In todays Straits Times Home section, you will notice that on Page 8, there’s an article that talks about a Worker’s Party leader who voted for the PAP in the last general election. In the article, it says that he was criticized for making public who he voted for, that he is sending out conflicting signals.

I agree totally one sentence in which the WP Leader Mr Yaw said, and that is he does not believe in opposition for opposition’s sake. That is true. In the last GE, sometimes we hear of people saying, “Vote for the opposition. We need an opposition’s voice in Parliament”. But what are we doing that for? Are we voting for the opposition just because we need an opposition inside, or are we voting for the opposition because this opposition MP is much better than his opponent? I believe, that it is the rightest sense to be the latter.

Voting for the opposition just for a voice in the opposition doesn’t seem to work. After all, one of our prominant opposition leaders took the easy way out by not voicing out anything when the Prime Minister asked him a question, isn’t it?

I do not see why Mr Yaw is sending out conflicting signals too. I mean, he simply voted for the MP he thought was best for his consituency. Let us not talk about the possible stories about being political and what propaganda. In its simplest form, this is true exercise of our rights. We decide who we want to be elected, based on previous jobs done and whether this person is good for us or not. Simply put, if a person’s isn’t cut out for this job, we should not give it to him even if he is our relative.

There isn’t conflicting signals when he campaigns to ask voters to vote for him. Whilst he believes that the PAP MP in his own constituency is much better than the WP one, he also has his own right to believe, and try to make you believe, that he is the better choice than the other MP. After all, he isn’t contesting in the constituency that he lives at. If, he voted for the opponent rather than himself, then we can raise a ruckus. But now, he believes that he is better in one place, and that his friend and colleague is lousier in the other place, what’s wrong with not voting your friend and colleague?

I don’t think there is any problem with this at all actually. Sometimes we just got to think, why did he do that, and perhaps we will understand better.