When people talk to me about Politics in Singapore, I will invariably mention how annoyed I am with the electoral boundaries. While I intend to write more about this in the coming weeks, I thought a good starting point was a note I wrote on FaceBook back in 2011, just before the 2011 Singapore Elections.
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I have lived in Pasir Ris for most of my life (17 out of 24 years). My seconday school, JC, and even my church is in Pasir Ris, so you might say I'm a pasir-risan (for lack of a better term) through and through. Anytime people unfamilar with the geography of Singapore (namely my foreign university mates) ask me where I live, I just tell them I live at the easternmost MRT station on the green line.
Living in Pasir Ris is fun! I remember hanging out with friends at white sands after school, simply because it was the biggest shopping centre with a direct bus from school, skipping remedial classes to go play at the Downtown East arcade (I racked up so much points on my tapz card that I became a VIP member), taking MCs from the polyclinic (at Drive 4), going to Elias Mall or West Plaza when we had 6 hour breaks between classes (my JC timetable was pretty messed up), and even cycling at Pasir Ris park in the middle of the night (just because it's just there).
Me and my fellow pasir-risans are the ones friends call when they have chalets at Downtown East or Costa Sands, and they do not know how to get there from the MRT station, or when they are lost in Pasir Ris park trying to find their friends' BBQ pit.
I have a friend that lives in Punggol. The first time that he set foot in Pasir Ris was when he had to report for BMT. When I go to his place, I have to take a 15min bus ride. It takes me 15 mins to walk from Elias Mall to Downtown East. It takes me 15 mins to cycle from one end of pasir ris to the other. It takes me half an hour or more to cycle from the westernmost part of Pasir Ris to Punggol (via old Tampines road as we are unable to cycle on the TPE).
So this is the question I really want to ask; why are we in the same GRC? There is no common identity, and are separated by geography (I take 30 mins to walk to Tampines MRT from White Sands, so by comparison Punggol to me is really far away). My Punggol friends and my Pasir Ris friends have never felt like the lived in the same area.
Forgive my ignorance for I'm just a simple student that don't really follow Singapore politics, or understand how the electoral boundaries review committee work, but won't it be better to create a Sengkang-Punggol GRC and a Pasir Ris GRC, instead of this Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, Punggol East SMC & Sengkang West SMC? People from Punggol; east, west, north, south or central are more likely to have a common identity and share the same public facilities & amenities than any Punggolites (again for lack of a better word) than pasir-risans. I would find it weird if I lived at Punggol east, and suddenly my neighbours across the street from me are no longer in my constituency, but belonged to a constituency with people several km away.
Even if Pasir Ris was too big to be a SMC and too small to be a four-membered GRC, or if Punggol and Sengkang was too large to be a six-membered GRC, I still feel it would be better (and would make more sense) to have a four-membered Punggol GRC, a four-membered Sengkang GRC, a Pasir Ris East SMC & a Pasir Ris West SMC. Don't this configuration seem more logical?
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Re-reading this note, I started to think; what If I were the committee determining the electoral boundaries in Singapore, what changes would I make? How would I create better SMCs and GRCs that what we currently have?. Maybe I'll take the next couple of weeks/months coming up with my "ideal" constituencies.
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