TODAY: Did you get the numbers right?

After­thoughts and com­ments by Neti­zens about the election

WITH the dust still set­tling from Saturday’s polls, check out the post-election quips from our bloggers.

On the still-brewing James Gomez saga, blog­ger “becon­fused” (beconfused.com) won­dered whether it would be the end of the Work­ers’ Party member’s career.

“If the PAP are aggres­sive enough, per­haps it may just be the end of pol­i­tics for James Gomez. In Sin­ga­pore, to sur­vive in pol­i­tics, you will need a squeaky clean image. You wear white,” he said.

Read more at TODAY­on­line: [pdf][text]

Tech­no­rati Tags: elections, prisongotnobroadband, sin­ga­pore, singaporeelections, TODAY

Incidentally, the term "James Gomez" made it to the top ten of technorati.com — the search engine for the blogosphere.
The petition has garnered more than 1,200 signatures since Monday (though it's possible for someone to sign more than once).
After mulling over the close result in Aljunied, blogger "Hairy Donut" (smootie.blogspot.com) wondered: "Is it a crime to fill up a form unnecessarily, or to forget to submit the form after filling it up?

“I believe that Dante did allude to the 10th cir­cle of hell, which must be a spe­cial place reserved for peo­ple who don’t sub­mit their forms and that was such a ter­ri­ble thing that Dante couldn’t bring him­self to men­tion it.”

To this, Aus­tralian expa­tri­ate “Expat@Large” (expat-at-large.com) quipped: “Dante did write that chap­ter, but he for­got to sub­mit it to his publisher.”

Smart quips aside, sev­eral blog­gers had tried pre­dict­ing the elec­tion results, and this led blog­ger “Elia Dio­dati” (diodati.omniscientx.com) to analyse the accu­racy of the blog­gers’ pre­dic­tions, because “every­one in Sin­ga­pore loves rank­ings”.
While reveal­ing that the final count in Chua Chu Kang, Jalan Besar and Alju­nied con­stituen­cies were the “most accu­rately pre­dicted wards”, he explained in detail his methodology:

“I worked out the aver­age num­ber of vot­ers of a ward (75,809) and then com­puted the frac­tional rms devi­a­tion by divid­ing D by 75,809. Sub­tract­ing the frac­tion from one and con­vert­ing it into a per­cent­age finally gives the quan­tity I called the accuracy.”

I know. I have a headache too.

Of the blogs “Elia” listed, SG Elec­tions 06 (www.djourne.net/sgelection06) was the most accu­rate, list­ing its pre­dic­tions along­side actual results, although it shied away from call­ing the result for Potong Pasir.

Blog­ger “Tym” (toomanythoughts.org/blog) was sat­is­fied with the elec­tion results, espe­cially with the Work­ers’ Party’s 44 per cent show­ing in Alju­nied GRC, “even though they hadn’t con­tested that con­stituency before and were going up against a People’s Action Party team that included a Cab­i­net min­is­ter, a mayor, a min­is­ter for state and two not entirely low-profile Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment”.
But what was the impact of blogs and forums on the elections?

Lit­tle, thought vet­eran jour­nal­ist Cher­ian George (singaporemedia.blogspot.com).

“So, what dif­fer­ence did blogs make? There was lit­tle if any­thing that was ‘exclu­sive’ to the blogs. Noth­ing approach­ing inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism,” he wrote.

Still, blog­ger “Votre Coeur” (simpleus.blogspot.com) felt that blogs opened a new per­spec­tive, “though these fresh per­spec­tives may not be any bet­ter or worse than the one by the local media; the reader will have to read both sides of the story and decide for them­selves”. Blog­ger “Mr Cel­lo­phane” (cheewing.blogspot.com) was also of the impres­sion that blog and forum activ­ity dur­ing the hus­tings showed that Sin­ga­pore­ans were far from polit­i­cally apathetic.

“Before the elec­tions, I would assume that most peo­ple would think that Sin­ga­pore­ans were not inter­ested in pol­i­tics and no one really cared about who are the peo­ple in white. I was so wrong just by read­ing stuff on the Inter­net and attend­ing the rally. No mat­ter what party each per­son sup­ports, it is truly encour­ag­ing to read peo­ple being inter­ested in pol­i­tics and want­ing to con­tribute to soci­ety,” he said.

“Mr Cel­lo­phane” was also happy that some incum­bent Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) were returned to Parliament.

“I was glad that peo­ple such as Ong Ah Heng and Seng Han Thong were returned to Gov­ern­ment. I can safely say these are the peo­ple who can really con­nect to the ground. We need more of these peo­ple, who can under­stand the suf­fer­ing of the man in the street,” he added.

To some, the elec­tions have had a pos­i­tive effect on the blo­gos­phere, despite what some per­ceived as a clam­p­down announced shortly before the polls.

“But there is really hope. I really believe it. I see so many blogs with entries on pol­i­tics in this GE, speak­ing with so much con­vic­tion, so much elo­quence; draw­ing with so much effort, so much thought; flick­er­ing with so much pas­sion, so much pre­ci­sion,” wrote blog­ger “Xenoboy” (xenoboysg.blogspot.com).

What other rev­e­la­tions are there for blog­gers in this “water­shed” elec­tions? Blog­ger and PAP cam­paign vol­un­teer “Ephraim Loy” (ephraim.blogspot.com), who was “out­stand­ing in a sea of white” for wear­ing his black T-shirt and jeans when the results were announced, learned some­thing about the lor­ries used for campaigning.

“I used to think that the voices in lor­ries ral­ly­ing for sup­port were done ‘live’. How naive I was then. Now I know, it is all pre-recorded.”

Mr Miyagi aka Ben­jamin Lee has been enter­tain­ing read­ers at miyagi.sg for over two years, and was one of the few kids able to con­vince his par­ents that 67 per cent for his Chi­nese exam­i­na­tions was a good result.

BOXED:

Votre Coeur: “I’m sure the PAP will do
even bet­ter for Sin­ga­pore by learn­ing a
trick or two from the oppo­si­tion party
and a bit of healthy com­pe­ti­tion won’t
hurt.”