Sunday, April 24, 2011
A First World parliament is one which allows for pluralistic political participation in a fair contest via electory process, and it is empowerment of the people which is an entitlement, not a privilege.
It is supposed to provide for multiple checks and balances by political parties in the parliament, and with particular regard to the ruling party:
the presence of political representatives with voting rights in parliament helps ensure that ruling party does not abuse its power.
As good as it may be, no political party is infallible and invulnerable to corruption.
That's why the famous novel Animal Farm is such a classic work, because the lesson is clear to all politicians:
power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
All political parties should heed this mantra in governance. We should ignore absurd rebuttal against this well-meaning and well-conceived vision for our country's future political landscape.
Without political hegemony in parliament,
absurd bills that can grant any parties the opportunity to put personal interest over the nation's will not be passed,
absurd bills that can grant any party the full power to enact draconian laws targeted at suppressing other political rivals will not be passed,
and absurd legislation that can grant any party the power to rob the people of basic, rightful liberties will not be passed.
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Saturday, April 23, 2011
There are strong arguments that companies will relocate to other countries if Singapore can't offer them lower labour cost. But this argument is flawed. Low labour cost is definitely not the main reason why foreigners invest in Singapore. There are many other reasons i.e. political stability, productivity and knowledge level of workforce, financial system, taxation, ease of access to regional markets etc. Being a developed or a rapidly developing country(whatever you call it), Singapore is never going to be able to compete in low labour cost. Otherwise, foreign investment can just invest directly into China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam etc etc. We are long past that stage that we need low labour cost to attract investment in Singapore.
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011
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