As the blogosphere and cyberspace rage on with disappointment and anger over the results of the Singapore elections, I remain blas�. It was no surprise to me anyway, with the exception of Potong Pasir, which I had cynically expected to be swayed by the proverbial carrot. Good for you, Potong Pasir voter of SDA! You have shown great perseverance to pork and carrot, and goodness know what other food paraphernalia dangled in front of you. I also expected the voters to sway due to the incisions made on Chiam See Tong’s age and the alleged number- chewing in the town council accounts by the incumbent PAP. But no. The people have spoken and they’d take him, 77 years old, age spots and all. Touching.

Hougang was no surprise. Actually for a political party of all that elite talent and ground expertise combined, I was surprised that the best they could come up with was character assassination and surprise, surprise, the same tired (wilted) carrot of upgrading again. Look, it did not work the last time round, why should it this time? Demographics of that area point to people in middle age and above, and possessing low to mid education. Wallet padding and material enticement might appeal to the apathetic middle class but certainly not this group. If anything, they pride themselves on their sense of loyalty and you merrily go in, waving wads of cash and whatnots, making them out to be weak-minded people easily swayed by the first promise of money. Even I (a bimbo to boot!) was befuddled with this unwise proposition.

And the whole James Gomez saga. Either way they should have figured out that the odds are not favourable to them as here’s why. Even if people believed them, they way they went on and on about it just about turned everyone off. The apathetic cannot be bothered, cynics would have expected some form of cheap shots on the opposition and as for the intelligentsia, they were simply insulted. It skewed the focus of the Elections and it put the ruling party in a bad light for it looked as though they were fond of using the hammer on ant� tactic once too often. And that fixing the Elections Department and fixing government� conspiracy is waaaaaaaaaaay too twilight for even a conspiracy junkie like me.

Which super scale� PR strategist did they put on the job anyway? Time for a reshuffle, dud. Buangkok MRT committee might be a good idea, you have fellow Whites (albeit, elephants) for company.

I also learnt that the 56.1 % win at Aljunied GRC was “decisive”. They should seriously review the grading system in schools then. Anything above 55% is A, and of course, anything above 66.6% is distinction.

More about food politics later.