Singapore Punggol East by-election Analysis

I do not want to politicize this blog however, Singapore politics, or at least talking and thinking about politics, has become a hot topic with the recent conclusion of the by-election in Punggol East - a tiny area of land in the north east of the island. The Workers' Party i.e. "the Opposition" in Singapore has been whittling away at the dominance of the PAP over the last few years and with this latest victory in Punggol East - it has won more than just a single seat in Parliament; in my mind, it has sent a very strong signal to the PAP of how disgruntled Singaporeans have become on the current state of things in the country.

There are many reasons being mooted about why the PAP lost - housing prices, the current economic lull, and the malfunctioning transport infrastructure.

To me, one the major reasons why they lost is the issue of the ongoing influx of foreigners. Singaporeans do not want to lose their jobs to foreigners. We do not have any beef with foreigners but when there is a job that can be done by a Singapore worker - a job that he or she could excel at, chooses to do and would have passion in doing if allowed to - we would prefer that the job go to a Singaporean thank you.

I do not have the actual facts and figures but my sense is that foreigners have taken a large chunk of top and mid-level jobs in companies based in Singapore (except the government) and Singaporeans are left holding the scraps. On a side note - homegrown Singapore companies and entities like F&N are being sold to the top foreign bidders. Singapore icons like the Raffles Hotel have been sold to overseas companies with scarcely a thought on why they must be held in Singapore hands.

Some examples where top leadership positions are occupied by foreigners - the CEO of DBS, OCBC and SGX, the new CTO of Mediacorp,  the ex national coach of the Singapore national football team. In my current company based in Singapore, there are approximately 30 people in the office and out of that total - only 5 are Singaporeans.

The fear that I would be replaced by a foreigner or that I could not find a new job in Singapore without being told that the company I wanted to join would rather source for people in other countries for that job keeps me up at night.

The government has always said that it does not believe that social media will self moderate for the greater good. I think that Singaporeans are starting to believe that the current government run by the PAP might not be able to self moderate for the good of Singaporeans.