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COMMENT: GE2011: Where are we now, three years on?

Voters wait for the gates to open at a polling centre in Singapore. Singaporeans went to the polls on Saturday with opposition parties hoping to reduce the government's overwhelming majority amid voter discontent over the cost of living and immigration policies

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.

I’m sure everyone remembers something of the GE2011 period, whether it was the rousing roar of the huge crowds at Workers’ Party rallies or the moments of hilarity – who can forget Lui Tuck Yew’s not-so-subtle mushroom fable?

The PAP definitely remembers the last election and its lowest ever vote-share. It’s going to pull out all the stops to make sure that it fares better (or at least doesn’t get worse) in the next round. The government’s rolled out more social policies, such as the Pioneer Generation Package. GST Rebate Vouchers are going to be sent out again, and the property market is finally coming down a little bit. (Yay for the disappearance of COVs, not that this means I can afford a resale flat!)

We are still a long way from establishing a more equal society with universal human rights, but I guess the PAP hopes that these steps will win back some of the disgruntled voters. That said, a recent event has shown how anger against the PAP government is still bubbling away.

Speaking at a community celebration of the Indian New Year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was reported as saying that Singapore belongs to all who live here, be they Singaporeans, PRs, new arrivals or those on employment passes.

The comment was actually fairly innocuous, one of those nice-sounding statements that politicians trot out at events. Usually these comments are taken with a huge pinch of salt, and then everyone moves on.

This time, though, the comment was found to be provocative, abhorrent and unacceptable. The Prime Minister was accused of selling his country to foreigners, insulting Singaporeans and labelled a “traitor”. The comment, and the use of the word “belong”, was quickly taken as a sign that the PAP had once and for all forsaken the rights of Singaporeans by giving foreigners an equal share of what should be solely ours.

As far as gloriously bad quotes from PAP ministers go, this one should barely even have registered on the list. The rage that it triggered was a clear sign that all is not well for the party, and that people’s anger over the effects of the government’s immigration policies will not abate anytime soon.

It’s a sad situation: the PAP has backed itself into a corner and now there is no way it can engage in any rational conversation on such an important matter. Through its own arrogance and history of discriminatory polices it has contributed to tensions, prejudice and divisions between communities while also losing the moral high ground from which a country’s leaders could have urged its people to turn away from hatred, racism and xenophobia. PM Lee was right when he called the racist and xenophobic commenters who flamed and harassed the organisers of Philippines Independence Day a “disgrace”; what was unfortunate was that he was just about one of the worst people to say it, being part of the party that has fed the problem for years.

At the rate things are going, it’s a fairly safe bet to say that immigration is going to be a major election issue again. We can expect alternative parties to play up this angle, with many references to the foreigners that make up a sizeable chunk of Singapore’s population. I hope that they will talk about the issue in a mature way rather than a “foreigners are stealing all the jobs and the PAP is selling us down the river” way. We shall see.

When it comes to the conversation on immigration, there are few ways in which the PAP can win right now. To tackle the unhappiness, it is going to need more than levies and quotas. It is going to need to address the fundamental inequalities that underpin our society; the inequalities that allow the rich to treat Singapore as a playground while everyone else is left to wait for that ever-elusive rising tide the government promised would lift all our boats.