SINGAPORE
2020 General Election (GE2020)
The general election is a form of a parliamentary election, where all incumbent members of the parliament (MPs) are dissolved and an opportunity arises for all able men and women to become election candidates to compete over their position in parliament. Usually, most of the dominating party (the People’s Action Party) will still remain, so in order to ensure a good level of representativeness of Singaporeans, there are other positions such as non-candidate MPs (NCMPs) and nominated MPs (NMPs) to bring in different people who will introduce fresh perspectives to the conversations surrounding the governance of the country.
First, the results:
Of interest is the process of the election this year, not the results. This year’s general election is a breath of fresh air for a few reasons:
New norms for voting - time bands, self-inking pens and more eco-friendly booths
Since 2019, the Elections Department has pushed for changes to make the voting experience better for everyone. These included polling booths made of recyclable materials like cardboard (though it is still a prototype), self-inking pens (basically a stamp which is more elderly-friendly than normal pens), and more electronic documents such as online forms for nomination of candidates as well as electronic voting slips.
Thanks to the pandemic, more safety measures have to be in place. Recommended time bands are given in the voting slips mailed to those eligible for voting to avoid crowding at polling sites (since most people are still told to stay at home then). However, this could not stop long queues from forming due to safe distancing measures. Many voters complained of how inefficient the whole process was, and some were told to go home and come back later due to the long queues.The voting time was even extended from 8 PM to 10 PM at the last minute, causing a lot of dissatisfaction among voters and the opposition parties.
Campaigning goes digital
Due to the pandemic (again), most of the campaigning have to be brought online. Still, the human factor and the intimacy that can only be realised in face-to-face meetings are still extremely crucial. As a result, we see political candidates engaging with people in the heartlands - doing home visits and making their rounds in hawker centres and wet markets.
The digital space had brought in more engagement and conversations during the campaigning period. There were even memes surrounding candidates who stood out, such as Jamus Lim, who was the sensation online after his performance at the televised debates. Such conversations showed that Singaporeans are actively involved in politics, and are open to discussing their opinions online.
However, digital elections can have a lot of risks too, as evidenced by the 2016 US Presidential Elections, which revealed signs of intervention from other countries through hacking of emails plus the creation of widely-circulated misinformation and fake news online. We cannot even trust videos anymore because of deep fakes, where artificial intelligence can create convincing scenes of any person speaking without it actually happening.
More women running for candidacy
39 of the candidates are women, which is the highest number of female candidates in any general election. After the elections, more than 20 of them will enter parliament, making up nearly one third of elected seats, which is a major improvement from the past few election cycles.
Female representation in the parliament is important. According to an article by Channel NewsAsia:
“There was a conscious choice to include more women candidates in this term of Parliament as women bring important issues to the table and also offer different perspectives,” said Ms Sun Xueling, the Punggol West SMC MP-elect and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and National Development.
The same article gives a good example of how female MPs usually bring up issues like caregiving that are unrelated to economic development, and pushes for more urgency in developing policies that seek to address such issues.
“Female politicians are known to be more inclined towards engaging on topics outside the traditional bread-and-butter concerns like the economy, said Ms Nydia Ngiow, a senior director at public policy consultancy BowerGroupAsia.
Citing the example of MacPherson MP-elect Tin Pei Ling, Ms Ngiow said that the parliamentarian has championed issues that were not widely discussed such as mental health and difficulties facing single parents.
Her work appears to have paid off. This election, Ms Tin won 71.7 percent of the votes in her constituency - more than she garnered in 2015, and putting her among the candidates that won with the highest election margins this year. “
Opposition parties now have more influence and powers
Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh has been appointed by the Prime Minister as the Leader of the Opposition. This will give him more staff support and resources to carry out his duties. With such a decision, Singapore will be able to move away from a one-party state and see more balance in policy-making, as well as increased competition in the local political scene, which brings out the best in future batches of MPs. Although the concept of opposition leader has been emerging since the last few GEs, with opposition parties trying to band together in their face-off against the PAP, having it as an official position is a first for Singapore.
This is slightly off-topic, but there has been a coalition that opposition parties have been striving for in 2018, which did not go very well. It was inspired by the elections of other countries such as Malaysia and those in the West, which saw opposition parties reign over their countries. Read more here.
So what can Mr Singh look forward to?
Privileges:
His speaking time will be doubled from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, which is on par with office holders.
An office in Parliament, staff support and resources, as well as additional allowance.
He will generally be given the right of first response among MPs to ask the lead question of ministers on policies, Bills and motions in Parliament. This will be at the discretion of the Speaker and subject to existing speaking conventions.
