Hammer shifts the ground

Ground-shattering news! Worker's Party (WP) hammered People's Action Party (PAP). It won by a clear margin in a 4-way By-Election fight. This is despite the lighting announcement of various goodies by PAP just before the By-Election date.

IMHO, this is good news! Not so much because WP won, but because it means that the voters in Punggol East (and by extension Singapore) have learned to vote strategically. I suspect that under "normal" circumstances, the anti-PAP vote would probably be split between the 3 alternative parties. [Thank goodness, SDP pulled out after its attempt at wayang. See my online discussion with CK in the comments section of this blog post.] In fact, over lunch on Friday with some (ex-)Singaporeans in B.C., Canada, several were betting that PAP would win as a result of the 4-way fight. The fact that WP won by a clear margin means that the voters at Punggol East (and by extension Singapore) has developed/matured -- to look beyond short term "carrots" announced and to align their votes to their most important priority (i.e. send in more opposition MPs by voting for the most likely alternative candidate to win).

Perhaps, just perhaps, there is hope for Singapore yet? I am so looking forward to the General Election 2016. In the meantime, I think PAP will be forced to declare another round of "slaughtering sacred cows" and/or "National CONversation".

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On other news, The Online Citizen (TOC) trumps TODAYonline on timeliness of reporting "Punggol East by-election Polling Day as it unfolds" despite TOC being "crippled" to just a Facebook wall. TODAYonline's descriptive updates seem to hang after 10:25pm (Singapore time), with only the title changed to "Lee Li Lian wins Punggol East by-election". Why ah? Waiting for the editors to approve the "spin", is it?

[Sourced at 11:15pm Singapore time from

The Online Citizen on Facebook]

[Sourced at 11:24pm Singapore time from

TODAYonline "Punggol East by-election Polling Day as it unfolds"]

p.s. Finally, I saw a descriptive update on TODAYonline at 11:42pm (Singapore time) or 7:42am (B.C., Canada time). 2 paragraphs at the top-of-page about WP candidate winning. The TODAYonline URL was changed from the

previous: http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/punggol-east-election-polling-day-it-unfolds

to the updated: http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/lee-li-lian-wins-punggol-east-election

"SINGAPORE - Workers' Party candidate Lee Li Lian has won the Punggol East by-election, taking 54.5 per cent of the valid votes cast, over PAP candidate Koh Poh Koon's 43.7 per cent. 

Returning Officer Yam Ah Mee announced that of 29,415 valid votes cast, Ms Lee had taken a total of 16,038 votes, over Dr Koh's 12,856 votes. SDA candidate Desmond Lim, with 168 votes, and RP chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam, with 353 votes, both forfeited their election deposit." -- quoted from TODAYonline.

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Lastly, is it my eyes or did the red lighting in the PAP's logo grow fatter over the decades? Let me see if I can find my 1970's PAP (Community Foundation) kindergarten report book.

[Update on 30-Jan-2013: Oops, I do not have my kindergarten report book with me. Maybe it's still with my parents or (more likely) maybe it has gone into the trash bin long ago.]