Vivan B on clean politics

I took this from CNA but I first heard it over the car radio early this evening.

Vivian Balakrishnan, did I hear you right? Your government take advantage of us all the time. We didn't want to use those ugly words, we prefer to say your government take the people for granted and that's why we gave you a drubbing in the last GE. Please get off your high horse and stop this nonsense.

Don't preach to me about clean politics. If it is politics then it isn't clean. What we try to do is always and never giving up try to make it cleaner. The trouble with the PAP is that while it is mostly white, it has sold itself as whiter than white. It even venture further that for our survival we need nothing less. Now they can't live up to their rhetoric.

Just as you had ignominiously set aside AIM-gate which is far worse, I belong to the group that just want to move on. Go and deal with Dengue and the Haze. We will deal with this in the next GE. Then I shall examine the evidence for this case. Everything in its right time and place. Who knows what spanners the PAP and WP might throw up between now and then? Because politics is not clean and some are more skillful at playing it than others, I like to let time age any political chicanery as by then things often look clearer.

If you are that clean, care to be more transparent? You cannot even be clear with the latest MDA rules!

Update: July 10, 12:50pm

Just saw this: media release by the WP town council. In particular Pritam pointed to a more constructive opportunity which was missed.

As this episode wore on and even earlier in April 2013, the Minister visited the hawker centres at various markets in Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East (AHPE) town. In doing so, the Minister could have used his not insignificant powers as Minister overseeing the NEA and exercised his leadership to reach out to all parties, including both the Hawkers Association and AHPETC, to resolve any matter amicably. We expected that as Minister, he would use his office to play a positive and constructive role in this episode, but this was apparently not to be.

The Minister also said that NEA was doing its job. The hawkers and AHPETC were satisfied with the outcome of meeting with the NEA on 6 June 2013. Why is the Minister weighing in now, after the issue has been resolved? Is the Minister fair in his statement, resorting to name-calling and character assassination?

Update: July 10, 3:50pm

I wholeheartedly agree with TKL. I think most of us don't like adversarial politics. Avoid it as much as possible.