A political party in a certain country has a system for each division to elect a delegate to represent that division. The delegate meet at a national convention to elect the leaders of the party. The people seeking to be leaders have to give money to the delegates to buy their votes. This is called "money politics".
The leaders need to have a lot of money to give to the delegates to win the party elections. They have to earn their money through corrupt means. Althougth the process is democratic, it is tainted by corruption.
Well, I guess the analogy in Singapore is that the people seeking to be leaders know in advance they are going to be the leaders, and promise high salaries to the delegates. Furthermore, the delegates may not be voted by the people.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a subplot in this post. I agree that such a system is not good, but we need more information to compare to Singapore (if we care to). How much money is involved? How does it compare with the living standard in Singapore? Is the government still working hard for its people? Why isn't there someone who comes up and say that such a system is wrong? ... Or is this an illustration that democracy need not be better than our system?
Let's take the US Presidential Election as an example. Facts of reality. In a country of more than 9m sq/km with more than 300m population comprising 50 states, there could be no such thing as anyone walking into the nomination centre with a nominal deposit and fill in a form to stand for election. If that's the case, nomination day could return more candidates than the entire population of Singapore!
ReplyDeleteCitizens and corporations should be free to donate to political causes they believe in. The total size of the sum looks big only in isolation as a sum; it isn't when compared to the size of USA that has to be campaigned through.
Moneyed politics? Yes, activists corporations do donate with motives of legislative support for their causes and businesses. I don't see anything wrong with that. That's the fundamentals of politics: to promote your cause with your support and money.
This is just to enable the cause to be placed on the election platform. Ultimately, it's up to the entire electorate to vote.