The NMP who wants you to speak up

The NMP who wants you to speak up

NOMINATED Member of Parliament Siew Kum Hong, 34, had a new insight into the Singaporean psyche when he helped conduct a street poll last year.

He stopped Singaporeans in various parts of Jurong group representation constituency (GRC) and asked them if they thought there should be a by-election after one of their Members of Parliament, Dr Ong Chit Chung, died.

The reactions floored him.

Some just waved him off and said: ‘Don’t know.’

‘Others went: ‘Oh, got MP die ah?’,’ he recalls. ‘That was not surprising because many Singaporeans don’t even know who their MPs are.’

He was, however, perturbed by the many who knew but did not want, or dare, to respond. This group included those who thought that he and his fellow interviewers were from the People’s Action Party (PAP).

‘It never occurred to me that they would say: ‘I don’t want to talk to you guys, you are from the Government’. It’s amazing. Across the spectrum, Singaporeans are so afraid of so many different things.’

In the end, his poll showed that 56.8 per cent of 300 Jurong residents wanted a by-election.

The episode also made him realise one other thing: ‘Grassroots work is really hard, regardless of whether you are pro-government, anti-government or stand on neutral ground.’

The NMP, who announced last week that he is applying for a second term, adds: ‘I don’t think people have a good appreciation of how much time MPs spend on their work.’

It has been more than two years since the corporate counsel with Yahoo! Southeast Asia became an NMP.

He applied for it after being encouraged by friends and readers of a current issues column he used to helm for freesheet Today.

Introduced in 1990, the idea behind the NMP scheme is to allow citizens without party affiliation to take part in parliamentary debates without having to go through the electoral process. They are selected by a Parliamentary Select Committee; the most recent comprised eight MPs including one from the opposition.

When asked to assess his own performance so far, he says: ‘I hope I have been a credible speaker. I hope I have shown that there are some things that an NMP can do. And I hope I have made a political contribution.’

‘If Singaporeans believe in active citizenry, they need to speak up,’ he says.

He certainly has. In fact, he has earned a reputation for being one of Parliament’s most outspoken speakers - some say, even more vociferous than the opposition.

He has initiated debate on a whole range of ‘hot button’ issues - from ministerial salaries to the Films Act.

In October 2007, he tabled a petition to have Section 377A - which criminalises sex between consenting males - repealed. Although the petition was not successful, it launched a heated parliamentary debate which spilled out into the public domain - different speakers shepherded moral, intellectual and emotional arguments to argue for or against homosexuality.

In a blog entry on the saga, Mr Siew made it very clear why he launched the petition.

‘I really do it for myself, not for gays. If I have the opportunity to articulate my views but do not, then I would have let myself down.’

He tells The Straits Times: ‘If you don’t speak up politically, you won’t speak up in other areas in your life. You won’t tell your boss: ‘I think this thing would not work’.’

The Raffles Institution and Raffles Junior College alumnus reckons his ‘atypical education’ helped develop his questioning nature. He was picked to be in the gifted programme when he was in Primary 4 at Rosyth Primary School.

‘I was in the second batch of the gifted programme. The teachers were still experimenting as they went along. At that time, it wasn’t so rigorous and gave me the time and space to grow at my own pace,’ says the youngest of three children of an information technology manager and a hawker. His elder brother, 38, is an officer in the Singapore Armed Forces, and his sister, 36, is an operations manager in the oil and gas industry.

He says his political consciousness took root during his teenage years. It grew stronger after he became a law undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, when he spent a lot of time on the Internet, posting opinions and letters on websites such as soc.culture and Singapore21.

‘I also wrote many letters to the Forum pages. Quite a few of them took issue with government policies,’ he recalls.

After graduating, Mr Siew - who specialised in IP (intellectual property) and technology law at Rajah and Tann where he worked for four years - considered emigrating to New York for its more liberal arts and cultural scene.

But he stayed on, after realising that ‘maybe this place meant more to me than I thought, and maybe the other place wasn’t really as as attractive as I thought it was’.

