She with the brass knuckles

Irene Ng, a Member of Parliament (MP) for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), has somehow acquired a reputation as an unapologetic defender of the PAP style.

She demonstrated this again in a recent letter published in the Straits Times' Forum. That letter was in response to an earlier one by David Cai, titled "Politics in Singapore suffers from an image problem."

You can see both David Cai's letter and Irene Ng's response in the appendix.

David Cai said the "hardline management of political dissent" has given politics a bad name. With people who are comfortable in economic prosperity, it is only natural to insulate themselves from the "minefield" that is politics.

He pointed out that "laws need to be changed to construct a conducive environment in which people are allowed to practise their freedoms." It is necessary, as well, to dispel the "fear of arbitrary legal sanctions."

Irene Ng's tone in her reply was -– guess what? -– hardline. It was, in a way, chilling because she strenuously repeated rather vacuous arguments put up by PAP old-timers without her seeming ever to have paused to think about them. It is the almost born-again fervour with which she argues them that strikes you when you read what she wrote.

There were 7 points in her letter that bear closer analysis.

1. She said, "the key issue is not the right to voice our views, which all of us enjoy, but the quality of the political system, the substance of the political debate and how decisions made can improve the lives of ordinary citizens."

Effectively, she said the right of political expression is conditional. For political expression to be admitted, it has to meet the qualifying tests of (a) substantive quality and (b) whether or not it addresses economics.

In addition, she repositioned the debate into one about the "quality of the political system".

These quality tests act as entry barriers to political speech. Because they are vague and partly subjective, they are also easily configured and reconfigured to suit the incumbent executive.

It is hardly surprising too, that her definition of quality tests narrows the boundaries of political debate to an arena that the PAP is most comfortable with -– economics; ignoring areas where their record is weakest -– rights.

We should also note that bandying around the word "quality" dovetails with the PAP's election platform of offering "quality" candidates, which at the same time implies that other parties' candidates aren't "quality".

See this for what it is: electioneering speech that narrows our horizons rather than broaden them; that substitutes tarring for intelligent substance.

2. Secondly, Irene Ng said, "Singapore has a hard-won international reputation for its high standard of integrity and competence in its politics."

This is where blind faith becomes evident. Admittedly, Singapore has a high reputation for economic administration, it being effective, rational and efficient. But our politics suffers a very bad reputation. We are well known for our constraints on liberties, for arbitrary rules regulating political activity and for the misuse of defamation suits.

We weren't rated 140 out of 167 in the Reporters Sans Frontieres' Press Freedom Index for nothing.

For a Member of Parliament to make such a bald assertion as Ng did, is nothing but a refusal to see reality, hardly a trait that sits well with "integrity" or "competence".

3. In relation to defamation suits, she said, "In such a clean and transparent system, all allegations are investigated and lies refuted."

This is too easy an argument. Nobody seriously says that scurrilous slander should be given free rein. However, there still remain the questions of whether the damages assessed by the courts should be as high as they are, and whether some judgments really stretch logic.

A mature electorate is usually able to see that in politics, sometimes allegations are exaggerated. With public figures, there are many other points of reference, all on the public record, for people to judge whether the allegations are well-founded or not. That is to say, a public person's reputation is more resistant to damage by wild allegations compared to that of a private person.

For private persons, it is in fact harder for bystanders to judge if allegations made against them are true or false, since private persons leave fewer marks on the public record. It could therefore be argued that, for the same libel, damage done to the reputation of a private person is more severe, because he is more vulnerable. Thus the argument that Singapore courts have used, that public persons deserve higher damages, should be quite the other way around.

But beyond the question of fairness, there is also the issue of harm done to Singapore's long-term interest by the PAP's use of defamation suits and their reliance on hefty damages. Far from convincing people that the allegations are false, and restoring the reputation of the plaintiffs, such court cases are seen as iron-fisted attempts to silence opposition. They merely augment the widespread fear of political participation. No society can be healthy in the long run if its people are too fearful to be politically engaged.

4. Then Ng denigrates the US and the UK in her attempt to praise the PAP and its MPs. "The PAP Government and its MPs," she said, "have gained the respect and trust of the people over the years. This is something special."

"In the United States and Britain -- where political debates and scandals dominate -- cynicism with the political system has become widespread, resulting in declining voter turn-outs in their general elections. Politicians rank lower than used-car salesmen in public esteem."

It's interesting how she used voter-turn-outs as indicators of political cynicism.

Conveniently for her, in Singapore, like in Australia, it is compulsory to vote, so we always have turnouts in the high nineties.

But the latest Straits Times' survey of voters aged 21 – 34 found that about 60% of them said they would not be disappointed if there was a walk-over in their constituency and they didn't get to vote. Do we seriously believe that these 60% would still bother to vote if there weren't any penalties for not voting? What would our voter turn-out then be like?

Would it then mean, per Irene Ng's logic, that Singapore's political system is even worse than the the US and Britain's, "where political debates and scandals dominate" (funny how debate is seen as a bad thing)? That politicians here rank lower than used-car salesmen too?

5. "Indeed, if the PAP wants to silence dissent, why should it introduce the Non-Constituency MP scheme to give opposition members at least three seats in Parliament?"

Does she take us all for fools? We all know that the PAP uses the argument that voters should elect a PAP candidate because "alternative views" will still be available in Parliament, either through a PAP MP who is allegedly "non-conformist" or through the guaranteed 3 seats for Non-Constituency MPs (NCMPs).

It takes no great intelligence to know that the legitimacy of NCMPs is rather less than that of fully elected MPs. The people see it that way and the PAP can simply dismiss NCMPs' views as "representing no constituency".

The NCMP scheme serves to improve the PAP's vote-share by making voting for the opposition redundant, thus marginalising dissent. 

6. Next, she said, in politics, "we all have to play by the same rules."

Yes, but the issue that she sidesteps is that the rules are loaded.

For example, how are constituency boundaries drawn? Why is TV airtime for the PAP more than for other parties? Why are the MPs in PAP-held wards the "advisors" to the Citizens' Consultative Committees in those wards, but not the MPs in opposition-held wards?

7. And then she puts on her brass knuckles. "Mr Cai could even consider putting these ideas to the people by contesting in the forthcoming elections himself."

This is an old tactic long used by Lee Kuan Yew: A challenge to an electoral fist-fight, with the implication that if you decline to accept the challenge, then you're a coward and all that you have said have no merit. Politics is only for politicians. If you don't enter the electoral arena, you have no right to speak up.

But is this kind of attitude helpful to Singapore's political development?

 
In a time of an increasingly sophisticated electorate, Ng does us no favours by responding to David Cai in the manner that she has.

© Yawning Bread 

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