The naivete of those desperate to see change where little exists
So I happened to chance upon a link posted by TOC FB, to Ravi’s blog (who is TOC’s chief editor). Ravi posted a screenshot asking if a certain controversial MP had come around and learned to take criticisms in her stride. Ravi cited a Facebook post, ostensibly linked by TPL in linking to a Youtube clip which mocks her now infamous behaviour of stamping her feet:
Some thoughts on Temasek Review and the Presidential Election
I’ve not written much recently, given work commitments which allows me only enough time to catch up on stories during weekdays and write on weekends. But I thought I should say something about Temasek Review.
Temasek Review has been offline since 5th Sept, and there’s no word from the main site as to what happened to the web admins. I hope that they are all right and would continue to run the website.
Many online folks blame TR for endorsing Tan Jee Say who won 25% of the votes, a distant finish compared to Dr Tan Cheng Bock who nearly upset the eventual PE winner Tony Tan by less than 1%. Some critics of the establishment have even called it a fiasco. Yet others have gone even further and baselessly claimed that TR is an ISD or PAP-backed website which supported TJS with the secret intention of helping Tony Tan win the PE. I beg to disagree.
I believe such a view however is poorly thought out and misinformed. The key argument I put forward here is that Tony Tan would have performed much better if TR wasn’t around. My own take on this was that TR played a critical role in publicising stories which drove up negative perception of Tony Tan, causing him to win just over 35% of the vote despite the fact that he was much more well-known by the public. I believe that if TR hadn’t existed, or had not reported the way it did, Tony Tan would probably have had won with over 40% of the vote.
George Yeo’s cryptic message reconsidered
This post is largely a speculative one. Readers who dislike rumours should ignore this.
Right on the eve of Cooling-off day on 25th August, former Minister George Yeo posted this cryptic message on his Facebook wall:
Dr Tan Cheng Bock as Dr Subtle
During the presidential campaign, many opposition voters and strong establishment critics expressed lukewarm support towards Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s campaign. Most frustrating to them were his repeated remarks that the President cannot engage in day-to-day policy debate with the government, and that the role of the Cabinet and Parliament must be respected. Similarly, these people might have been disenchanted with his refusal to publicly promise that he will cut the President’s salary or donate it to charity (and even indirectly criticised Tan Kin Lian for having promised so). In reality, though Dr Tan refrained commenting publicly on policy or current events, he did so in his own unusual way.
While Dr Tan was not half as confrontational as Mr Tan Jee Say, he was in fact sending disguised messages of solidarity to establishment critics in the conduct of his presidential campaign. Unfortunately it appeared that few amongst the more fired-up establishment critics deciphered those messages and most went heavily for Tan Jee Say on Polling Day.
A non-partisan case against Tony Tan as President
The question of independence has periodically arisen for the various presidential candidates. But much of it thus far has been focused on questions of partisan independence; how independent a candidate can be said to be from the ruling party. In this post, let’s look at the issue of independence from another perspective. There’s good reason to believe that Dr Tony Tan would be in a serious conflict of interest if he is elected President since he left Singapore’s GIC as its deputy head only very recently (1st July 2011). For the purposes of this post, let’s avoid talking about anything related to Tony Tan’s past record as Cabinet minister.
For the moment let’s ignore his record of past support for the graduate mothers scheme, his refusal to extend tax breaks for lower-educated mothers, his role in doubling the foreign student quota in local universities through overseas recruitment and generous scholarships and grants, his son’s questionable NS stint, his record of pushing for CPF contribution cuts in 1985 and later in 2003 when he argued labour costs in Singapore are getting too high, and who angrily opposed Ong Teng Cheong’s move to approve a workers’ strike in the shipping industry in 1986 when the management exploited the workers. Indeed it’s hard to look past those, but let’s just set that aside for now.
Let’s just focus on the issue of whether Tony Tan would be considered sufficiently independent from the standpoint of corporate governance.
An apology to Prof Alfred Huan
I received an email from Prof Alfred Huan requesting that I delete all references to him in a previous post. Prof Alfred Huan did not give prior permission to myself to publicise his comments meant for his friends’ eyes only. I apologise for not having sought his permission before publishing it first. It is not my intention to get him involved in a (national) debate over concerns of whether NS-obligated talents are treated fairly and consistently.
I noted then that I would comply if he requested that I delete the post and I have done so.
