HOUGANG: THE DAY
AFTER
What lies ahead for next
fight?
By-election
holds lessons for PAP and WP for a higher-stakes battle
By ROBIN CHAN
NEWS
ANALYSIS
WELL before the first ballot was cast, punters and pundits alike
thought the odds of Mr Desmond Choo winning Hougang were extremely
slim.
They were right. On Saturday, Hougang voters stuck to their
preferred choice of the Workers' Party and rebuffed Mr Choo of the
People's Action Party.
But they did it a tad more gently this time, compared with a
year ago at the general election (GE). Mr Choo improved on his
previous showing of 35.2 per cent, pulling in 37.9 per
cent of the votes this time.
Mr Png Eng Huat will be sworn in as the WP's sixth elected
MP.
Beyond restoring parity to Parliament, what signals can be
read into the results?
For the WP, the victory must be particularly gratifying, as
party chief Low Thia Khiang admitted facing a challenging
battle.
Given the circumstances under which the by-election was
called, and talk of rifts within the ranks, the party emerged
relatively unscathed, with a resounding 62.1 per cent of the votes,
down slightly from 64.8 per cent last year.
Many political observers point to the talismanic influence
of Mr Low himself, who defended Hougang for 20 years before leaving
for Aljunied GRC last year.
"He was like a co-candidate," said Nominated MP Eugene
Tan.
"It was Low Thia Khiang and Png versus Desmond Choo."
In the last rally, such was his overwhelming presence that
Mr Low took to the stage- not once, but thrice, speaking in
Mandarin, Teochew and English.
Even in victory, he remained fiery, thrashing the PAP for
resorting to old-style tactics of "personal attacks, veiled
threats and character assassination".
During the campaign, the PAP had said that Mr Low's
decisions ought to be questioned after he failed with his
choice of former MP for Hougang and erstwhile protege Yaw Shin
Leong who fled Singapore.
But voters stayed faithful to Mr Low.
Former Nominated MP Zulkifli Baharudin said: "It was as if
Low Thia Khiang was still their MP."
Mr Tan put it thus: "Hougang voters seem to have their
loyalty to Mr Low first and to the WP second."
The victory in Hougang preserves Mr Low's unimpeachable
position in the party, say observers, and a looming leadership
election is unlikely to rattle him.
But while observers like Dr Derek da Cunha believe "the
premium on WP brand name remains intact", others say the recent
rumblings should give cause for internal review.
Mr Low said yesterday that he would not be going
on a witch-hunt but observers believe the party will reinforce
discipline within the ranks.
The recent clutch of transgression appears tolerable to
supporters. So, Mr Yaw proved to be a dud as he fled after refusing
to deal with allegations of infidelity. So, party member Poh Lee
Guan pulled a stunt by indicating he too wanted to contest in
Hougang only to back down later. So, a certain insider calling
himself "Secret Squirrel" leaked party meeting minutes.
For now, voters in Hougang - and probably elsewhere - are
prepared to give WP the benefit of the doubt. It has not expended
much of the capital it earned after historic wins in the last GE,
said Mr Zulkifli.
Still, observers say that if the WP has ambitions to expand
its influence in the north-east, from Joo Chiat to East Coast and
even Tampines, it will have to do more to keep the flotilla in
tight formation.
"To be entrusted with more seats in Parliament, it must show
that its own house is in order... The stakes will be higher
than before," said Nanyang Technological University media academic
Cherian George.
A Straits Times poll of 400 residents over May 23 and 24,
showed that 6 per cent had voted for WP last year, but were
undecided this time because the recent incidents had shaken their
confidence in the party.
While they did not make the switch, their wavering should
give pause.
Mr Low brushed aside the recent troubles of the party as
"isolated cases". But as former Nominated MP Siew Kum Hong
said: "Mr Low needs to set the party on sound footing to go into
the next GE as strongly as they did in the last one.
"If these things happened in a national GE, I'm not sure how
much damage control he can do."
While WP will have much to mull over Hougang, for the PAP,
the future must be one of continuing to till the ground in the
ward. Can it be a Potong Pasir, which fell after a decade of
assiduous courting by Mr Sitoh Yih Pin?
But his opponent Chiam See Tong began to lose support
because he could not keep up the town's estate maintenance.
Hougang may be ageing but the WP has kept it spruced up and
judging by the mandate given last Saturday, it is nowhere on
the downward trajectory that Potong Pasir was six years ago.
Mr Tan wonders if it will take something as drastic as Mr
Low retiring from politics, or a severe fall from grace to
shift Hougang. "Should the PAP just give up Hougang?" he
asked.
The by-election has also raised questions on the PAP's
strategy, particularly of gunning after the candidate's so-called
integrity when it was based on so little.
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean had criticised Mr Png
for appearing to change his stance on whether his name was in the
running for a Non-Constituency MP post.
Dr Terence Chong, senior fellow at the Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, wrote on his Facebook page that DPM Teo
could have handled the incident more "deftly".
"Unfortunately the PAP overplayed it and misread the
public's appetite for old-style politics," he said.
One finding from The Straits Times poll, however, appears to
contradict this sentiment.
The survey of 400 voters showed that Mr Choo narrowed the
gap, as his share went up from 31 per cent to 38 per cent between
last Wednesday and Thursday.
Were some voters beginning to have doubts about WP and could
a longer campaign have helped Mr Choo do better?
The point is now moot but Mr Tan said the PAP must address
the issue of perceived fair play between the PAP and
opposition.
"No matter how good they run the campaign, how strong the
candidate is, this sense of unfairness that some voters feel will
just work against them."
Which party will heed the lessons from this campaign is a
question that the next general election will answer. Unless, there
is another by-election.
Top of the news, The Straits Times, May 28 2012, Pg A7
