Reflections of a PAP member: post election

Now that all the drama has ended. Aljunied went over to WP and God will have His own plans there. It is not for me to judge the decision of the voters, although I pretty much would have wanted PAP to stay around in Aljunied. Anyway, time for reflection. As a PAP member, I sent an email earlier to the Prime Minister. At the risk of PAP image, I would post it here but I need to qualify that this does not negate my position posted here or FB previously. This is the position that I took when I made the decision to go back and help out with the campaigning. At the risk of being chastised by my own party (not as if this has not happened before), here's the email:

Dear PM Lee, 

I live in Bukit Panjang SMC, and I have been supporting PAP for many years. My support for PAP has led me to volunteer in the Meet-the-People sessions and help out in the last two campaigns for Dr Teo Ho Pin, who is a good man and has served hard for the residents of Bukit Panjang. I have even defended PAP's positions strongly in my own blog and in my own Facebook page against the rest of my peers. This election has led me to reflect on the current state of the party and thank you for taking some time off to understand and consider where I am coming from in this email. 

Echoing George Yeo's message on Thursday, 5 May, it is my conviction the PAP currently cannot remain the same and will have to change. I am 27 years old this year. Over the past few years, talking to my peers has made me realised that the PAP no longer enjoys the moral authority that it has enjoyed with the pre-65 voters. We can say that this generation takes Singapore's success for granted. We can say that after 52 years, PAP knows best. However, it is undeniable that PAP no longer has the automatic support of the population. People of my generation today see PAP as arrogant and failing to empathise with the people. They see that PAP doesn't seem to care about the people anymore. And they see PAP as an impediment to democracy in Singapore. They want alternative voices in the parliament, elected ones. The election results do not show it yet, but I am sure you can sense the ground shifting its sentiment already, after losing Aljunied. 

There are a few reasons why this is so, but I am sure that you know what the issues are. Let me just point out my own views on what needs to be changed. My own personal conviction is for PAP to win back the confidence of Singaporeans and the strong mandate to vote. 

1. This is not an easy decision, but I do hope that after this election, MM Lee can be asked to retire, for the good of PAP. He is one of the men whom I respected the most, partly for his passion in leading this country. As a history graduate, I cannot deny that he was the man who led Singapore to where we are today. However, the last election has shown that he has indeed become a liability to PAP, after his speech on how voters in Aljunied will need to repent for the next five years (although there can be other reasons) had driven voters to vote for Worker's Party, resulting in the loss of your Foreign Minister. Moreover, my generation, and future generations to come, will no longer recognise the contributions of MM Lee. It is good for him, in my honest opinion, to retire once this term is over. 
2. I also hope that the government can reconsider the GRC system. I do buy into the notion that without the GRC system, we will see no minority candidates in the parliament. However, Michael Palmer has shown that Singaporeans will vote for a minority candidate in a SMC. We will still need GRCs, but would it be better if it is smaller? A GRC of a team size of three will be nice, with at least one minority candidates. I am sure my generation do buy into the racial argument but to have big GRCs and parachute new MPs do not exactly generate a lot of confidence on the ground. 
3. The issue with redrawing election boundaries will need to be resolved. Regardless the demographic changes or any other reasons, people do see the changes in election boundaries every election as gerrymandering, and this is one reason why people would have felt that PAP is an impediment to democracy in Singapore as we make sure that we 'separate' the voters and therefore ruin the opposition's groundwork. In relations to point 2, if we are able to keep GRCs small and  the boundaries constant, and yet still fight to win, I would say that this will silence all the critics. 
4. We need to talk the walk and walk the talk. It is not as if we are not doing it already, but PAP will need to ensure that all our branches goes out from Monday onwards and start winning votes for the next election, especially for Aljunied GRC and Hougang SMC. We need to show to the people that we genuinely care for their welfare. True it may be tough, but this was how PAP won in 1959, by making sure that our grassroot connections were well established and people know that we care. That will also mean that our own PAP MPs and other branch representatives will have to be sensitive and empathetic to the people.
5. Lastly, we will need to better engage the youths through new media and other forms of engagements and give the youths today a platform to participate. Unfortunately, it is a sad case today that YP is unable to engage a fair amount of youths. Why do I say so? It is not wrong to say that in the years that I have been in YP, there have been dialogue sessions organised to engage the YP members. However, is it enough? At some point in time, I thought that the people whom I saw are the same people and it seems that YP is becoming a bit exclusive amongst the office holders. One incident remains very prominent in my mind that shook my confidence in PAP and this is a frank account from my side. I remember a year back in the YP regional election, my regional chairman stepped down and a regional chairman was 'elected'. However, it was known that she wasn't really elected, since we all know that she's going to be the regional chairperson anyway. Therefore, I asked myself if our very own internal process of choosing our leaders is flawed and lack of any sense of democracy. In that case, I would not even be surprised if people have hesitation in joining the PAP. I, at a point in time, was also contemplating to vote for the opposition because of this, if not for the shallow proposals that the oppositions have come out with. The youths today, as you have pointed out, are the future of Singapore, and they will eventually become the main voters in the elections. PAP, as a whole, seriously needs to think about engaging them better and empowering them much more. The oppositions are good at harnessing the ground sentiment which is a result of our lack of engagement and understanding of this generation. 

These are some reflection points that I have drawn from the last election. I felt that your apology speech during the noontime rally has set the tone for changes within the PAP and this is the best time to show the voters that we can change and that we care. 

Congrats for the victory, and thank you for taking the time off to read my own thoughts and reflections about how the party can move forward. You may not be able to reply to this email, but I will be happy if something tangible is going to take place within the party.