General Elections

To me, general elections is like a national acitivty. Similar to NDP, but of course this time round, it successfully mobilised the whole nation, voters or non-voters, including this not-of-age-but-just-taken-oath me.

I vaguely remember the last GE. Not very much on the rallies and political issues, but on knowing that oh, there is opposition in Hougang , CST (because of the hokkien rhyme his name has, which unfortunately came true this time) and yes, the famous james gomez case. Being already a secondary school student then, i now conclude that i was rather political apathetic that time. I was excited over GE by virtue of it being GE. haha full stop. I rememeber watching the results release and getting excited that Teo Ho Pin got high votes. full stop.

five years later, its GE again! maybe its the additional 5 years of education, maybe its my age, maybe my peers, i became more interested in GE, despite it being in the midst of my exams. I got excited when the PAP truck came round my neighbourhood, even when it did so many times every day (no sign of opp thou ><). I caught GE news, i followed GE news/gossips/forum online, i talked GE. the names of those prominent candidates somehow just registered in my brain better than my test materials. I celebrated my post exam with Geraldine and Yuting at rally blowing the bibi (the whistle they gave out) in the damp flooded field. I stood there for a whole 3 hours when normally i would have rushed off somewhere to grab a seat. i cheered, i blowed my whistle, i paid attention (not to the entire thing but thats a feat given that i just ended exams haha). i caught 27 times of Yam Ah Mee (oh, how famous is he now btw. but i think he really did a superb job!) that result release sat despite knowing the results beforehand through Geraldine. But still, i think many are like me, they want to confirm the results. Maybe as the news said, being overly involved in GE may cause some aftereffects, i actually got sick after GE haha. just joking, it is the late sat night cum all the incense paper dust that caused it. and so i celebrated mummy's day with mummy with my nose tap on XD.on hindsight, woah! just whats with me?!

Nonetheless, it felt fufilling to be in the know of what is going in your nation. most importantly, I learnt that GE can have so many implications. I didn't know so many things can be going around within such a short period. this time. all the seats got contested except tanjong pagar's. PAP is no longer always the strongest. times have changed and our leaders couldn't be like those in the past anymore. opposition now knows how to strategise. voting suddenly becomes a very very important decision. and this very very important decision of many has resulted the voting out of important ministers, opposition's loss of potong pasir, and yadah yadah. No point whining/complaining/cheering about any results. Hopefully, WP can prove themselves to be worthy of the loss in the cabinet with some concrete plans they never unveil during the campaign. Hopefully the first opp guy i know won't be too disappointed, his chiam see is afterall more than 2 decades, thats worth applauding already. Hopefully, TPL proves herself, mum says she is someone who will genuinely help people, i believe so too. Hopefully, given PAP's results this time round, they would really do something to deal with the citizen's increasing resentment to them. To me, they are still the strongest, but then the opposition are improving too.

On a lighter note, i am really glad i have two kakis with me in this GE craze. similarly not of age, Geraldine and Yuting makes good kakis to discuss GE stuff. Amazingly, they made me feel that i do have my own take too. I love the GE stuff we update each other, be it the serious (who said what, when and where, and what happen after that) or the not serious at all stuff (certian MP who is very good looking and kee qiu!). I may not be like the many who analyse and blog about their take on politics but this time round, i guess i can say that i am not politically apathic. Sign of growing up! :D