Let the People Have Him by Loke Hoe Yeong

Author:Loke Hoe Yeong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-981-07-9174-2
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2019-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

—

On 8 September 1980, the SDP was formally registered with the Registry of Societies, with Chiam as its pro tem secretary-general, Fok Tai Loy as pro tem chairman and Ernest Chew as pro tem assistant secretary-general.

The SDP began to plan to launch a membership drive, to place membership forms in the letter boxes of residents, accompanied

by circulars explaining the party’s objectives and the need for a

strong opposition group in Singapore. The annual membership fee was six dollars.19

Chiam indicated that his party members and he would visit housing estates to canvass for support, as part of the SDP’s so-named “Operation Mobilisation” to shake Singaporean voters out of their inertia, and “change the voting pattern.” He also told the media that the SDP intended to publish a newsletter for distribution to the

public as part of its campaign for the election.20

Things progressed well until a hiccup in October. The SDP Assistant

Secretary-General, Ernest Chew, who had already been announced as a candidate at the upcoming general election, was fined $500 in court for using titles to imply that he was a medical practitioner, and for practising medicine when he was not registered to do so.21 Whatever the merits of Chew’s defence were, it was embarrassing for the SDP

and those involved. When contacted by the media, Chiam had to say that the SDP had sacked Chew as he had not been seen for weeks at party meetings.22

Any of the slightest errant behaviour on the part of opposition politicians would inescapably be highlighted by the Singapore media and the PAP. Chiam and the SDP would not be spared from this throughout their political lives. These cases were used by the PAP in their election campaigns to underscore how members of the opposi­tion in Singapore were undesirable for political office. The opposition’s

methods and rigour in selecting election candidates were often questioned by the PAP, which took pride in their own battery of psychometric and other tests of potential candidates, borrowed

from major firms in the private sector. That, however, did not

prevent the likes of the PAP MP Phey Yew Kok—and later Teh

Cheang Wan, the Minister for National Development—from being charged for corruption.

“I never really challenged them because I cannot be too choosy,” Chiam reflected, years later.23 Chiam and the other opposition party leaders could have instituted more rigorous candidate selection crite­ria if they wanted, even with their limited resources compared to the PAP’s. They could easily have removed any potential candidate from consideration at the slightest suspicion of any behaviour that the PAP could play up at election time to discredit the party altogether. But there was a very limited pool of potential opposition candidates to choose from, given the climate of fear. Even among the brave people who joined the SDP as members, not all desired to step forward as election candidates. And even if they were brave enough to run for elections, their families would often beg them not to. Chiam could potentially have ended up with no candidates for the SDP at all, and the SDP would then have remained one-man show.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.