‘Being Singaporean was an accident of birth. I was born here, I grew up here and I’ve benefited from being here. So I feel an affinity to this place, and owe it to myself and my country to do something.’

People, he says, often ask him if he has been hauled up for saying the things he does.

Even his mother, aged 61, gets worried sometimes. ‘She asked me: ‘Why do you always scold the Government? Lianhe Zaobao said you said this and your voice was loud and ringing and clear’,’ he says.

‘But nothing has happened to me. I don’t feel I’m under any surveillance. I don’t think my phone’s tapped,’ he says. ‘Just have the confidence that you’re sincere and honest, and reasoned. You can be controversial but be polite.’

Which is not to say he does not feel fear.

‘There is fear but I try to override that,’ he says, citing his questioning of the poor returns of CPF investments by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) in September 2007.

‘The chairman of the GIC was there, the Minister Mentor was there. I was so petrified that MM would stand up and point out mistakes in my figures. But he didn’t.’

He adds: ‘I think you just need to be a man and get past the fear. What’s the worst that could happen? If he had stood up and corrected me, I would just look stupid. It’s not the end of the world to look stupid.’

He realises that some hardcore Government supporters may see him as cynical because of the issues he raises. ‘But the question is whether I am sincere, and I am. I say what I believe in, and I believe in what I say,’ he says.

That is why he is running for a second term even though, on principle, he is against the NMP scheme.

‘There is always the accountability question. You are not accountable to anyone since you are not elected,’ he says, adding that he started his blog (http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/) to impose some degree of accountability on himself.

On the blog, he posts his speeches, questions and other material ‘in an attempt to be transparent’. Readers post their comments, and he replies to their queries. ‘If they are interested, people can see what I am saying and the responses I am getting, and whether I am making sense.’

He does not agree with the way NMPs are segmented, and tend to be pigeon-holed according to the issues they are supposed to represent, such as social services or the arts.

‘Inadvertently, you are boxing people into an area, and making them feel that they do not have the right to talk out of that box. Jessie, for instance, has a lot of things to say but she limits herself to sports,’ he says of fellow NMP Jessie Phua, who is the president of the Singapore Bowling Federation.

‘You should trust that MPs are smart people who have lots to contribute in all areas.’

In more ways than one, he says he is not ‘your typical NMP’. ‘A lot of them are establishment figures who have done grassroots work. I came in from the cold,’ he says.

He describes himself as strictly non-partisan, even where his interests lie. ‘I have made it very clear that I do not represent or pledge allegiance to any specific group,’ he says.

Therefore, he maintains, electoral politics are not for him.

‘If I go in, I go in to win. But if you play to win, you have to say things that you don’t believe in. That is the reality of electoral politics.’

He adds: ‘You can say all you want about being a constructive opposition, but you will have to snipe especially over popular issues.’ He insists he will not, on principle, criticise the goods and services tax (GST) or other things the ruling party has done right.

‘If you read all the literature, economists all support indirect taxation, and say that it’s the way to go, up to a certain point of course. And 7 per cent is not high.’

Anyway, he doesn’t think the PAP would ask him to its tea parties.

‘There’s certainly a seductive quality about change from within,’ he concedes. ‘But on the other hand, there are some fundamental things I disagree with such as the lawsuits and defamation schemes used to suppress dissenting views.

An MP’s job, he says, ‘is also a big one’.

‘Can I actually deliver and perform if I were seen as the party? I think I can contribute better, and more, from where I am,’ he says.

Two years as an NMP, he says, have made him realise several things.

‘A lot of people talk a lot, but not many would want to step forward, be counted or get their hands dirty.’

The barriers of entry, he adds, are much lower on the Internet where people gripe and take potshots at issues and people beneath the cloak of anonymity.

‘If you feel so strongly about something, come out and do it. Don’t just complain. Come out of your comfort zone.’

He says Singaporeans sometimes give MPs - whether elected or non-elected - less credit than they deserve.

‘I think we are all in the House trying our best to make a better Singapore. Of course, there are differences in how we get there, but that purity of purpose is what I think is important.’

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