Today is 7 May, Polling Day. At 8am I waddled to my assigned Polling Station to cast my ballot for the third time since I turned 21 years old. There were already neatly-formed queues. I asked one of the polling officers if I could go first, since I was packing 71 kilos and it was obvious I could pop any minute. She directed me to queue A2 (my assigned "sector") and said it was rather short compared with the others. I frowned but joined the queue. Polling hadn't commenced yet, and fidgeted a little, wondering how long this would take before my legs gave out. Daniel was in the car parked nearby the void deck.
The queues (three or four in all) were comprised mostly of middle aged and older folk. A small family arrived and stood behind me. Shortly after, some guy who looked like he had some say in the proceedings came along and directed the first three people in each queue to proceed to the voting area (with more queues and where you wait your turn to get a ballot paper). I counted the people in front of me, it would be another two rounds before my turn. So I raised my hand and approached the Tubby Guy who seemed in charge.
Me: Excuse me, could I please go first? I can't stand for too long (pointed at my stomache).
Tubby Guy: (looks confused and uncertain) Erm, why don't you go join that queue (points at my own queue).
Me: No, I am from A2 and it's the shortest queue but I'm going to give birth any minute, so.....
Tubby Guy: You have to ask the lady over there (I think he meant the helpers whom i already spoke to)....
At this point, the people in A3 were looking over and an uncle, you know the vocal kind with a lot to say about everything) said to me:
Vocal Uncle: Hey, you come and take my place lah. (to Tubby Guy) She is so pregnant!
The Tubby Guy who seemed completely incompetent did not know what to do.
Vocal Uncle: (to me) You better sit down lah. (to TG) Better give her a wheelchair or seat lah!
Then the lady at the head of my A2 queue said to me:
Nice lady: Why don't you take my place?
Me: (smiling) Thank you.
Tubby Guy: Are you sure?
Nice lady: Yes of course.
Me: (Stood in front of the queue) Thanks very much!
At this point, a woman hustled up to TG brandishing her ticket itinerary and said:
Woman: Can I go first? I am flying to America at 8.30am, this is my ticket.....
Uncle: Wah! How can you cut queue?
Woman: I need to go first, cos I have to fly at 8.30!
More uncles pipe up: She's pregnant so can go first, you how can? Come early and queue lah!
I don't know how Tubby Guy managed that situation (which was more dicey than mine really) as it was my turn to go into the ballot area. I chit-chatted briefly with the Nice Lady behind me, telling her I was 39 weeks along and she nodded sympathetically. "Your baby wants you to vote before giving birth!" At this point, there is another small commotion in the A3 queue next to us as Vocal Uncle has spied the woman (with the 8.30 flight to America) cutting ahead of him. He demanded from the polling officer why she could go first.
Hapless Polling Officer: That is the Express Queue sir.
Vocal Uncle: What, fly to America can cut queue? I have to go Chinatown later, can cut or not!! (and more disgruntlement) You people are just like the PAP! Anyhow do things one!
It was my turn and I didn't hear any more. It was hilarious. I ambled over to let them check my identity card. I got my ballot slip and moved to the spot where you vote. As I looked down at my ballot slip, I hesitated. Then I saw TPL's name and all doubt vanished from my mind. I marked my cross and folded up the slip, dropping it into the brown box labelled A2* before leaving.
Later, I texted my sister, apparantly, she had gone to vote too. She is going to Bintan today and had decided at first not to vote. But she had changed her ferry to a later one and had gone with my parents to vote in their ward, Joo Chiat. I was heartened, looks like my repeated entreating for her to do it because "every vote counts" had worked.
This is going to be the mother of all elections not only because a record 2.2 million are eligible to cast a ballot today. Its significance is different for everyone, depending on which group they belong to, socially and economically and because of the different values and interests that different groups and individuals espouse. I can tell you for my parents who live in middle-class Joo Chiat, being pensioned retirees and not wont of any neighbourhood amenity or trivial hokey like "lift upgrading", there is nothing much in terms of carrots that the PAP can offer them, not any threat of withholding anything if they were to vote WP. So ironically enough, it boiled down to whether the PAP candidate would "come knocking on our door to ask for our support". Too bad for Charles Chong, he not only forgot to pay my parents (hitherto ardent Chan Soo Sen** supporters) a visit, my mother spied him doing housecalls at the four HDB blocks nearby and totally missing her building which was 150 metres away. Charles Chong should have thought hard about traditionally pro-PAP people like my parents, who have voted PAP the last 30 years but who have had a daughter giving them a more realistic view of the Other Side, sending them links to online news sites and reminding them that the vote is secret for the past 5 years. There is a grassroots alright, but it is the private youth grassroots that foments right in the living rooms of the critical swing-voting middle class that the PAP have not considered in their current political strategy (which doesn't exist).
For me, my son is going to be born a Singaporean and will serve National Service in 18 years. I have a responsibility to make a choice according to my convictions, and I am convinced that our country needs to go in a direction that will give my kid a better future, and a future worth sacrificing 2 years of his life for.
For me, the choice is clear.
*Different districts are grouped into sectors that are reflected on the ballot paper - such as A1, A2 and so on. When you cast your ballot it goes into the respective ballot box as well. This is a rather partisan way of coordinating the balloting, since all ballots can go into unlabelled boxes once people have voted. This method allows the PAP to do a guesstimate of how certain sectors had voted after counting is concluded, and this has a large part to do, I am sure, with why certain sectors are eventually carved out of their original constituencies and lumped into another one. For instance, this time, a whole sector of Hougang SMC (guesstimated to have voted largely WP in 2006) was carved out to form Ang Mo Kio GRC, a PAP stronghold.
** Chan Soo Sen was the former MP of Joo Chiat SMC. He had served several terms and had been re-elected by popular mandate each time. He was put out to pasture this year and replaced by the smug-faced but relatively unknown- to-Joo Chiat ,Charles Chong.
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