8/15/2015

Chok Tong decides to stand for MP again

Chok Tong has announced that he would contest this election one more time for old time’s sake. He said he had a long discussion with Hsien Loong and Hsien Loong said he is needed for his experience. Hsien Loong’s assessment of Chok Tong is quite different from his father. Chok Tong is an asset to Hsien Loong, to provide the shade of a big banyan tree now that LKY is no longer around. The senior statesman fits the role like a glove. Maybe he would be promoted to MM after the election and moved in to the Istana to hold court for visiting dignitaries looking for the Oracle. Singapore would have another Eastern wise man residing in the Istana.

There was another view that in the long chat with Hsien Loong, they were negotiating whether he should or should not stand. Apparently Chok Tong came up on top with his wise arguments that he must be around to be the goalkeeper.  Chok Tong seems to be still very influential and thus his service is indispensable or Marine Parade could go to the WP. No matter what, after nearly 40 years in Marine Parade, he must have many admirers and fans that would vote for him. Asking him to stand down would mean these votes, mainly the dialect speaking oldies, could be won over by Ah Hia and vote for WP.

So, as much as Hsien Loong would like to have a new team of people younger than him, he could find no good reason to retire Chok Tong. Chok Tong’s star is still shining and would be given another chance to see his promise of a Swiss standard of living for the people coming true. As the most senior minister, he would have a lot of weight to want his passion to materialise just like his India Dream.

It is all green for Chok Tong now. It is now left to the voters to make his dream come true, maybe to out serve LKY as the longest serving politician in modern Singapore. He is only 74 and he could add another 16 years to his record.


If he is successful, historian could call it the Chok Tong era instead of post LKY era.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aiyo, like that WP sure habis (Finished).

WP Teochew Ah Hia better think and decide properly his team to stand in Marine Parade. Any suicide teams in WP? Or maybe Sylvia Lim should be in the team? If she can win against Ah Goh, sure earthquake or tsunami in Sinkieland liao.

Anonymous said...

With a slight majority last time against a weaker nsp and now with Joo Chiat added, it's silly for him to take the chance against a more powerful wp. Unless there is more than a mp role promised to him like MM or SM in the cabinet, he does not have much to gain to being just a mp and a lot to loose if he lost. His whole legacy and his place in history would be damaged.

Anonymous said...

This is a winner take all situation.
What do you think?

Anonymous said...

"....he does not have much to gain to being just a mp and a lot to loose if he lost."
Anon 10:53 a.m.

Not really lah. You must remember that Ah Goh is a veteran ruling party politician, not opposition OK, and with almost 40 years of political experience under his belt, even much longer than WP Teochew Ah Hia.

So I trust Ah Goh would have done his calculations very well, and come to the conclusion that he will most likely (93% chance) win against WP, no matter who WP field. And with that, it will be a most fitting finale before he retired.

Anonymous said...

Pride comes before the fall. Or is it Greed comes before the fall?
Or is it ego or self delusion?

Agongkia said...

Goh should not give an impression that he stay to fight because he is needed or persuaded but should announce with confident that its his decision instead.Never say die.Fight with confident.

Goh Go Go.Go for the Goal.Prove to the dafts that you not wood but GOLD.
Bring pride to the GOH.


Anonymous said...

How many new C already taken root in this GRC?

Anonymous said...

// Chok Tong seems to be still very influential and thus his service is indispensable or Marine Parade could go to the WP. No matter what, after nearly 40 years in Marine Parade, he must have many admirers and fans that would vote for him. Asking him to stand down would mean these votes, mainly the dialect speaking oldies, could be won over by Ah Hia and vote for WP.// Redbean


For lao goa to stand possibly means a 50-50 chance, otherwise it may be a mauling for the paper BG.

The paper BG, like an adolescent male juvenile lion, still needs this old, aging lion to fend off potential new upstarts ( old man was only 36 yo, a full 10 years younger when he assumed the full responsibilities of being a PM in 1959 ).

Lao goa still needs to hoist the paper BG on his giant but aging and weather beaten shoulder, just like the proverbial fox on the tiger back.

But it is not unexpected.

This is likely plan B or option B when the future cards were decked out in 2011 .......

The ward directly under lao goa is a prized catch and any new upstart, if victorious would saviour the painstaking and hard labour lao goa put in all these years to nurture and spruce it to current tropical resorts ambience for the residents, with all the convenience, facilities and beach front, seaside view, almost perfect living for the young, middle-age, oldies and retirees alike.

No dominant male lion likely would give up the " pride" ( all his followers, supporters and territory of influence ) under his "protection" without a ("fierce") fight.

For now, lao goa's presence probably may be sufficient to see off any potential challenge.

It possibly could be the most epic "battle" in sinkieland's electoral history.

A battle-hardened and scarred old warrior male dominant lion, carrying a paper BG on his aging, giant shoulder, fending off new but relatively strong upstarts.

A "nail-biting show down" may be shaping up ......

