Marginalised Politicians, Wasted Potential?

sleaguepunter said:

his head too big for his shoulder.

nobody like a arrogant person.

now he full time WP basher.

i wont be surprise he already sold out.

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CPT (NS) BRANDON said:

If you look at some of these names, many of them once had potential, but their personalities and egos have left them marginalised and without any proper platform, thereby making it almost impossible to attain any sort of political breakthrough. Wasted potential?

1) Kenneth Jeyaretnam - was once the fresh new face of the political scene. Sterling qualifications, strong career credentials, family pedigree (father was regarded as a freedom fighter). He managed to attract high calibre people like Hazel Poa, Tony Tan (Hazel's husband), Nicole Seah and Jeannette Chong Aruldoss but all resigned from RP and joined NSP. Alec Tok, who is lesser known but who is a good speaker with charisma, resigned from RP to join SDP. Kenneth had a great chance but he blew it, and now no one is willing to associate themselves with him. Yet he stubbornly plods on and continues to bang his head against the wall. How long before he is made irrelevant?


2) Goh Meng Seng - was once a member of the WP's Aljunied team. Had he stuck it out for 5 more years he would be an MP by now. Instead his place was taken by Pritam Singh and Faisal Abdul Manap. He then became the leader of NSP and had a very credible line-up, but poor strategy and tactics led to his failure to win a single seat despite having the star appeal of Nicole Seah and other credible candidates. He had a great chance to defeat Mah Bow Tan in Tampines in 2011, as he was easily the most unpopular minister. But he blew his chance, and now Tampines is helmed by Heng Swee Keat - who most people agree is doing a good job. Suddenly Tampines has become a PAP stronghold when it was once considered to be a marginal seat. Had Goh Meng Seng fielded a strong team in Tampines with Nicole, Jeannette, Hazel and Tony (like WP did in Aljunied), I dare say he would have won. Instead, he spread his resources and spent most of his own time trying to disturb Goh Chok Tong in Marine Parade.


3) Chia Ti Lik - once a member of WP's East Coast team and was a fresh young face, good speaker, decent credentials. Despite rumours of extra-marital affairs he still remains highly electable, unfortunately he now has no platform.

4) Benjamin Pwee - another good speaker, decent credentials, former scholar. He had a credible debut in Bishan-Toa Payoh in 2011 alongside Chiam See Tong. He is now meandering around in the wilderness and recently took over the defunct DPP. He is not going to go anywhere with a platform like that. He should have stayed with Chiam in SPP or tried to broker a merger between SPP and one of the smaller parties (such as RP - perhaps with Chiam as Chairman and Kenneth as Sec-Gen).

5) Desmond Lim - had he remained loyal to Chiam, he might have been fielded in Potong Pasir in 2011 - which would have given him a real shot at being an MP. Instead, he was booted out (due to trying to pull a CSJ on Chiam) and Mrs Lina Chiam was unable to hold the seat. Now Desmond Lim is in the wilderness, he can't even get 5% of the votes despite being a party secretary-general. All he can do is cry about others taking his "turf".

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6000kmApart said:

Me reckon that if you put these opposition figures in PAP, most would have been quite successful and carve out a rich career...

Conversely, put say Chan Chun Sing, Tan Chuan Jin, Grace Fu, Janil Puthucheary, Khaw Boon Wan into Opposition Parties, they most likely ended up as cocked-up

Bottomline: PAP have all the machineries and infrastructure for their people to succeed - civil service, grassroots, PA, stats board, $$$$ and State-Controlled Media etc, it's never a level playing field, that's the hard truth.

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metalmickey said:

There are two skills. Administrative ability and political ability. Administrative ability is relatively common among Singaporeans. The PAP people have it to some extent. Even when they are doing the wrong thing and cocking up, they are very efficient at cocking up.

These people mentioned in the note have very little chance to be in the PAP because they lack one important quality: none of them are obedient. Except maybe Ben Pwee but if Ben Pwee were the obedient kind, he would have stayed in the civil service.

In the PAP system it would have been very easy to rise quite far on the basis of your administrative ability alone. And a lot of people in the opposition would probably make good bureaucrats, but the ones who truly shine are those with political ability. Even a youngster like Nicole Seah - you can see her political talent. In the coming years, the PAP will suffer because they have to quickly learn the political stuff.

What the opposition parties badly need are the type of people I would call the "sergeants". Sergeants are not leaders, but they take orders from the leaders, and help the leaders by talking to the rank and file and getting everybody to march in line. They are hard to find but once you see them, you must hold on to them because they are a great asset for any party.

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6000kmApart said:

These come from grassroots, no? WP seems to have these SGTs...

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sleaguepunter said:

paiseh hor, my england not that good. does the above sentence mean GMS is beri old?

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wwabbit said:

Maybe that's why WP finds it hard to form an alliance with anyone. All the potential allies approach WP and ask "hey let's form an alliance, I do all the policy work you do all the grassroot work".... and you wonder why WP ends up rejecting them.

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metalmickey said:

I think that WP will recruit policy guys for themselves, but you need to have a lot of credibility in order to join. Even somebody who knows health policy inside out like Paul Thambyah will have a problem joining WP.

In a way maybe SDP needs to convert itself into a think tank. They work better this way. SDP is doing good things anyhow, regardless of success on the political front. In a way it doesn't matter that they're only pumping out policy ideas and not getting votes. Anybody else out there can pick up their ideas and run with them, and they would have contributed to the oppositiion cause in their own way anyway. That's why I don't want them to fail.

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steffychun said:

Singapore has almost a dozen think thanks already. Too many cooks spoil the broth

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metalmickey said:

That is still OK. That's the great thing about having a lot of think tanks that are outside your party: if you want to listen to them, then you take their ideas. If you don't, then you boh hew them. Unless there are PAP moles out there who scream at you "plagiarising" when you borrow other peoples' ideas. I feel that the "plagiarism" episode damaged the WP in a very big way because it crippled their ability to speak in parliament for a long time.

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metalmickey said:

I think that WP will recruit policy guys for themselves, but you need to have a lot of credibility in order to join. Even somebody who knows health policy inside out like Paul Thambyah will have a problem joining WP.

In a way maybe SDP needs to convert itself into a think tank. They work better this way. SDP is doing good things anyhow, regardless of success on the political front. In a way it doesn't matter that they're only pumping out policy ideas and not getting votes. Anybody else out there can pick up their ideas and run with them, and they would have contributed to the oppositiion cause in their own way anyway. That's why I don't want them to fail.

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CPT (NS) BRANDON said:

1) SDP should convert itself into a think thank

2) NSP should convert itself into a grassroots activism organisation

3) RP, SDA and SPP should all shut down

4) WP should recruit some policy experts and loosen up its own stance on conformity and discipline. While potential mavericks (and power-grabbers) should not be entertained, WP should be careful not to close the door to Type A personalities and charismatic personalities who might be willing to be team players. Chen Show Mao is a rarity. You are not going to find many people with his type of profile willing to slog it out from the bottom, doing menial grassroots work.

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scroobal said:

My take it is that you need to have a large ego just to step into politics. It goes towards confidence. My sense is that their other attributes or the lack of it that is not complimenting their progress.

And you have correctly listed those attributes.

Churchill, De Gaulle, Old man, and nearly all world leaders are renown for their ego that are huge but they have excellent attributes that gets them into office.

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steffychun said:

Singapore has almost a dozen think thanks already. Too many cooks spoil the broth

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6000kmApart said:

Me reckon that if you put these opposition figures in PAP, most would have been quite successful and carve out a rich career...

Conversely, put say Chan Chun Sing, Tan Chuan Jin, Grace Fu, Janil Puthucheary, Khaw Boon Wan into Opposition Parties, they most likely ended up as cocked-up

Bottomline: PAP have all the machineries and infrastructure for their people to succeed - civil service, grassroots, PA, stats board, $$$$ and State-Controlled Media etc, it's never a level playing field, that's the hard truth.

Tell me the PAP people have no EGO? You would probably call Tin Pei Ling political naive, no?

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elephanto said:

Concur, Scroo.

Semantics aside, in the early 80s, Lee Iaccoca was the source behind this distinction: large ego vs strong ego.

In the context of his criticism of Henry Ford III, he said a strong ego is essential in all fields of leadership.
Strong ego = self belief, resolute stand, firm & secure etc
Large ego = where self is ALL : clouds judgement, become slave to all human basic instincts of insecurity, prejudice, pride and avarice.

The truth is, words convey different things to different people, choice of vocab also pretty subjective.

Yet, all can almost agree on the manifestations : the display of behaviour, mannerism & demeanour.

What can be observable is almost always unambiguous and freudian slips are unmistakable.

cheers !

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6000kmApart said:

Me reckon that if you put these opposition figures in PAP, most would have been quite successful and carve out a rich career...

Conversely, put say Chan Chun Sing, Tan Chuan Jin, Grace Fu, Janil Puthucheary, Khaw Boon Wan into Opposition Parties, they most likely ended up as cocked-up

Bottomline: PAP have all the machineries and infrastructure for their people to succeed - civil service, grassroots, PA, stats board, $$$$ and State-Controlled Media etc, it's never a level playing field, that's the hard truth.

Tell me the PAP people have no EGO? You would probably call Tin Pei Ling political naive, no?

Click to expand...

metalmickey said:

There are two skills. Administrative ability and political ability. Administrative ability is relatively common among Singaporeans. The PAP people have it to some extent. Even when they are doing the wrong thing and cocking up, they are very efficient at cocking up.

These people mentioned in the note have very little chance to be in the PAP because they lack one important quality: none of them are obedient. Except maybe Ben Pwee but if Ben Pwee were the obedient kind, he would have stayed in the civil service.

In the PAP system it would have been very easy to rise quite far on the basis of your administrative ability alone. And a lot of people in the opposition would probably make good bureaucrats, but the ones who truly shine are those with political ability. Even a youngster like Nicole Seah - you can see her political talent. In the coming years, the PAP will suffer because they have to quickly learn the political stuff.

What the opposition parties badly need are the type of people I would call the "sergeants". Sergeants are not leaders, but they take orders from the leaders, and help the leaders by talking to the rank and file and getting everybody to march in line. They are hard to find but once you see them, you must hold on to them because they are a great asset for any party.

Click to expand...