the slogan Competent, Constructive, Compassionate and seek her withdrawal from the organization for the better. 

6. It perhaps turn out that the date of the election was a small strategic coup for the PAP. The 3rd of May was separated by one day from the May Day holiday, a long weekend for the proper planners of their own annual leave from work. Hence, some Singaporeans were out of the country and did not vote. Let’s take this one step further. Who can afford to take a holiday in May? I postulate someone a tad more affluent, someone perhaps from my gang of friends who have slight tendency for change in the status quo? One friend who was in KL over the weekend communicated disappointment over the choice Punggolians made to a Whatsapp chat group. 

7. Voting is compulsory in Singapore, one of the few democracies in the world that has this rule for its citizens (A good idea overall I feel. One should be required to ensure democracy prevails versus allowing others to make life-changing decisions for you. Well at least a semblance of control.) After each election the Elections Department issues a media statement on the number of voters who cast their ballots. In 2020, this statistic was 95.63% of eligible voters and in 2025, this number declined to 92.47%. It was the lowest turnout since 1968! 

What could it mean? Related to point 6, perhaps it was a bit of coup for the ruling party to have so many people away, given that 3 of the WP contested constituencies had absenteeism percentages above 8%. See table below.

Are some voters also fed up with politics in general, unimpressed with the quality of opposition candidates so they decided that their vote wouldn't matter? Or are they just apathetic to the point of 'it doesn't matter, the PAP wins anyway', a refrain we've all heard time and time again? Or perhaps like some persons, just uninterested in politics in general. The optimist in me likes to imagine that the absent votes would have been cast for the WP in the wards where they lost by a close call. It will be interesting for the Elections Department to provide some demographic data for this set of voters. Are they young or old? What's their economic situation? 

This situation also begs a question about minimum numbers to make an election viable. A quorum so to speak. If it is compulsory for citizens to vote here, then should there be a minimum number of votes required? 90% to ensure opinions measured are kosher? What if one day only 60% of voters show up? 

8. Often commentators observe the turnout at election rallies to perhaps surmise outcomes. Some things I've noticed about election rallies in Singapore are:
- is that they filled with supporters, a given. 
- they are also attended by curious onlookers who just to be seen to have done something interesting or heard for 30 minutes what candidates have said.
- some persons are there because they like to hear people complaining in a public forum. Our democracy is unique in one way because protests are not encouraged or condoned. We have a rarely-occupied Speakers' Corner and the PAP laughed off the SDP's suggestion of having public town halls (as is done in some western countries) to gauge sentiment and hear problems. (Why doesn't the SDP do this at Speakers' Corner anyway to keep their momentum going? I'm sure they will have a healthy supply of people with issues to crow about.) So rallies become a form of entertainment for Singaporeans because it's a rare free show.

Hence it's hard to judge how results will form from such events themselves. I went to see WP twice, at Anchorvale and at ASRJC, and SDP once in Sembawang. 

9. It's Singapore's 60th birthday this year and perhaps two generations of citizens have lived through these formative years of nation building. What's curious to me is how the fearmongering still worked. Perhaps Trump's madness was enough to stoke the fears of job losses and economic turmoil across the Pacific, so that the incumbents could use it to their advantage from a "been there done that" angle to "save" Singaporeans from blunt force trauma of recession and hardship. It worked, alongside the message around the loss of ministers would be akin to disaster, that CDC vouchers are enough to cushion a badly-timed GST increase, and all else is noise. Most of us are not ready to take a leap of faith, close but not yet.

10. I like how the WP said they don't wish to take over the government but provide enough opposition, one-third representation, to not allow the PAP carte blanche when pushing policies across. I feel this a fair target, something all Singaporeans should support. 

That's about it for now. This feeling of coming-in-a-close-second will fade away with time as life goes on. But for now, let me end with a long, wail of a sigh. 

