Low Thia Khang, Sylvia Lim, Dr Chee and many Opps candidates have been mistaken by the huge turnout of "supporters" at their rallies.
Despite their rousing cheers and shouts of "Worker's Party " or "SDP " amidst blowing horns and flapping party flags, their hearts were far from supporting them. In the quiet of the polling station, they drew the cross on PAP. Such was the harsh truth the Opps candidates had to face with after the results were announced.
I feel for Dr Chee. I expected a close fight and I didn't expect him to lose by such a big margin. I hope he takes the setback in the right spirit. Like his daughter E Lyn said and I want to say the same to him, " Just keep going and don't give up."
Is this your first time to rallies? You have just joined SBF in 2015 ...
Most old timers we know have been to rallies for decades and we all know it means nothing. The best ever rally I recalled is Cheng San 1997 last day in Yio Chu Kang stadium and back then, SBF was full of updates and folks were fun to interact with before the rise of social media in recent years. Gone are these great folks from this forum. After JBJ or Tang Liang, I cannot remember who finished the last speech, cheers went on for a good half an hour in the stadium especially the stage and people refused to leave. The stadium was jam packed and crowds formed outside was huge. If you are outside, there is no way you can enter the stadium. The atmosphere was electric and there was a sense of expectation that things would be different. Unofficially, the crowds began to cheer and demonstrated peacefully outside the stadium for the next 2-3 hours - thousands walked round the industrial estate around the stadium cheering on WP. There was such a sense of camaraderie. The media was excited and filmed the whole epic but this was never shown on TV. We all knew what was the sense of People's Power then coz cars stopped to allow the crowds to cross and police allowed the procession to continue as there were too many of them.
We all thought WP would win finally. Result was otherwise. Though I heard news of last minute ballot boxes arrived at the centre that changed the outcome on that same night. Later this surfaced up in the internet discussions. But this is not the main point. Since then, there have been huge crowds but I recalled it has not matched 1997 and we all knew by then there was no way you can tell how the electorate can vote based on the size.
For SDP, I want to say it that the crowds were not as enthusiastic as those of WP crowds. CSJ has improved tremendously no doubt and given SDP did not get good crowd support in the past, they must have felt this would be different.
This time, PAP has played it fair. You can get all the broadcasts of all the rallies on the internet and you do not need to go to rally to hear it out.
End of day, just remember crowd rally has never been an indicator of final support of any party. Crowds nowadays are more less boisterous.
