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28/08/2008
Singaporeans Want By-Election in Jurong GRC
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Wednesday, 27 August 2008,
Update: Parliament rejects motion to fine-tune electoral system. “PM Lee said Singapore must never blindly follow others.” – Channel NewsAsia. NMP Siew Kum Hong, who helped with the poll, mentioned the poll results in Parliament today.
Watch the video of Mr Siew’s speech here – TOC TV.
Part Two
The following is a media release by The Online Citizen to the local media.
Singapore, 27 August 2008 – Internet portal The Online Citizen (www.theonlinecitizen.com) today published the results of a street poll on the question of whether a by-election should be held in the Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC), with 60.1% of all respondents who had an opinion saying that one should be held.
Dr. Ong Chit Chung, a Member of Parliament (MP) for Jurong GRC, passed away on 14 July 2008. Since then, the Government has stated that the law does not require it to hold a by-election, and it does not intend to do so. Instead, the remaining four MPs for Jurong GRC will take turns to cover for the duties of the late Dr. Ong.
Two Nominated Members of Parliament, Professor Thio Li-Ann and Dr. Loo Choon Yong, have filed a motion for Parliament to debate the question of when a by-election should be held. This debate is expected to take place over 26 and 27 August 2008.
The Online Citizen decided to conduct the street poll, to ascertain what Singaporeans actually thought. A team of volunteers conducted the poll on 23 August 2008, in different parts of Jurong GRC. The findings of the poll are enclosed.
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10:36 Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this | Tags: The Online Citizen, Politics, New Media, Parliment
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Comments
not sure how representative the poll is, but in any case, "people" do not call for by-elections; the government does, and the government still remembers the 1981 anson by-election that returned jeyarantnam; now may be ancient history to most people, but people in power tend to have long memories
as with the western democracies, a by-election is usually used by voters to display dissatisfaction with the government, and opposition tends to get a higher vote than they could expect in a general election; in most countries this is not a big deal, but here it is: the government is used to having no or very few opposition MPs, and thinks just a few more would distract it from its preferred focused attention on economic management
Posted by: yuen | 29/08/2008