In the early years of my teaching career, I was privately quite anti-PAP. Of course, as a civil servant, I was supposed to be neutral and that was my official position.
Later, my views changed, thanks to a school leader. He had seen a student poll and told us: “You think you care for the students, they don’t think so.”
Inwardly, I was indignant. How could our work be judged by the sentiments of children?
Then I gradually realised that governance is not easy. Many voters are like children or, even worse, teenagers who think they know a lot.
Large numbers of people who have no idea how to run a community centre, let alone a country are given the power to choose who runs a country. Such is the game of electoral politics.