With the General Elections of 2011 now truly over, I feel that I should throw in my dua sen while it’s still on people’s minds.

Some people have been asking me: ‘Who did you vote for?’ That’s a fair question, though that’s one that I’m not going to answer in person, much less online. My vote is secret, as is yours. What I will say is this: I felt that I had to make a choice where there would be positive and negative consequences either way. So, I voted such that I would end up with what I would refer to as LUO.

If the previous acronym does not make sense to you, then let me explain. LUO stands for ‘Least Undesirable Outcome’, which is a state where I do not have options with perfectly positive outcomes. At the same time, all possible options were such that that I have to consider which one has negative consequences that I can still tolerate. Without going into too many details, LUO indeed did occur to my GRC, and I did contribute to that outcome, but at least I can assure myself that the alternative outcome would probably have been worse. Though of course, time will tell whether I had made the right decision.

So with all that said and done, let me just state for the record what I think about the general outcome of this election and its implications for the parties involved.

To the ruling party of the PAP, I say this to you: congratulations for retaining the majority of Parliament, the teeming masses have spoken, and it is decided that they want you to be in power. That said, do not be too quick to pat your backs. Remember what your (and I say this with full respect) esteemed colleague George Yeo has said: the discontent on the ground is real, it is not negligible, and the ruling party has to transform itself or be transformed. It would be easy to simply write off the dissenting voters as ingrates, but it would be wiser to actually think about whether there really is any merit to this supposed lack of gratitude. You can choose to be the optimist and simply accept a 60.1% margin as a ‘strong mandate’, or you can look at both sides of the coin and realize that 40% of the electorate rejects you.

Of course, 60.1% isn’t a shabby result, but it contrasts with 66.6% in 2006 and 75.3% in 2001. You could see that as a drop from A1 to B3 to B4 (and just barely B4, at that).

To the opposition in general, I say this to you: congratulations for winning a greater share of the vote this time round. That said, do not be too quick to pat your backs either, because there can be mutual exclusiveness between gaining support due to winning the hearts and minds of voters, and winning votes because voters simply don’t like the other guy. The truth is that some voters do have the mentality that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ without even considering the bigger picture which is in this case ‘What is the best outcome there is for my country?’.

To the Worker’s Party in general, I would like to extend my congratulations in your retaining the seat of Hougang and getting the five seats of Aljunied. That said, remember that winning a GRC is not an end in itself. To be honest, the hard work has not even begun. Rather, the hard work starts now. It would now behoove you to follow through on your campaign promises to serve well Aljunied residents in particular, and to provide a credible opposition voice in Parliament in general. Success in doing so can only make you stronger, whereas failure would certainly have far-ranging consequences whose discussion is beyond the scope of this cute little weblog.

So that’s it; that’s all the two cents that I’ve got to throw in with regards to the recent General Elections. As you can see, my two cents are really not about patting the winners or kicking the losers, for there are no real winners or losers when everyone works together towards a common good in a mature democracy. Rather, what I had to say is just a point of view about what everyone has got to ponder upon and do to work for a better Singapore.