But the odds could marginally be in the old warrior favour for now.

The longer term question is will the old warrior still be needed ( to carry a BG ) and ward off any challenge in 5 years time and/ or beyond?

As Rb noted, at 74, this old warrior could possibly be around for another 3 terms till 90 yo (if needed) if previous precedence is anything to go by .......

Anonymous said...

One can see it as lao go represents an established brand, if something not to his favour, that is the tipping point to pull down the whole establishment.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

This is the least trustworthy guy amongst all the already untrustworthy politicians in the scene.

Behind the smile and the sanguine manner is a cold, calculating power-lusting machine.

Good for you, Marine Parade ;-)

Anonymous said...

The "extinct " Merlion is placed at the river mouth as a symbol of the "Lion City" ......

In time to come, the next symbol could be a "Sinkie " ......

When the latter " meet the same fate" ......

Wild lions are long gone in sinkieland and the "Merlion" symbolises its founding by Prince Sung Nila Utama about 700 hundred years ago .....

Down the road, when sinkies possibly meet the same fate, mb a symbol of "Sinkie" could also be placed at the river front as a tourist attraction. .... when "Sinkieland becomes a truly Hotel SIN City" .......

A melting pot of economic migrants ......

And possibly in its future museum, the "creator and forebear curator of Hotel SIN City", " a tall specky slender statue" nicknamed Lao Goa standing beside the statue of Sung Nila Utama. The "sinkieland seller" who first opened the flood gate in 1990 and started the wheel of motion to convert sinkieland into "Hotel SIN City" .......

"Sinkies" for their once gallant efforts and also those of the PG have a place in history --- "A symbolic SINKIE Statue at the river mouth " not unlike the current Merlion to symbolise the once free roaming wild lions in this nicknamed lion city but now extinct.

Anonymous said...

>>> Fuck off and die out, dinosaurs ;-) <<< Mati
>>> This is the least trustworthy guy amongst all the already untrustworthy politicians in the scene. <<< Mati
>>>The ENTITLED species which thinks the "world owes me a living" deserves to go EXTINCT because of their culture of BAD ideas and concomitant CHARACTER and BEHAVIOUR.<<<


The subtle observations by this Mati guy on the main cast of this post could be the ultimate inevitable sign of a lost cause.

An old, aging archaic male lion way past his prime being sent to the frontlines to defend his turf one last time.

To defend the multi-million remuneration entitlement mentality of a parasitic horde refusing to acknowledge their outdated 286, 386, 486 era megabytes models in the age of quadruple multi-core processors, TB, gazillion bytes and cloud computing.

What better symbolic way than on SG50.

To signify the dawn of a new era.

Lao Goa may want to take note of this Mati's message that he may go the way of the dinosaur on his swan song battle of MP GRC.

Anonymous said...

GCT failed to deliver the 1985 Swiss Standard of Living he promised when CE 2000 came and went in Singapore.
His asset enhancement of HDB flats by giving owners a second bite of the cherry made HDB resale flats expensive and so enhanced the HDB assets for HDB.

Anonymous said...

Lao Goa's negative legacy:

1) Unfulfilled promise of Swiss Std by 1999 ( for the masses )
2) Unfulfilled promise of More Good Years ( for the masses )
3) Pro-Aliens Policies of Swiss Std for Aliens but not Sinkies
4) Pro-Aliens Policies of More Good Years for Aliens but not Sinkies such as CECA, Fully Paid Education for Other Countries Children but NS for sinkies
5) Asset Enhancement Policy that caused property prices and cost of living to skyrocket and kill off birth rate ( TFR was at a 1.83 when Lao Goa took over in1990 but plunged to 1.25 when he handed over by 2004. His high cost of living policies such as COE, ERP, GST, all contributed to the rapid escalation of COL, unbearable working life pressure to keep up with ever skyrocketing living cost, resulting in irreveraible terminal decline in birth rate/ TFR ).
6) Opening of floodgate of Aliens in 1990 and increased their population by 33% or 1 million just between 1990 to 2000. The damaged was done and shifted sinkieland's economy from GKS era high value-add low-labour intensive to low value-add high-labour intensive service industries that need ever more cheap 3rd world labour to sustain.
7) Initiated millions $$$ world highest pay for politicians but continuing unstoppable dishing out of policies that harmed sinkies and sinkieland long term interests for short term myopic economics interests such as skyrocketing property prices that permanently blunted sinkieland's exports competitiveness resulting in sinkieland making another policy blunder to correct his earlier flawed policies by going into dirty and immoral vice trades such as gambling and proliferation of the prostitution industry in Geylang and all over sinkieland. Now Internet, heartland areas etc easily have prostitution door to door service and illegal brothels operating out of residential units both in HDB and private housing estates. Just Google and YEW can browse tons of illegal sex service. ( Just few years ago, even under aged gals were involved and many men were arrested for paid sex with them ). The social fabric is permanently undone and irreparable! A terminable decline vicious cycle set permanently in motion with policies to correct earlier mistakes becoming bigger problems which need even more drastic measures to correct but leading to ever snowballing problems .........
8) Failure to reverse many Stop at 2 policies from 1990 to up to 2004 when he stepped down despite iron-clad and irrefutable evidences pointing to rapidly deteriorating birth rate/ TFR such as mother of 3rd child not entitled to any paid maternity leaves, mother of 4th child cannot use medisave for child delivery but only hard cash, no paid maternity leave for mother of 4th child, mother of 4th child are charged private rates even if she delivers in public hospital such as KK. ( Such policies were only abolished and reversed in 2004 onwards when PM3 took over but IT WAS TOO LATE! Irreparable damage already done to sinkies and sinkieland's long term demographic and population policy. PM3 has no choice but to continue leg open big big policies to sustain the economy. ) Mb sinkies should petition to "try lao goa for policies of "social genocide" of future generation of sinkies and "treason" for enacting greedy policies fatalistic and detrimental to sinkieland's strategic and long term interests. " Many policies to undo Lao Goa's mistakes are TOO LITTLE TOO LATE! IRREPARABLE LONG TERM DAMAGE DONE!