However, some people had already commented on the post and I feel it does not violate his privacy if I were to republish them here. Here are some of the more interesting comments posted:
Prof Huan is my mentor when I studied physics in NUS. He’s a very good lecturer who makes me think a lot about the subject, particularly in electromagnetism. He also gave very tough open book exams but I think that it helps to make me stronger in the subject when I studied overseas. I agree with what Fox said. Alfred tried very hard to help me in my career not in my best times, but in my hard times. I am very grateful to him for the help and I know that he’s a person who helps to build up local people. Even things do not work out, I spent my time to help the students from NTU whenever both his staff and him passed them to me.
August 16, 2011 at 10:42 AM
No wonder we have to import “foreign talents” for our Research Institutes.
I never knew our “real local talent” had it so tough.
But I guess if you don’t demolish these local talents when they are young, they will never learn.
“Remember your place in society before you engage in political debate… Debate cannot degenerate into a free-for-all where no distinction is made between the senior and junior party… You must make distinctions – what is high, what is low, what is above, what is below, and then within this, we can have a debate, we can have a discussion… people should not take on those in authority as ‘equals’”.
George Yeo
– Straits Times, Feb 1994.NB:
No mention is made of what is true and what is false.
What is valid and what is invalid.
So just how meritocratic and liberal was George Yeo?Another Ray of Sunshine Penetrates the Drakness
August 16, 2011 at 2:04 PM
The remainder of this post will simply be what is left of the original post after eliminating all references to Prof Alfred. As you can see there’s not much left.
Nothing new in the National Day Rally speech
I didn’t catch PM Lee’s speech yesterday, so I’m relying entirely on media reports and a rough transcript (in point form) provided by the PMO here. So if there’s something Lee said but which was not captured in the transcript, I would have missed it out.
I was surprised by media coverage such as Yahoo’s headline PM Lee’s speech marks new phase of engagement: Analysts and PM Lee unveils new ‘Singaporeans-first’ policies. Was there really a dramatic policy turnaround in what he proposed? I decided to take a closer look. It turns out that most of the changes have either already been announced before or were strongly hinted at. I don’t see anything new.
Update: The state media is in a frenzy spinning the NDR speech as something refreshing. Look at the headline Policy changes to put S’poreans first.
Dr Tony Tan as activist President
Aren’t Presidents supposed to be neutral on policies? As Minister Shamugam today reiterated:
LAW Minister K Shanmugam said on Friday that the process of direct elections does not change the scope of the Elected President’s powers as set out in the Constitution.
And the Constitution states that the President can speak on issues only as authorised by the Cabinet, he said at a Institute of Policy Studies forum.
Conservative voters might fear an activist President. Most people would cite Mr Tan Kin Lian as an example of a likely activist President if he won the race. But what about Dr Tony Tan? Yahoo News SG reported today that Dr Tony Tan had said the following:
“With my background in these areas… I believe that I will be able to make a contribution to and help the government and ministers involved in this to understand the situation better,” he said, adding that his experience as executive director of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) has given him “intimate knowledge” of the global financial market.
The riddle of GIC’s performance and CPF funds
Ok let’s try to talk about something other than Dr Patrick Tan’s national service. GIC released its annual report last week. Unlike most investment funds, GIC doesn’t provide year-on-year performances. It reports its performance in the form of a rolling annualised 20 year rate of return in USD. So there’s no way to know, unlike for Temasek Holdings, how much GIC lost or made in a single year. So we make do with what we have.
Now most people, including myself is under the impression that CPF monies are managed by GIC which invests them overseas. Call this the CPF-GIC model. I recall reading a book by Rodney King, The Singapore Miracle which says that GIC is barred from investing in the domestic market because it is feared that its large size may destabilise the markets with its investment moves. True or not, I’ve no idea. But what’s particularly interesting is GIC’s performance as reported.
Some questions on Dr Patrick Tan’s NS stint
By now, most people have already heard about Dr Patrick Tan’s NS stint which recently raised eyebrows all over cyberspace given that he served in a special capacity. So let me add on to that. Some of what will be discussed here has already been raised in an email sent to Mohd Nizam who would be meeting Dr Patrick Tan on Friday. Here’s some background and intro to who Mohd Nizam is. I didn’t expect Mr Nizam to publicise the email, which he did after informing me and somehow it ended up on TR with the contributor identified as Curious here.
Here are some preliminary background information on which this post is based. Dr Patrick Tan’s CV is found here and his press release is archived here. I’m not including the press statement by Dr Tony Tan himself because he says nothing apart from that he’s “deeply disappointed” with rumours.
Warning: This will be a long post. It’s hard to keep it short when there are so many questions.
Let’s begin with the original reply by Dr Tony Tan’s office which started it all.
