Sinkie: Can Parliament Let PAP Victor Lye Be NCMP? Bend The Rules Can?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:




Dear Editors,

I am truly disturbed by an All Singapore Stuff contributor’s insistence for Victor Lye to be awarded the post of an NCMP (Member of Parliament for Non-Constituency) and beg to differ with his apparent justification and reasoning.

The contributor seems disillusioned about the fact that such a suggestion is contradictory to the Republic’s Constitution, the supreme law of the land, which states that NCMPs must be candidates from the opposition/non-ruling

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Furthermore, such a proposal also goes against the fundamental purpose of the NCMP scheme, which is to guarantee a minimum number of opposition Members of Parliament to check against the dominant ruling party, a scheme propagated by Lee Kuan Yew’s government but opposed by some in the 1980s due to its departure from the traditional Westminster parliamentary framework, of

The writer postulates that Victor Lye “might not get a chance to stand at 57 in 2020.” I believe age is a secondary determinant compared to the more important competency of an individual running for office. If the contributor looks around in the region and the world, he will realize that many political aspirants run for office at a relatively late stage of their lives. Both frontrunners of the US Presidential Nomination Hillary Clinton and billionaire Donald Trump are well in their late 60s, 69 to be exact, the same age Regan got elected as President in 1981.

If Mr. Lye were indeed a true talent, a ministerial-caliber individual, the PAP would long have solicited and sponsored his entry into parliament, as seen in the entrance of very young Ministers into the House. Education Minister Heng Swee Keat served more than a decade as an administrative officer before entering office at 50. Thus, the contributor’s assertion that Victor Lye possesses “many talents” remains unrevealed and questionable.

Unfortunately for the reader, who appears so bent on patronizing Victor Lye, Mr. Lye does not meet the criteria to be appointed an NCMP, not just any criterion, but the one set out in our Constitution for the interest of Singapore and Singaporeans. In this regard the NCMP Scheme is indeed discriminatory, and an “unfair” one according to the writer, but a positive and necessary institutional scheme.

Perhaps the writer could better utilize his time by advising the politically divergent Victor Lye against his operation of dispensing pamphlets critical of the opposition late at night in an opposition held territory during non-election periods.

Sincerely,
rarebear
A.S.S. Contributor

- More at AllSingaporeStuff.com http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/art...ived-ncmp-seat


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