Chiam See Tong and his By-Election strategy of 1991..

Chiam See Tong and his By-election Strategy of 1991....

In total truth..Chiam was never a strong leader and his By-election strategy put PAP in the govt before even the election of 1991...It was a very disastrous move...I concurred with the late JBJ to be against it..

Then again those years ..the qualities of candidates in the opposition was so mediocre and Chiam as the then unofficial leader molded that idiotic strategy...there was no other better plan..and all went for the worst plan of a by-election strategy...

Come 2011..20 years down the road..we do not see many good opposition candidates too..Look at the RP candidates who fought LHL in Ang Mo Kio...The reason that many of us got at least 30 over percent was not because of the quality but the emotional votes against PAP...And only one candidate lost his deposit due to the party branding in Punggol East in the GE 2011...But the credibility came to play again in the PE BE in 2012...WP's Lee Li Lian won on more merits this time round....also on the strength of WP than the poor losers of RP and SDA..who only garnered 1% and 0.4% votes respectively..losing their deposits.

Even Marne Parade GRC...with newbie Nicole Seah and team against GCT got 44% vote..I do not see that as the the results of NSP excellence but the anger of citizens against PAP with emotional voting...

Come 2016 will be a different ball game..With better credible and creditable oppositions...PAP will be banging for a tought time...Citizens can see the credentials of the candidates now..And with the emotional uprising of the citizens..opposition can capture a sizeable parliament ..though I do not see that the opposition can come up with one-third opposition members of parliament. If 15 to 20 opposition MPs would be an achievement in GE 2016 !

And saying is easy...I know how hard it is for opposition to walk the ground with not much support (my last experience as a candidate in 2011!)..Hence, any opposition party or candidate worth his salt need to do the ground work at least two years before any GE...best would be every week of meeting the residents and walking the ground to be seen as true opposition of S'pore not just pop up during elections..

It will be a new awakening of the political twist come 2016..only if opposition knows how to go about securing their strong base...Even if there is 3 corner fights..it will be there if many opposition party candidates wrestle for supremacy of power ..no different from PAP...

We must learn from the mistakes of past SGs of the other parties...looking back into the failure of SPP's Chiam, RP's Kenneth and SDA's Desmond Lim...Never think as a Secretary-General (SG)  you are above every members of your party...without good members any party is just a party...nothing else....!!!

We need better and younger knowledgeable political interest to become better SGs....SGs must remember that one swallow does not make a summer..Only if you are Lee Kuan Yew, maybe, maybe....

We can see where is SPP is heading now....and can RP bring back its glory in the legacy of JBJ..And SDA (better to disband) can just forget about politics altogether....The citizens have made the choice in 2011...it will make more wise choice in GE2016.....

The choice is for better and more credible opposition in parliament come 2016.....PAP has seen their better days !!

patrick lee song juan.

Legend:

RP - Reform Party
SDA - S'pore Democratic Alliance
NSP - National Solidarity Party
SPP - S'pore Peoples Party
WP - Workers party
JBJ - Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam