Phwee

Though it does not really concern me and it's more or less a sure victory, I still held my breath for the Taiwan Presidential Elections. It was such a relief to find out that Ma Ying Jiu had won the elections!! wohoo~~

I always like Ma, he's charismatic, speaks good English and is pretty much a very rational person (i.e. he dun poke the hornet's nest just for fun). I honestly feel that with Ma in the office, Taiwan would finally recover from its slum and be back on its feet as one of the five Asian Dragon..

I've caught snippets of speech by both Ma and Xie and I have to say i'm very impressed; really impressed by Xie's sportsmanship and Ma's genuine concern for the people of Taiwan. Xie is a graceful loser, it may be just a show, but it takes a man to admit defeat and show support to his opponent.

Ma impressed me with his humble thank you speech. He was humble and unpretentious, again it might be his showmanship but I could really feel that he was speaking from his heart when he mentioned that he still have a lot of work to do, and he will hard to gain the support of the 5m voters who had voted for Xie. And I was even more impressed by his promise to help anyone who approaches him for help, regardless if he's a green or blue supporter.

That is not an easy promise, why should you help someone who voted for the other party?? Simple, coz everyone is a Taiwanese, regardless of their politician inclination, everyone is a citizen of the nation and thus deserves the same treatment. Reasonable eh, but not in the Singapore context. Our dear political party in power would never be caught dead making such a promise, just look at our upgrading projects.. They had made it clear that upgrading is not done on the basis of merit (i.e. which means that the oldest estate does not get priority), instead it's based on how the residents have voted. If you vote for PAP, then your estate get priority for upgrading. Who cares about the old houses in hougang and potong pasir, it's your fault that you dun vote for pap.

Now is that right?? Where does the money for the upgrading come from?? Public funds of course, does pap own our public funds?? I hope the answer is no. Since it's public funds, what rights do they have to use it for their own purpose (i.e. servicing their own estates), it's just not right. Do the people in Hougang and Potong Pasir not pay tax? It's just not right.

And this is not the only thing I can think of which is not right. My in-law works at a pap kindergarten, guess what she was made to do during the elections, she had to attend a rally, not coz she wants to, but she was "asked" to. Asked is a nice word, required is a more accurate term. And my friend who works at our trade union told me the other day that he was asked to knock on the doors of residents to inform them that their MP is visiting during elections period, which was totally fine, except that he does not work for pap.

Is it right that our ruling party uses public resources to help them in their campaigning? Is it right that our ruling party uses public funds to further their hold on the people?

I'm not anti-pap, I agree with alot of the work and policies which they had done, I think they had done a fantastic job over the years and I do believe that they would continue to do a great job. But I like to think of myself as patriotic, and being patriotic does not mean that I have to echo everything the ruling party says.. instead if I feel that something they said or done is wrong, I should speak out about it, and that's what I'm doing now. This is not to discredit what they had done, but they are still people and not saints, they can make mistakes and that's what I'm trying to point out.