Blackmail is the exertion of pressure or threats, in an attempt to influence someone's actions.
Extortion is the crime of obtaining money, or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority (your vote, we think, is a thing of value).
A Bully is an overbearing, or blustering person who intimidates or threatens those who are weaker, or smaller.
Mr.Lee has said that if you vote for the opposition, your constituency will not receive development funds, or will be the last to do so.Mr.Lee blackmails you with the threat of withholding development, if you do not surrender your vote to him. It is extortion, of course, because he will use the power of his office, to make good his threat.
What would cause a Prime Minister to publicly make such an odious and undisguised threat? Surely, he should be concerned about the backlash against such remarks. The reason he does not care is arrogance. Arrogance born of the fact that you have continually voted for his party, no matter what they say or what they do.
Yet, despite his unseemly arrogance, he is also frightened. He may sense that the ground is shifting in Singapore. And he is willing to use repressive, unconscionable tactics to terrify you into continuing to vote for him and his party.
Blackmailers will not stop. Every time you give in to them, they will come back for more. And if they think their tactics work, they will repeat them.
We learned as a child that the only way to stop the schoolyard bully, was to stand up to him, even if it results in bruises.
As Singapore's electorate must stand up to the PAP, if they wish to be freed, once and for all, from their bullying and their blackmails.
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