...... continue below

Anonymous said...

..... continue from above

The above are some of the policies under Lao Goa's administration that harmed sinkies and sinkieland's long term interests for short term economics results.

It is quite obvious that if the policies were good, why should so many long term problems surfacing now and going forward, coming home to roost and haunt the aristocrats?

The Chinese have a saying: "冰冻三尺, 非一日之寒"!

In simple translation, "for the snow to be 3 feet deep, it was not due to a single day's cold temperature".

Sinkieland's current problems of high cost leading to uncompetitive exports industries, MNCs relocating, low fertility rates, Aliens influx etc etc all were seeds of flawed long term policies planted during lao goa's watch between 1990 up to 2004 and did not come about overnight suddenly and dawned upon sinkies and sinkieland.

Almost all, if not all, of Lao goa 's policies were to greedily and indsicrimantely harvest the founding leaders' and PG's fruits of hard work and labour and leave all the problems to future generations of sinkies and future leaders such as current PM3 and future PM4 and PM5 etc to deal with. Lao Goa took all the benefits, kicked the can down the road and now sinkies and sinkieland are suffering from the ills of his legacy and policy. Old man was probably right that lao goa was never his first choice and history likely will confirm it! If Lao Goa think all these are unfair criticisms, why not get himself and his cohort like TCB etc to declare their assets publicly before next GE. Tell sinkies how much they have in their assets, what kind of good class bungalows in which part of district 10 they are staying and how many 10s of millions the properties they are staying are worth? Do Lao Goa and his cohort willing to honestly face poor sinkies and tell them right into their faces their real worth and the luxurious and opulent bungalows and mansions they are staying? How have his policies benefited the majority of the sinkies except robbing them of jobs, university places, deserving bursaries and scholarships etc. Lao Goa, WHY KILL THE GEESE THAT LAID THE GOLDEN EGGS? Why so greedy and short sighted?

Virgo 49 said...

Aiyo, when you are so poor in youth and now got chance to carry on Kut Kut the gold mine unhindered ahead why stop Kut Kut???

When people got more, they want more and more by all means until the almighty also give them more their curses

Virgo 49 said...

Also sinkapore to be on the World Cup twenty years back but still struggling to beat any Kampong team oh yong Peng

patriot said...

The PAP Candidates for the Coming General Election have stressed the Importance of Honesty, Integrity and if I may add, propriety and conscience as well.

Indeed, IT IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE VOTE IN FOLKS WITH
NO
DOUBTFUL INTEGRITY.

WE MUST NOT
VOTE FOR SWEET TALKERS WHO
PROMISE ALOT
BUT
DELIVER NOTHING.

MOST IMPORTANTLY,
WE MUST NOT
VOTE FOR RULERS WHO
PAWN AND SELL US TO ALIENS.

SO, SINKIES GOT TO VOTE
AND VOTE VERY SERIOUSLY AND CAREFULLY.

GOH CHOK TONG'S GREAT WORKS ARE CLEARLY STATED BY ANON 9:06 pm.

PLEASE VOTE WISELY.

patriot

Anonymous said...

Sinkies are easy to deceive.
Lau Goh is one of the best examples of deception.
Scoring Singaporeans with the worst possible own goals, and taking the price of fortune and fame in the name of public service, yet still POPULAR with Sinkies.
This Lau Goh is indeed crafty. Sinkies likely deserve him.

Anonymous said...

Singaporeans are too simpleton.

Goh Chok Tong promises Swiss standard.
Did nothing to bring Swiss standard living to Singaporeans but instead brought Cambodian livING
And singapore today is a 3rd world with debts.

Still want to vote for Goh ?
He is a liar!!!
He is no performer!!!
He cannot deliver.
He is there to make more money.
Transport. Housing. Health care.
What has Goh contributed? ??