RAdm Lui Tuck Yew walkabout double fail?

Over the past 2 days, two personal anecdotes of RAdm Lui Tuck Yew appeared on the internet.  The first was an account of RAdm Lui visiting the condo residence of Mr Miyagi, and the second detailed the interaction between a resident of Moulmein during his walkabout and the subsequent email exchange.  If you have not already done so, you should read the second one.

To a voter, the kind of person (his personality and character) a candidate is, is usually far more important than what their credentials are, or what they profess to believe in.  Unfortunately most of us will never know what kind of people we will be voting for since we have little chance to interact with them personally.  That’s when personal anecdotes such as the above two are really useful – to allow us to peer behind carefully presented facades to have a glimpse of what the candidate is really like.  And when such anecdotes spread across the social media, a whole nation gets a glimpse.

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It might have been harsh to label the walkabout at Mr Miyagi’s condo as a fail on RAdm Lui.  It reflects more poorly on his helpers and his entourage (or maybe the condominium managers) on not working out details before hand (these things need to be by-the-minute details) about what RAdm Lui is supposed to do, where is he supposed to go, there is a reception for him, etc.   Why wasn’t the management there to greet him in the first place?  Nevertheless, the following can be observed from Mr Miyagi’s account:  RAdm Lui appeared to be very efficient with his time, trying to cover as much ground in as little time as possible (while certainly understandable, but doesn’t rub off the right kind on impression on your voters).

This observation was also present in the second account of the Moulmein resident, although this account seems to reveal much more about RAdm Lui as a person.  Firstly, assuming the second account to be accurate, RAdm Lui failed to listen carefully to the resident and what he was trying to ask.  I suspect RAdm Lui was previously in some heated discussion with previous residents who were hardcore opposition supporters. This probably left him frustrated and although I can even empathize somewhat with his frustration, but he should not have lost focus on why he was there in the first place – to convince voters that he will serve them well as their MP.  Failure to listen carefully to a resident is a bad bad first impression in that regard.

Secondly, it appears that RAdm Lui is displaying the mentality of “I am here to gain votes” rather than “I am here to convince people I can serve them well”.  We can see this by his rather ill-timed rhetoric of “blame of the opposition” when the resident shared that he is looking forward to voting for the first time, as well as the “slow us down in our outreach” and “pragmatic way to deal with this is simply to disengage at an opportune moment” remarks in the email.  It appeared that he was there to cover as much ground in as little time, and he did not like to be delayed.  Perhaps most revealing is the fact that while he was prepared to argue the reasons why a resident should vote for the PAP or not vote for the opposition, but it appeared that it never occurred to him to prepare an argument on why a resident should vote for him as a candidate.  It did not appear that he believed in convincing the voter to get to know him as a capable person who is able to represent and serve his people well.  RAdm Lui failed to address this issue a second time when the resident wrote a very carefully thought out and worded email which explained he wanted to find out what kind of person RAdm Lui was.  Instead, the very brief reply (sent from iPad) probably indicated that he answered the email in a hurry and had many other things to attend to (probably not realizing that his email would soon go onto social media).

Lastly, it is particularly telling that he read the resident’s email as an apology and replied that “Dont worry, it didnt leave a sour note with me nor a poor impression of you.”  This was odd because, shouldn’t the walkabout be about RAdm trying to leave a good impression on the voters, and not the other way round? I understand that RAdm Lui was probably very busy and read the email in the hurry, but what kind of impression would you leave on your voters when you thought a voter was apologizing when it should have been you instead?

To conclude, this episode reflected very poorly on RAdm Lui, and I’m sure the Moulmein resident felt it too.  Accurate or not, he gave the impression that he was here to perform a necessary but mechanical duty – i.e. to win votes by “reaching out” to as many people in as little time as possible.  In effect, he appears to have forgotten what meeting his residents ought to be about – he was supposed to be there to convince people that he was the right person to serve them.  Rather unfortunately, he might have instead left the impression that the voters were there to serve him – if you are not pro-PAP inclined (and won’t vote for me), I couldn’t be bothered with you.  It wasn’t that long ago that PM Lee reminded the rest of the PAP that their role is to serve Singaporeans.

To be fair to RAdm Lui,  he was very likely running a tight schedule and dealing with residents who are vehemently against the PAP is not easy.  Not to mention, this would be his first time running in a non-walkover, so he is still relatively inexperienced in the process.  Nevertheless, I do feel that part of the job scope of being a MP is to always be patient and sensitive to the residents you serve.  Failure to do so, or failure to give the impression that you are willing to do so, can be very costly indeed.

The rest of the candidates out there, PAP or opposition, beware of screwing up on your walkabouts.  It may hurt your campaign more than you realize.

[Addendum: Here is a relatively interesting article by ST on walkabouts by candidates.]