Review of General Elections 2011

It's been about a week after the GE. This is the first time that I'm a voter and I'm actually glad that the results was as what I had wanted. It was a close call just as with any other areas. We definitely learnt a lot from this year's elections. It's a wake up call with a big sharp whip spank to some, a great encouragement for others and definitely lots of 'boos' and cat calls for the rest. Here's a non-political review on the past few weeks that I've enjoyed sadistically.

Tin Pei Ling vs Nicole Seah
Ah, our all time favorite from the beginning of GE and which is still burning strongly now.
Take a look at Mr. Miyagi's blog post. Within a few seconds of looking at the photos of Tin Pei Ling and Nicole Seah, I came up with this:

The Appeals of Tin Pei Ling and Nicole Seah
Tin Pei Ling	Nicole Seah
In PAP	In NSP
28 years old	24 years old
In a group with very experienced seniors	I only focused her and her only
Married	Single
Possess Kate Spade	Possess great looks
Regrets not bringing her mother to USS SG	I have no idea what her regret is after all that talk
Has many facebook pages created just for her	Has many Likes in her facebook page
Ability to tai chi perfectly	Ability to speak persuasively

I'd put up a points system but it'd be too much for fans for either of them. I'm not going to judge them right now, but wouldn't it be impressive if they battled against each other again 5 years later?

Yam Ah Mee

As a certain someone had told me, Singaporeans probably were so traumatized with the results that they shifted focused to the man of the night: Yam Ah Mee. He became a phenomenon over night with people requesting to be friends with him on Facebook and tribute videos of him here and here. Here's a video of how he spoke originally:

Just perfect for auto-tuning.

Mascots and merchandises

In a bid to grab Singaporeans' attention, some parties came out with mascots and merchandises to sell to their supporters. We have:

The Sinpo Ant from SDA meant to represent the ants' qualities of "team effort, Consultative and Cohesive... and more..." The first thought I had when I saw it was "Were they shortchanged by the designer who designed this?" Apparently not. Well, for a non-artist who drew this, I'd say the Sinpo ant definitely requires a certain amount of effort to create... I think. Other than taking pictures with this mascot, people could also get a Sinpo keychain.

Then there's also :

SDP's bear mascot named Danny. I really couldn't resist thinking that it was creepy looking, especially when hoards of innocent kids ran to it happily. Well, this probably applies to people with warped minds like me. Hey, the bear is cute. Let's not think about what's in there or what it does to the kids when no one is looking.

Lastly, there's PAP's merchandises. We've seen it on TV and every year's National Day. Yes, it shouldn't be a mistake because that's what I thought when I saw it. It's a standard set of PAP flags and caps. They probably had the resources to get the right suppliers for churning out these goods. I did my best attempt to get a good picture of these goods but I couldn't find them anywhere. Well, here's a small compensation on what happens when I tried to search for it on Google. Creepy, isn't it?

The results

The most apparent news that reached my ears is the news of George Yeo and Chiam See Tong. It's impressive because I was probably one of those few who only sat down in front of a laptop, surfing through the net doing something else totally unrelated to the elections and only heard brief news feed from friends who posted their disappointment in Facebook. Well, then there's also PAP's less-than-expected victory at Marine Parade.

The leavers

Following George Yeo's indication that he would be leaving politics, this would be the most recent news as MM Lee and SM Goh announces their retirement right after the elections. Most of us would be happy because after all, these two men deserves their break after serving Singapore for so long. Apparently, SDP likes the idea too and... it'd be better if there was something more following their departure.

I'm sure we're not coming to an end to Singaporeans' heat and interest in the elections. As the saying goes, "We'll probably forget about it in one year's time and lament about it five years later. As usual. Sighs~"

Disclaimers: All pictures and sources belong to its respective owners.

PS: I couldn't help comparing Sinpo and Danny to the elephant and donkey mascots in America. They just sound... cooler