Duties:
Leading and organising the opposition’s parliamentary business.
Possibly: attending official state functions and taking part in visits and meetings with members of the Government and the public service.
Occasionally: receive briefings by the Government on confidential issues, and the matters to be briefed will be determined by the Government
These duties and privileges are based on the conventions and practices of other Westminster-style parliamentary systems, but reflects adaptations to Singapore's political and parliamentary context.
Personally, I find it quite heartening to see the members of the opposition working hand-in-hand with the ruling party to improve how Singapore is governed. I can only hope that as Singapore is able to establish an identity for herself, her political structure will evolve to be more mature and empower talented, caring people to influence decisions that will shape the society of the future. Perhaps, it can even become more robust and innovative, with parts that are uniquely Singaporean, just like our financial system.
National Day SG Together Pack
With the cancellation of plans that involves hosting this year’s celebrations at The Float @ Marina Bay, the original fun pack was repurposed into the SG Together Pack, which would be available for collection by every Singaporean and PR household starting from 20 July 2020, Monday.
I was involved in the packing of this too! More details can be found in upcoming posts of the “My Year 2020” series (will be linked there when the post is out).
The pack has received much attention in its conception stages - but for the wrong reasons.
The opt-out petitioning
The question that everyone wants to know about was, “Do we really need that pack of things as a physical token to commemorate this year’s National Day?”
A lot of Singaporeans believed that the resources poured into the making of these packs could be put into better use, amidst the pandemic crisis. Hence, there was a petition directed at the organising committee to allow Singaporeans to opt-out from this initiative.
https://www.change.org/p/ndp-2020-opt-out-from-receiving-ndp-2020-funpack
Yes, their voices were heard, and as Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen mentioned in his parliamentary address, the production will be scaled down to cover only 80% of households, as compared to around 90% to 95% in previous years. In addition, uncollected funpacks will be donated to homes and institutions who would like to have it.
However, the Minister raised a good point about the need to have these packs. Prudence is necessary, especially when the nation’s finances have been stretched. But it cannot be at the expense of overcoming the mood of despondency that has caused us to be further apart from one another. As with the unwavering, and if I may, defiant spirit that Singaporeans have shown ever since the inaugural National Day Parade in 1966, the unity and collective confidence for the future that it engendered among Singaporeans was priceless.
That brings me to the significance of the SG Together pack this year.
Significance of the pack
As I was involved in the packing of the pack this year, I could tell that it was designed with Singaporeans in mind.
Let us start with the bag. The visual design of the bag was done by students who were mostly at Primary School level. No wonder these innocent-looking designs spark joy in me. What is more impressive is that pupils with disabilities also contributed to the designs. I was told that some of the drawings were done by the visually impaired students. What a powerful message for those feeling depressed under the bleak days of COVID-19! To learn more about the different types of designs, click here: https://www.nylon.com.sg/2020/07/ndp-2020-singapore-together-pack-whats-inside-and-where-to-get-yours/
The bag is environmentally friendly too. The cloth is quite durable and my parents like to reuse it as a recyclable bag when they shop for groceries. The bag itself may look a little flimsy, but it has a velcro at the top to help close the bag, which neatly makes up for the flimsy appearance by ensuring nothing in the bag accidentally spills out.
Moving on to the items in the bag. There were very practical things like a thermometer and quite a number of face masks inside. There were also a lot of Singapore flags and symbols included in the items for us to feel that we are a part of the nation. I bet they look lovely in photos and videos. The snacks were quite healthy (biscuits, chips or energy bars, depending on what you get) and the drinks were replaced with cans of chrysanthemum drink. I loved this change because it would be a great help to those who would want to binge-eat during this stressful period and lacked awareness of healthier alternatives to the usual snacks, plus the aluminium cans for the drinks are one of the most recyclable materials out there, satisfying environmental advocacy groups who wished for a reduction in single-use plastics in the pack.
Although there were not many things in the pack, it was a physical touchpoint from the organising committee to all Singaporeans, and symbolised a whole-of-nation effort to celebrate how far our country has come despite all the challenges that were in the way. In this sense, the pack was an uplifting gift that would hopefully bring smiles for all Singaporeans.
WORLD
NASA Mars Rover Launch
As you and I may get tired from reading through all these lines and lines of text, here is a quick video to bring us up to date on what this Mars Rover is all about:
NASA’s Perseverance rover, the fourth of its kind to be launched to the red planet, has taken off in July 2020. It is expected to land on Mars by February 2021.
