The long awaited Parliament has finally opened and everything is planned by the ruling PAP, including the election of the Speaker of the house, the seating arrangement and the President’s address for the next five years.
However, the first thing the oppositions ask for is to have more time to speak to voice out for the people. The opposition Workers’ Party chief Low Thia Khiang has to urge the Speaker for more opportunities for opposition MPs to speak.
Why is there a need or urge to request for more time and opportunity to speak if we have more opposition members of Parliament? So, don’t stop at six, in the next election, we should elect more opposition MPs to truly represent us in the Parliament, or even forming the alternative government.
NCMP is a short term solution and we should make it irrelevant in the next election. In order to do that we need more people to come forward to represent and support the oppositions.
As Chen Show Mao said, “I hope that by the small examples of more and more people around us taking small steps forward, Singaporeans will be more encouraged, will be less fearful, will find it more normal, to speak up, ask questions and become more actively engaged in politics. And he stressed that “At this point in our nation's history, the act of coming forward is an act of public service. Taking the first step forward makes half the journey.”
Six opposition MPs is really a under representation for the oppositions. It is even not enough to form a shadow cabinet and so how to have a full debate on every issue. There is also a lack of resource support and think tank advisory. Hence, we may not have the opportunity to see high quality debate in other major democracies, perhaps, not even the standard of the Malaysia Parliament debates.
Simply because it is a PAP “controlled’ parliament due mainly to the overwhelming number of PAP MPs in the Parliament. WP MPs will need some good strategies to break the monopoly and control.
No only we need capable people to stand for the oppositions, we also need more voters to support the oppositions. 49.9% support will not win you a MP seat in the first past the post one to one election. If you want to have more alternative voices, do as the Aljunied and Hougang voters do, vote decisively in the next election!
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