Sept 9, 2005
PEOPLE & POLITICS
Fresh faces in Workers' Party
The Workers' Party started a new youth wing last month. As election
talk hots up, the party is gearing up to appeal to younger voters.
Sue-Ann Chia, Li Xueying and Peh Shing Huei talk to three young
professionals on the party's central executive committee.
THE Workers' Party may have only one MP in Parliament now, but it
has big plans.
The party set up a youth wing last month. There are now 20 to 30
active members, including professionals, entrepreneurs and
academics.
Youth wing chairman Tan Wui-Hua, 39, believes the younger members
will refresh the party with new ideas and appeal to younger
voters.
Setting up a youth wing was a milestone for the 48-year-old
political party, one of the longest-surviving here.
WP chief and Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang believes the party's
biggest achievement is managing to survive and renew itself, to
provide voters with a choice during elections.
This is despite what he sees as the 'tight political constraints
and unfriendly macro environment', he tells Insight.
As part of its renewal process, the party is now in the midst of
writing its manifesto for the upcoming general election. It is also
updating its constitution.
Second assistant secretary-general James Gomez, 40, is working on
this.
'One of the changes is to review the rhetoric to make it more
contemporary and relevant,' he says, adding that the constitution
was still stuck in the 1950s, reflecting the outdated struggle for
independence.
Party members are keeping mum about the new manifesto, saying it is
still being refined.
But one hint of the line they may take comes from comments by some
of them that Singaporeans would be poorer without the WP.
They reckon the WP has done its job 'squeezing' the Government into
giving out goodies like shares and funds for the poor.
The party's paper on the 'new poor' - the middle income group who
became poor when recession hit - was the foundation of its election
manifesto in the 2001 polls.
Recent surveys have shown that the incomes of the bottom 20 per
cent households fell in the last five years, even as average income
rose across the board. The PAP government recently unveiled
additional measures to help low-wage workers.
'If our observation of that phenomenon has been accurate and taken
forward, the WP is happy to share that observation, and I think we
look forward to working with everybody to try to resolve it,' says
Mr Gomez, who was a PAP member in the Telok Blangah branch in the
late 1990s.
He adds: 'As a party which is not in power, there's very little we
can do. What we are trying to do is to grow and be in a position
where we can put more members in Parliament, so we can increase the
level of debate on policies.'
WP chairman Sylvia Lim notes: 'The younger leaders must be able to
convince voters that a vote for the WP is a rational choice and
good for Singapore.'
