More I think about it again, I thought about the July Crisis that happened triggering World War 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Ultimatum and I notice the similarities between the Austria-Hungary-Germany alliance and Chee Soon Juan. Basically it was the alliance's intention all along to go into war against Serbia, so when their heir to the throne was assassinated by Serbian nationalistic agents, they sent an the July Ultimatum to Serbia demanding that Serbia demanding a whole bunch of things which they very well know that is impossible for the Serbs to accept, then declaring war on Serbia after the Ultimatum was not completely accepted, thinking that they can put the blame on the Serbs for starting the war.
It does sound a lot like Theory A. Chee Soon Juan basically made an offer to the Worker's Party that he knows it is impossible for the Worker's Party to accept. He then goes ahead to compete in the by-elections, blaming the Worker's Party for causing the 3 corner fight for not accepting this "very reasonably offer made in the name of opposition unity".
We will see if the Punggol East voters will fall for this ruse.
Well politics is about people not only doing things but coming up with the right excuse that people find acceptable in order to do things.
However the irony of World War I is that nobody really got what they wanted. World War I was the classic lose lose situation. It was the end of an era of long peace in Europe, a whole generation of generals never went into war before and didn't understand what it was like. Everybody wanted a war but nobody understood what a war is. World War I was just a lot of romantic, starry eyed people dreaming of glory, and was pretty traumatising because it was the first major war fought with machine guns but no tanks yet.
So the Austrians were trying to be crafty, but they didn't know that it would lead to the end of their empire. They were too clever. But they had limited information. They wanted to achieve something, but they didn't know that there was an entire system of alliances that dragged the whole continent into war. Everybody was being clever, everybody was being crafty, but nobody got what they wanted in the end.
In a way it's hard to analyse Chee, because he sees things differently. Smart people are easy to understand because they see the system the way that it is. Stupid people are harder to understand because you also have to be able to see the system through their eyes, which adds another layer of complexity. And it goes without saying that stupid people who think that they are smart, like Chee, are the hardest of all to understand.
World War I has taught us something else about politics. There is no system between the opposition parties. There was a lot of talk about opposition unity but nobody made the system work. Today you are my ally and tomorrow you are the enemy. Most of the stories that are told about World War I are about the 20 years that led up to the war, when all the major powers made mistake after mistake that would drag everybody into a big mess. Because there is a weakness in the PAP, everybody is joining the gold rush, but there is no means of resolution. Today there is UN and everybody can agree that it is not perfect, but the mechanism of resolution has ensured that - at least outside of Africa - there is no World War 3. There are no peacemakers among the opposition. The best they can do is to throw a blanket over the squabbles and hope that Singaporeans don't see it.
The one party who doesn't need opposition unity is the Worker's party. But they have problems of their own, and if they don't find a way to draw on the strengths of other parties then they're liable to be very limited in what they can achieve. It is quite worrying - PAP is fucked up enough and what if WP goes on to be similarly fucked up?