5 Things Over CNY

1. Catholic High Toilets Suck 

Apparently, the toilets in the school are in such a sad state that kids are afraid to use them. There are apparently creepy crawlies about and the kids not used to objectionable live insectoid or arachnid content have to hold it in till they get home or find a bush outside. Parents have apparently complained about the situation to the folks in charge at the highest levels. Does alumnus Lee Hsien Loong know? 

 2. A Rhyme For Bear Mitigation

I was relating to one friend about another mutual friend’s acquisition of a cabin of sorts in the woods in a relatively nearby destination. A charming set up one might say, not quite without the inconveniences of rustic life like a portable heater, wood burning stove, and also bears in winter time. Lovely. Friend A was slightly aghast and remarked there’s a rhyme about what to do when encountering the cuddly things. She later forwarded me this little colour-centric ditty: “If it’s brown, lay down. If it’s black, fight back. If it’s white, good night.” (The “good night” means you’re done for. Also you’d be in the Arctic and best have the right means of weather and other protection.) No word on meeting a Yogi Bear. Namaste perhaps?

 3. Router TTL 

I've jumped ISPs, from ViewQwest whom I’ve been with for about 3 years to Whizcomms. The only reason for jumping is budget. I am now getting the same service output for half the price. When the Whizcomms guy came around to give me the network terminal, he told me that my Nighthawk Mesh would take a 5-10 minutes to latch on to the new service. Guess what? It took hours. I was in the middle of an episode of Law & Order SVU when the break in transmission had to happen. I tried restarting and resetting the routers, upgrading their firmware, trying a direct wired feed - nothing would get the base station working, it’s angry orange light projecting its disdain of uselessness at me. I gave up and went for yoga in the evening, and met a pair of friends for dinner. Upon understanding my tale of telecommunication woe, the more technically inclined part of the duo told about something called router Time To Leave. This is when the main router requests a new IP address from the ISP to keep everything running kosher. Apparently, this could be happening every 4 hours. When i got home that night, all was good. Blue light indicators for peak connectivity. 

 4. Mahjong Noises 

After a bit of cajoling, I ended up playing mahjong on the first Saturday of the Snake Year. ("Wah wah wah Gurmit, you can play mahjong ah?!) At this event, it got cute. One player who needed the Cat tile made meowing noises to elicit the said tile at her next pick up. And it worked! All of us had a good chuckle. Then another player asked “Then Centipede how?” and Cat Tile Diviner replied with a snippy kind of noise a beaver might make. I replied “No, the only noise you can get is when the Centipede bites someone, and the victim goes “Ow!””. So said second player went “Ow!” and immediately drew up the Centipede tile. OMG. We all went berserk and nearly woke up the sleeping baby in the other room. 

 5. Cedele Chocolate Cherry Loaf 

OMG it’s da bomb. Rich and delicious, perfect with coffee. https://cedele.com/products/chocolate-cherry-loaf

I Saw Conclave - Spoiler Alert

 **SPOILER ALERT**

You would think that selecting the Pope would be a boring, systematic affair but the writer Peter Straughan and director Edward Berger turned the Robert Harris novel into a riveting cinematic experience. A beautifully shot film that makes the most of art, angles and architecture in a supposedly small space to creates a wonderful display of motion and colours. The director’s manipulation and clever use of light and space makes for a lovely visual journey. The quick scenes of the cardinals’ arrivals is a lovely introduction to the reality of old men hanging about - it made me laugh inside, even the low shot of the many cigarette butts from the corner where some holy men had to light up prior to being 'locked up'. Clever and insightful. There’s one scene where all the cardinals in red robes over white frocks walked slowly across a square with white umbrellas for a rapturous 30 seconds to give everyone a magical treat of contrast, movement and quiet determination. And you’ll hear English, Italian, Spanish and Latin across the 120 minutes, all the languages of the powers that defined the Church’s proliferation across the world. 

