With the GE2020 now over, we know the PAP has been returned to power safely with a more than comfortable supermajority margin. Prior to polling day, PAP candidates raised the possibility of PAP losing their majority in a freak election and the alternative side stating the opposite scenario.

This is the last of the 3-part book-review series on the Air-conditioned Nation series of books written by the academic Cherian George (CG).

This is the second of a 3-part book-review series on the Air-conditioned Nation series of books written by the academic Cherian George (CG).

I have heard of this term “air-conditioned nation” for more than a decade but I never actually read the book where this term originated from. Now, I finally did.

The online and social media discourse is anecdotally dominated by anti-establishment voices. We all know what goes on in cyberspace is not reflective of the voting outcomes due to the bubble and echo chamber many of us engage in.

“If the opposition parties don’t want our vote in our worst, they don’t deserve our vote when we are at our best.”

By now we should all know the poorer performance of the opposition this time round in GE2015 so I shall not harp on it already. I wrote a pro-PAP essay in an NUS module one year back just to go against the grain and my tutor even sent a personal message to say I did very well. I never actually expected how true my entire essay turned out to be. Anyway, I would like say here my hopes for the PAP government and the opposition parties. This is also the first election I’m voting in.

TL;DR summary: “To all anti-PAP and pro-opposition supporters, please give the PAP credit where credit is due and fault the opposition when they deserve it.The opposition especially the WP has shown to be not as capable as claimed after the dust of its crowded election rallies and campaign promises have settled."

This topic has been debated many times over in the public sphere to the blogosphere and even on the NUS Confessions page. That’s right, it was just last week that I was embroiled in one such debate that I was even singled out (in the second confession) for being a liberal idealist.

(This is not a full-fledged review, just a short personal opinion piece about this book.)