Thursday, April 28, 2011

More on Steve Tan: How to choose people and the evil of some systems

Every few weeks or at most, a couple of months you get a story like this. Someone who was very very carefully chosen, even anointed as a successor to a great leader or CEO and then he failed. Sometimes the successor managed to take over e.g., as at Coca Cola when the legendary Goizuetta passed away. Happen to the best organizations all the time. Why should the PAP be an exception after Lee Kuan Yew aged 87 is passed from the scene. Think of him as Coke's Goizuetta.

This morning PM Lee came clean with why Steve Tan had dropped out. That meticulous system they have for choosing candidates, they like us to think that even if it is not 100% is very very good. Without giving a number, they hope you would go away thinking that it is 90 or even 95% good. Well that system gave me a lousy MP and a doubtful Minister in my GRC. Another system called the GRC, ultimately an insult to us because it assumes we will never mature might cause us to lose some very good ministers. Any system that seeks to protect always also have the capacity to harm. We will all know if we lose George Yeo or the Worker's Party A team. One of them must lose right? Not a problem if we only had SMCs.

I can't accept that Tin Pei Ling can ride on the coattails of SM Goh into parliament. And I hate to see the price for seeing Nicole Seah in parliament is for the SM, a former PM to be ousted. This is a stupid system. If the opposition isn't strong enough to do so, citizens ought to rise and pressure the PAP to dismantle the GRC system.

Ensure minority representation via GRC? The country could lose its life trying to do that. Double stupid. Just a PAP conceited idea of trying to stay in power forever. It doesn't work and we will all be losers.

I need to conclude with Steve Tan. I have thought too highly of the man as per my earlier post after reading his reasons for quiting the race this morning in the ST. That's another black mark on the PAP system of selecting candidates.

Nature's system isn't perfect from man's point of view, but with its "mistakes" it also provides it own means of self-correction. Those who are students of the Tao will understand this better than I do.

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