The wikipedia page describes Conclave as a political thriller, haha. You wouldn’t think that members of the clergy were so driven for power but i reckon this would hark some semblance of reality when a Pope does need to be chosen. When the proceedings start and the cardinals are isolated to make their decisions, one cardinal who remarks over a meal how the group was split by language and ethnicity, and that was how the voting would align. He was not wrong, initially anyway. Secret little groups form, and people talk to persuade. Rumours arise, confrontations happen and secrets are unscrambled. The fun takes time to be revealed so be patient. 

Also brilliant was how what was happening outside the closed door proceedings affected the cardinals in terrifying split-second drama. I literally gasped and held my hands to my face when the glass shatters, splintering the scene of calm, resigned process and prayer to one of shock and awe. Amazingly, that scene lets in light reminiscent of focused beams from holy heaven on high in some of Renaissance art, illuminating the face of the reluctant leader. 

The writing is superb. From little jokes that give the cardinals a sense of regular humanity to the multiple, passionate (yet sometimes subtle) monologues, there is additional triumph from taking the words of a book and bringing them to life. Of course, the actors made and stole the show. Ralph Fiennes is remarkable. From the lines of his face, his gentle expressions, the composed demeanour to the outbursts and emotional weight delivered, Ralph Fiennes encapsulates what it means to be the lead actor. You'll feel his inner and outward torment, from screen to your seat. He is in almost all of the 2 hour film from start to end. Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow play great supporting characters but Ralph Fiennes as Dean Lawrence does the heavy lifting with aplomb and finesse befitting an Oscar winner. The great thing about some actors is the subtleties in their expressions and actions. I don’t know if the director would have asked them to change something for a retake but nonetheless it is the actor who has to make things happen for the cinema patron. And Ralph Fiennes is definitely that kind of actor. 

Another actor worth mentioning is Sergio Castellitto who played Cardinal Tedesco. His one minute of deliberate anger aimed at securing his votes for the Papal throne is exquisite. One must of course also give kudos to Isabella Rosellini for her two separate minutes of delightful gravitas, one in silence where she gives Dean Lawrence a countenance on the edge of a death stare, and another where she simply takes control a scene of bickering men and provide a sharp verbal delivery of veracity. (Then we hear “Judas!” - one of the best moments of the film). 

This film is too good. Conclave for the win everyone. All the stars. 

Hello HR, One Interview Only Please

I met a couple friends for lunch a few days ago and we happened to chat about job interviews. One friend mentioned that his wife who’s a C-suite in an MNC has to go through 5 rounds of interviews with a panel for any new significant hire. I related that I know of someone who had to go through 8 or 9 rounds at another firm for job (another he didn’t get the job, boy was he pissed). 

Same friend then told a story where 1) he interviewed with someone who truly wanted him for the role, 2) helped this potential future boss plan out work for the current team and 3) iron out budgets  - all this during the hiring process. Potential future boss then said there was one step left - to meet the CEO. The boss of bosses met my friend for all of ten minutes max and reported to HR that he didn’t like the candidate. My friend said after that the CEO was looking for someone better looking and in a skirt. We all had a chuckle but appreciated how painfully farcical the situation he endured was.

I talked how in my last job I sat in with my then boss to vet through a number of candidates. I felt we had a ‘good enough’ person at interview no1 - good enough experience, knew the landscape, logical thinking, and sounded trainable. The next few people we saw all were oddballs looking for a pedestal or a way out. My boss wanted someone who “had new ideas” on top of managing a team for “excellence”. In the end, we hired no one and lost the headcount. LOL. All that time down the drain. Imagine the manhours. I have another friend who works in one team but gets asked to sit in a panel to interview new hires in another team to assess for “fit”. He rolls his eyes he says each time he gets these invites. If a 5-person panel has to sit through 3 rounds for an hour, that’s 15 x whatever baseline manhour rate each person is worth. Easily thousands of dollars right there with just one candidate! 

We all agreed that all this madness could be better tightened up through the probation period. Get a “good enough” candidate to start, monitor his/her KPIs, check with the team about fit and decide at the end of a month if he/she is the right hire. Simple. Why go through the madness of time wasting with multiple interviews? No one is perfect but let them develop into perfection.