What will the rover bring us?
In short, it will bring back soil and rock samples from Mars. What is this for?
According to NASA, a drill on the rover will collect core samples of promising Martian rocks and soil, then will deposit them in a "cache“ (inside very clean tubes to avoid potential contamination from Earth’s microbes) on the planet's surface. A potential future robotic mission could pick them up and ferry them to Earth for analysis in laboratories by equipment too large or bulky to go to Mars. Perseverance will also help us learn more and test technologies that could benefit future human expeditions to Mars. For instance, it brought along Ingenuity, a robotic flying machine, which will be doing test flights on Mars. This will pave the way for similar machines to be used to aid rovers, landers and even humans in future exploration missions.
Why is such a mission important?
Under NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Program, previous missions have helped us look for signs of habitable conditions in ancient times. The program's series of missions is helping us answer key questions about the potential for life on Mars. Perseverance will take it one step further by searching for signs of past microbial life itself. This will be done through the search for biosignatures through studying the texture of the rock and soil samples, as well as the composition and distribution of organic molecules. Biosignatures are patterns of texture or substance that require life to form.
We can also look forward to a richer experience of Mars than we have now, as the rover is equipped with microphones that allow us to hear the sounds on Mars, and it will have many high-end tools to research more into the various questions of scientific interest on Mars.
As this is the closest to finding definitive proof of life on Mars, we will finally be able to answer the question of whether we are alone in this universe. There are countless planets out there who have habitable landscapes that are suited for life, but only Earth is currently inhabited by living creatures. If there is life on Mars, everything we know about the origins of life on Earth could change.
Other missions bound for Mars
July has been a pretty busy period for Mars exploration. I did not plan to include the other missions in this post, but since the Seeker videos have touched on them, I will give them a quick look.
Other than NASA, Japan’s very own space agency, JAXA, has sent its spacecraft to land on Phobos, one of the two moons that orbit Mars. This will finally unravel the mystery behind the origins of Mars’ moons.
For the red planet itself, China and the United Arab Emirates have also launched their spacecraft toward there. The main highlight for China’s mission was that it was the first to send off a rover, lander and orbiter to Mars all in one go. While for the UAE, the star is its objective to better understand Mars’ atmosphere and geology by recording them for a few Martian years.
Find out more through these videos:
California’s Wildfires
California has been battling wildfires for some time now, and in the months to come, the fires would only get worse. This natural disaster is unprecedented in scale and complexity, so understanding such incidents will help us to be much better prepared for future waves.
Epic and record-breaking
The fire has been raging, burning millions and millions of acres. In October, months after this issue of the Kaleidoscope is supposed to have been published, the fires have now burned more than 4 million acres, a record for the most acres burned in a single year. The figure, which equals an area larger than Connecticut, is more than twice the acreage burned in the state’s previous record-worst fire season, in 2018.
In addition, due in part to human-caused warming and a drying climate, California recorded its first “gigafire” since modern records began in the early 1930s. The August Complex, a group of fires burning in and around the Mendocino National Forest, has torched more than 1 million acres and counting.
Effects of the fires
Loss of land, lives and properties, toxic air, the sky turning red… All these descriptions are measly in compared to the visual impact images from the fires have given us.
Here is a video that gives a comprehensive coverage of the wildfire situation:
Causes of the fires
Such devastation begs the question of how these fires came about in the first place. The New York Times gave a detailed overview of the 4 main factors that have contributed to the fires, and over here, I will be expressing them in simple English:
Climate change - global warming causes vegetation and basically anything that can serve as fuel to be burnt up to be drier. Drier things catch fire from a spark more easily. That spark could come from lightning or humans setting fire, intentionally or unintentionally.
People - downed power lines, the vehicles’ rim scraping against the road surface and fireworks have all been contributing to the sparks that are needed to set vegetation and other objects ablaze. More people have chosen to live in areas that are near to forests (term for it is “urban-wildlife interface”), increasing the likelihood that some accident might cause the vegetation to blow up in flames.
Fire suppression - in the history of firefighting in the US, much of the vegetation avoided being burnt away, but that led to an accumulation for more vegetation that fed materials to keep the fires going. As such, now controlled fires are taking place to get rid of unneeded material that will contribute to the spread of fires.
Strong winds (Santa Ana winds) - each fall, strong gusts known as the Santa Ana winds bring dry air from the Great Basin area of the West into Southern California. These winds drive the second fire season which is thought to be from October to April. As these winds bring fires to urban, built-up areas, the economic losses in this season tend to be more severe.
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