Today state media reported Desmond Lee as saying “West Coast Group Representation Constituency may be down one Member of Parliament, but the remaining MPs have stepped up to ensure “no gap in service” for residents,” This follows Iswaran’s conviction and jailing.

Isn’t that for the residents, and in particular the ethnic minority residents, to decide, Desmond? How incredibly arrogant of you to feel that you can just leave a seat which is reserved for an ethnic minority vacant until the next GE.

West Coast is not the only GRC to be missing a minority MP. Jurong also is missing its Indian Minority MP since Tharman resigned to become President. Sengkang is missing its sole minority MP after Raesah Khan’s forced resignation. And Aljunied is missing a minority MP after Leon Perera was similarly forced to resign (though arguably that’s less serious since ethnic minorities were the majority anyway.

The fact that so many GRCs are missing minority MPs while at the same time the PAP assert that the other MPs in the GRC can cover the missing MP’s Meet the People Sessions shows the utter hypocrisy of the PAP’s claim that GRCs are necessary to ensure minority representation. In fact they act as a drag on the election of minority MPs because of the assumption that the non-minority seats can only be contested by Chinese candidates and that that only a majority of majority race MPs can win in an election. Prior to Leon Perera’s departure there were three minority MPs in Aljunied.

It should be easy to carve out the seats that are missing MPs and hold by-elections for them. The fact that the PAP refuse to do so shows their profoundly anti-democratic attitude and the extent to which they rely on the GRC system to get their frequently mediocre and unelectable candidates into Parliament. Having to hold elections at all is an inconvenience and holding as few as possible is their goal while at the same time getting their friends in the Western media, paid or otherwise rewarded or simply gullible, to call Singapore a democracy.

Reform Party has called since its founding for the GRC system to be abolished and for us to return to the system of SMCs which existed before 1988. Far from leaving minorities underrepresented the likely reality is that minority MPs will be over-represented in Parliament relative to their share of the population. PAP will never abolish the system since they regard it as a key prop to their continued dominance of Parliament which has 90% of the seats going to PAP MPs on only 60% of the vote. Abolishing the GRC system and holding by-elections as soon as possible after a seat is left should be one of the first tasks of a new government.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam