Reflection on the 2012 Council Elections: Li vs Libs－王盈方醫師瘋狂之旅 Dr Yvonne Wang's Blabberings

It's been an honour to be invited by Councillor Justin Li to run as an election candidate on his team in the Ryde council elections in 2012. Thank God the votes next to my name was not a whopping 0, even though I never told any of my patients I'm running or make big face posters of myself or go shaking hands or talking with anyone, and not many people even know I was running until one week before the election! I have many people to thank, including Charles and Mike because as soon as they realised I was running, they immediately asked me how they can vote for me and immediately tried to get people they know to vote for me, even though I didn't ask them to. And also my cheerful buddies Feng and Wendy for coming along to assist Clr Li at the polling booth, despite the risk of getting sunburnt (subsequently Feng did get sunburnt) and making the morning very enjoyable!

As a Christian, I can feel the power of prayer in this whole process. When I obtained the electronic list of electors, I started praying for 500 residents a night for their hearts to be open to the gospel. When Clr Li arranged the volunteers polling booth roster, the place he allocated me to just happen to be across the street from where our church’s prayer meetings occur (even though he didn’t know that)!

When the counts began, Clr Li seemed to be leading, and the percentage is very similar to the Liberal candidate, which is a rare occurrence for an independent candidate who is not backed up by a powerful party. There will be many changes ahead for Ryde in the next four years. At the moment, we can see the Civic Centre issue is creating division in council as well as amongst the residents. If the council meetings remain at the “half for, half against” status, then the agenda won’t move ahead, and the council’s efficiency and ability to actually do productive things decline. And having attended several council meetings in the past, I could see that the relationships between the Liberal and Labour/Independent counillors are already very tense. This is something that needs a lot of praying for.

Some may ask me how Clr Li knows of me. Last year March, when the “illegal boarding house” issue was rife, a group of Chinese people with low English proficiency came up to me and asked for help. I attended several council meetings and spoke on the behalf of the Landlords. I used my bilingual abilities facilitate the communications between the local landlords, the councillors, MP Victor Dominello, and the MARS members.