Secret blog of a P65 MP: Part 4

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Dear Blog,

I know we will never hear the end of it until we appear to be engag­ing the pub­lic in cyber­space. Like I said, we are all very busy, and although it is only myself, Lam Pin Min and Baey Yam Keng who are actively blog­ging, the pub­lic should rest assured that our views are the same once we put them online.

That is why we were selected to be on this team, and you can rest also rest assured that the 100 short­listed to be PAP can­di­dates are also of the same mind. Our aim has always been for a sta­ble lead­er­ship and succession.

I whole­heart­edly dis­agree with what some peo­ple (includ­ing my young nephew) say about Sin­ga­pore­ans not aspir­ing to become lead­ers, and that not many peo­ple would want to state their ambi­tion as “becom­ing PM”.

You become suc­cess­ful first, then we talk. That has always been a guide­line to choos­ing lead­ers. If you can’t run your house­hold or your com­pany prop­erly, what chance do you have of bal­anc­ing the bud­get, and of lead­ing the coun­try? It is the same even in Euro­pean coun­tries like the United King­dom.

And I know there are many chil­dren who list “being suc­cess­ful” as their ambi­tions, so how can you say that peo­ple don’t want to be lead­ers of the country?

That said, whether or not these selected 100 would make it as MPs is now also going to depend on how well they engage the pub­lic online. I have taken it upon myself to men­tor them in this way, as I am proud to be an active blog­ger and online citizen.

Con­tin­u­ing the debate on suc­ces­sion of lead­ers, some crit­ics have insisted that it is still an elit­ist and exclu­sion­ary sys­tem of selec­tion, but let me put it to you. If your lead­ers are not elite, then what chance is there of mak­ing the coun­try elite in a region of Third World countries?

And as for exclu­sion­ary, that is sim­ply not true. If you are suc­cess­ful in your cho­sen field, we will def­i­nitely take a look at you. The cri­te­ria is suc­cess, and even if you are Ah Seng or Ah Kow, or Gopal or Mah­mud or De Souza, and you run a pro­vi­sion shop so suc­cess­fully that it becomes a major regional hub for logis­tics, rest assured we will give you a call.

I know, many read­ers are wait­ing to see what Kan Seng has to say about the Mas Sela­mat Escape tomor­row. I myself am hold­ing my breath in antic­i­pa­tion, because I haven’t been told about this either. Only Cab­i­net knows so far, and they’re not telling. I can’t tell from their expres­sions either, so I’m not sure whether it’ll be good news or bad news.

What I am sure of is that there will be mea­sures taken to ensure this does not hap­pen again if we catch another JI sus­pect who is likely to escape.

We will blog about this, I promise.

–P65 Roxx!