For the sake of some accuracy, your various points will be
addressed in their respective parts :-
SDP used to be good and strong under the leadership of Cham See
Tong. It spiral downwards since Chee Soon Juan took over. SDP has
time and again openly challenged PAP to the point where the party's
members are being sued for slanders or charged in courts. In a
country where the media, the military and the law enforcement
agencies are controlled by the incumbent PAP govt, SDP's actions of
openly challenging PAP is tantamount to committing political
suicide.
Was the SDP ever strong under the leadership of Chiam See
Tong ?
He never healed the long running internal strife between
himself and his Chairman Ling Howe Doong that split the party into
two camps.
The Chairman and the Party Members had resented
Chiam for his soft stance and lack lustre performance in
Parliament towards PAP policies, and not giving much needed
support to JBJ when there were 2 or 3 Opposition members in
Parliament.
Chiam was criticised by his own SDP rank and file for
his unusually warm and cosy relationship with the PAP that
became obvious in his performance as the leader of the Opposition
after JBJ was knocked out of Parliament.
In fact, the internal resentment spilled out into the public
arena with the recruitment of CSJ into the SDP as the Assistant
Secretary-General to Chiam.
Chiam did not even give his support to defend CSJ - when CSJ was
accused by his Faculty Head for dubious corruption
charges for claiming more then the usual taxi fares by
$1.50+ and postages that cost no more then $30 over
disputed contents mailed to some foreign universities - and all
approved ONE YEAR BEFORE CSJ entered the political arena on
the side of the Opposition.
Chiam's actions drove a wedge between himself and his SDP
members, and they gave him a vote of No-Confidence - which led to
Chiam to respond in his own unique ways that led the SDP Chairman,
the SDP Executive Council and the General Membership to
collectively vote him out of the SDP.
Did Chiam build a strong SDP ?
Without challenging the PAP - can Singaporeans be
politically educated, or will Singaporeans commit political
suicide by evolving into political apathy, go into deep political
slumber and allow the PAP to do as they like ?
It is through SDP's strong willed political
activism that has resulted in the inch-by-inch regaining of
political grounds being returned to Singaporeans.
Without the political battles fought - and the political
embarrassment caused to the PAP Government for the hypocrisy of
their propaganda claims to an Open Society - would there
have been the Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Green ?
Without the organised threat of outspoken agitation by the
SDP - would there have been changes made to allow Singaporeans
a bigger say in our own lives by the PAP Leadership awakening to
the fact that Singaporeans want to be involved in the politics that
affect us ?
Unfortunately, the PAP's sly response was to divest political
responsibility into two parts - giving Singaporeans a say in
electing who will form the management in the Town
Councils that manage our environment and our daily lives;
while we have no say on national policies that affect us.
SDP supporters may argue that the actions of SDP's members
against PAP are brave but to the average Singaporeans, they are
just dumb. As pointed out by someone in the forum, SDP's actions
are irking Singaporeans and may even pushed them away from other
opposition parties. Unless the current leadership in SDP is being
changed, I doubt SDP will be able to do much in Singapore's
political scene in the years to come.
Who are the average Singaporeans ?
Are the SDP supporters not average Singaporeans also ?
If the average Singaporeans supporting SDP are dumb - are
you suggesting that most average Singaporeans are similarly
dumb ?
If the actions of CSJ or the SDP are irking Singaporeans - it is
surprising to see the increasing number of new and younger
faces amongst those being arrested by the Singapore Police at the
various SDP events held around Singapore.
If the actions of the SDP are irking Singaporeans and are
driving them away from the Opposition - it is surprsing to see an
ever increasing number of participants at Opposition events, with
exchanges that are more lively then the PAP / Government
Meet-the-People sessions.
If the actions of the SDP are driving Singaporeans away from the
Opposition - the Workers' Party would have a hard time recruiting
new members, and yet - with CSJ's and SDP's seemingly suicidal acts
since the 1990's, the WP had been able to present
political new faces that even threatened LHL in his own
GRC Constituency in Election 2006.
WP has been viewed as a better opposition party when compared to
SDP. This is evident as WP garnered the largest number of votes in
the last 2 elections amongst the opposition parties. Since WP is a
better opposition party, why did JBJ formed a new political party
and renamed it Reform Party instead?
Before you proceed further into a new area of discussion, and to
continue your previous line of thought that Chiam had build a
strong SDP, your current statement will require Chiam's performance
to be examined again.
If the WP is seen by you to be a better opposition party -
what has happened to Chiam's newly formed SDA Party ?
Should Chiam not become a more experienced political leader to
have grown his new Political Party to be a better and
stronger party than the SDP that he lost, and with his
experience to make the SDA to be even stronger than the
WP ?
The present success of the present WP can be
attributed to JBJ's reputation and his efforts in the
1970s - which the present WP Leadership benefitted
from the historical track records established by JBJ.
It was and remains obvious that JBJ could not possibly
takeover the helm of the WP, the moment when JBJ had freed
himself from over 10 years of political cold storage - as a
result of the deliberate schemes created by LKY and
the PAP to bankrupt him.
It was a politically correct move for JBJ to form a new
Political Party and not jeopardise the modest political
gains that WP had achieved under the present political
leadership without JBJ's involvement for the preceding 10
years.
There will always remain the debate as to how effective the WP
can be on the National Stage - as long as it keep to its
preferred low profile in not competing for the public stage
and leaving the PAP to monopolise daily politics in Singapore.
The WP will pay the price at each election fought, as
electioning must take place from Day 1 after the last election.
Though PAP has been implementing unpopular policies and screwing
up recently, I doubt the opposition will be able to cause a big
swing of voters towards them.
During the last election, the PAP could only garner 66.6% from
only 33% of the registered Electorate list that actually could
participate in the process - that 66.6% will probably be lower if
100% of the Electorate could exercise their votes.
Even in LHL's GRC constituency, the six new, unknown,
and young faces from WP stole 33.9% of the votes from LHL -
despite LHL's confidence that he will garner at least 70% if not
more.
Yet, this was in 2006 - when Singapore was supposed to be on the
road to recovery after the economic downturn from 9/11, SARS and
Birdflu.
Are you certain that you will want to "doubt
the opposition will be able to cause a big swing of voters
towards them" in the next election ?
You have not considered the new political ammunition that the
Opposition has to throw at the PAP since the last 2006 Election -
one major political hot potato topic will be the loss of
US$100 BILLION from the Singapore Reserves managed by GIC under the
watch of LKY and Temasek under his daughter-in-law.
The loss would have been more acceptable if the PAP had been
more charitable towards Singaporeans instead of being so
generous in bailing out failed foreign banks and financial
institutions, while chastising Singaporeans for our
calls for more generous Social Welfare support during the
hard times of massive retrenchment in Year 2004.
If the PAP leadership is as confident as you are in doubting
"no major vote swings towards the opposition", they will
be calling for an early election in late 2009 or early
2010. The unusual caution in delaying an early election can be
seen in the delay in carving out and regrouping those HDB
blocks that gave their votes to the Opposition during the last
2006 election. This redistribution and re-carving is to
dilute the areas with concentration of voters leaning towards the
opposition.
It there are no major swings to the opposition, it is due
very much to the PAP manipulation of the electoral boundaries to
break-up and dilute such concentrations of opposition leaning
voters; and the continued use of legislations to raise the stakes
to prevent the Opposition and Singaporeans from participating in a
true democratic election exercise.
If the USA with a population of over 100 million can have almost
90% participating in their election process, it is pathetic that
Singapore's registered voters of slightly over 1 million had
resulted in only 33% participating in the process.
