Dismay islandwide as unpopular ministers retire from Cabinet

SINGAPORE -- A sense of gloom set in islandwide as the newly-named Cabinet excluded several long-serving ministers.

On the overpacked MRT line that crosses Aljunied MRT, the few local passengers on board started singing "Boh ray, boh ray boh ray boh ray", to the tune of "ole ole ole ole", to the dismay of the Indian and Chinese nationals, who formed 97% of the rush-hour crowd.

"Why are the mocking him?" one Indian national was overheard asking his friend. "Raymond Lim (the ex-Minister of Transport) has done a good job; he has made the trains just like they are back home!

"Now maybe the trains are going to be less crowded. I'm going to be homesick."

In Potong Pasir, distressed residents said that their "low house prices" would not climb anytime soon.

"I had hoped that Mah Bow Tan (the ex-minister of National Development) would stay on", said resident Yu Kee Chiu, 61. "With him around, housing prices would have continued to inflate and maybe my flat's would have risen.

"Now I think I may have to keep working past the retirement age of... what was it, 95?"

In a remote prison in Singapore, prison guards reported gnashing of teeth and wails of dismay coming from the jail cell of Mas Selamat, Singapore's notorious limping jail escapee.

One of the Malay prison wardens later told reporters: "Mas Selamat was upset that Wong Kan Seng (the ex-minister of Home Affairs) left. He said 'Mati lah, like that cannot escape another time and swim across Causeway'".

When asked for his comment about the national unhappiness over the changes, ex-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew reproached this reporter.

"I am not in Cabinet anymore, why do you ask me?" said Lee, Singapore's founding father. "Ask my son. He's in charge. Although I approved of all the resignations, including my own."