My conservative estimate is that new citizens (less than 15 years of stay in Singapore) constitute about 10% to 15% of voters in Singapore. They will be the most crucial and critical voting block for PAP in the coming General Elections. PAP has the statistics and that is why PAP has started to shift their policy direction towards "new citizen-foreigners" specific because the winning margin for any crucial constituency is less than 5% only.
Last year alone, over 20,000 citizenship have been issued out. Thus, the deliberate promotion of "pro-foreigners" speech despite of the uproar from some Singaporeans is really a calculative move. The assumption made is that those who are against 6.9 million population are opposition supporters anyway. They can't possibly win their votes thus, it would be better for them to focus on these new citizens' votes which will be critical to their hold on to power. In fact, by doing so, the uproar from opposition supporters will become a natural push factor for new citizens to vote PAP!
Nevertheless, even if I am to contest again in next GE (I have not decided on this yet), even if I know I may just lose a lot of votes from these new citizens and eventually, lose the elections, I will stand firm on what is right and what is wrong. We should defend our sovereignty and not prostitute our Nation's dignity just for the sake of winning elections. We should not just keep quiet for fear of losing these votes from new citizens. If foreigners have broken our law, then we should stand firm to get it right. If foreigners have trespassed our sovereignty, then it is our duty to raise the red flag to defend our sovereignty. Else, we may face the similar situation that Ancient China have in the past...
Goh Meng Seng
*Article first appeared on https://www.facebook.com/notes/goh-meng-seng-singaporeanfirst/the-reason...