Politician Tin Pei Ling Faces Facebook Petition Trouble

The Singapore General Election ended. All was good, except for Ms. Tin Pei Ling who isn’t really popular among Singaporeans, or at least Facebook-ers in Singapore.

We spotted at least 5 Facebook pages ranging from 7,000 likes to 40,000 likes wanting her out of the parliament. The reasons vary.

A Facebook page titled “We want George Yeo in parliament and not Tin Pei Ling” has more than 26,000 likes. The reason is pretty obvious:

After this general election, we have truly seen how flawed the GRC system is, firstly unworthy candidates such as Tin Pei Ling were elected into parliament because they had the backing of a Stronger team and now because of a Strong opposition side, our beloved George Yeo was sadly ousted from parliament.

One Facebook page with 31,000 likes, feels that actions should be taken against Tin who broke the electoral law by posting on Facebook on Cooling-off Day. Tin, however, did explain that it was a “honest mistake” by one of her Facebook administrators. Another Facebook page states that Tin lacks the maturity and character to serve the nation with 13,000 people ‘liking’ the page asking Tin to resign from the parliament.

Somehow, the photo with Tin holding a Kate Spade branded box seems to be the favorite display picture for most of the Facebook pages petitioning against her. It would be interesting to see how Tin responds to this whole Facebook petition trouble.

Using social media

Despite defeat, Ms. Nicole Seah’s Facebook page continues to gain in popularity. As she explained in a press conference, social media shouldn’t be looked upon as just a tool. Rather a politician should use social media to listen and engage with the citizens.

“Let us remember that social medial in itself is just a medium. So if you want to use it for the sake of using it, you wouldn’t get much result,” said Seah in a press conference.

“I think what people are looking for in a public figure is really the willingness to serve, the sincerity, most importantly the authenticity and the ability to listen to Singaporeans,” she added.