In a recent blog entry , GMS said he regarded LTK as his first political mentor who had guided him through the “formative years” of his political involvement.
However, it seems that after a decade in politics, GSM still yearns for a rebuke from his ex-mentor. And a very public one at that.
The background is that GMS was unhappy that WP was also eyeing Moulmein-Kallang GRC for the coming GE.
In his blog, he accused WP of having “lost sight” of its mission. He ridiculed the younger WP members as being too “gungho” and feeling “invincible” to the extent of “thumbing down other parties”.
Then very coincidentally, an anonymous Opposition party leader spoke to ZB on broadly the same issue.
This very shy politician accused WP of having fallen into the ‘NCMP trap’ laid by PAP. WP was supposedly scheming for its own members to enter Parliament via the NCMP route. This was to be accomplished by sending its candidates to SMCs to reduce the likelihood of other Opposition parties entering Parliament.
While there is no confirmation yet as to who this rather demure and secretive Opposition leader really is, it is not difficult to make an educated guess - only one Opposition leader has thus far been ill-composed and politically audacious enough to broach this issue about WP.
That is despite the fact that negotiations among the Opposition parties are still ongoing, Parliament has not been dissolved, and Nomination Day has not been announced yet.
There are only a few prominent loose-cannons among Opposition leaders. One of them is currently bogged down with salvaging his party from a long overdue implosion. So we can rule that yellow oral spout out.
And based on his retort, LTK seems to be eyeing someone with an orange tinge.
So do we
So LTK went on to mock this particular shamefaced Opposition leader, saying that he was ineptly shooting himself in his foot by going public over this issue.
LTK challenged him to come out into the open, alluding to this person’s cowardice by taunting that “if a person is involved in politics, he should not be hiding”.
[And if I may add: hiding under an MSM reporter's skirt]
"你要搞政治，政党领袖嘛，为什么要畏首畏尾呢？"
LTK then specifically clarified that the number of WP candidates for this coming GE would not be very different from that of the previous one, ie. there will not be a drastic increase. This statement is directed against GMS’s earlier point that “for two parties (ie. WP and NSP) which are growing rapidly, it is just a matter of time that such battles will be waged”.
In reality and rather overtly, the one with the guileful and aggressive approach is NSP. When the Malay Bureau was being launched, GMS had boasted that his party would field up to 30 candidates in the coming GE.
Note that that was way back in Sep 2010(!).
And mind you, that was definitely before the exodus of RP members took place, and from which some of them have since joined NSP in recent days. He could not have preempted this good fortune (at the expense of RP).
Is it possible that NSP, which had languished over many GEs, is able to produce 30 candidates of acceptable electoral quality - a number greater than what a well-established and better organised party like WP can offer?
Based on my rough count, NSP, which contested under the SDA flag in GE2006, only produced slightly over 10 candidates then. And that includes quite a few who have left or is unlikely to contest – Slipper Man, Arthero Lim (the has-been SBC actor) and Edmund Ng (who became RP's Chairman and then hopped into obscurity almost immediately).
Even with the new recruits to the Malay Bureau and new party-hoppers from RP, I doubt it can really produce 30 candidates of decent non-slipper-man, non-has-been, quality.
So one suspects that it is part of NSP’s devious ploy to use this overly inflated number as a bargaining position to buttress its claims over choice constituencies during the Opposition horse-trading sessions, and the ensuing bilateral talks.
LTK probably saw through his devious plot.
That was why he reiterated that WP will be able to produce the requisite number of candidates that it had proclaimed thus far. No empty words.
"空口说白话"
He also said it did not make sense for some people, even when Parliament has not been dissolved, to publicise the disagreements via the MSM. The mentor was showing disapproval of his ex-ward's proclivity to attract the wrong attention to himself and in this particular case, to the detriment of other parties and the collective Opposition as well.
Then LTK went on to indirectly remind GMS that WP had originally intended to contest both Whampoa SMC and Tampines GRC. But it decided against doing so because of NSP.
He sarcastically added that these decisions were reinforced by what he heard about GMS having to even resort to selling his HDB to raise funds for the GE (!).
[Note that GMS's timing for selling the flat was well-chosen - it was at the peak of the property market boom. But I am sure it was purely coincidental that he needed money to fund his GE campaign and had even some spare cash to donate to NSP. But note that he is now asking for measures to "moderate" HDB prices. A very timely call too!]
And after this public rebuke and ridicule, I wonder whether GMS would hold still true to what he said about LTK in his blog: “I still respect him; as the saying goes, once a teacher forever a teacher.”
I have this feeling he’ll reconsider.
But knowing GMS, he will not give up easily and neither will he keep his mouth prudently shut long enough before his next gaff.
Anyway, NSP has just announced that four party-hoppers from RP will skip over to contest Moulmein-Kallang GRC. It is very probably intended to beef up NSP’s bargaining position against WP there.
This is yet another cannon salvo fired across the bow of WP’s mighty blue ship.
Let’s await the response from the workers' howitzer.
However, it seems that after a decade in politics, GSM still yearns for a rebuke from his ex-mentor. And a very public one at that.
The background is that GMS was unhappy that WP was also eyeing Moulmein-Kallang GRC for the coming GE.
In his blog, he accused WP of having “lost sight” of its mission. He ridiculed the younger WP members as being too “gungho” and feeling “invincible” to the extent of “thumbing down other parties”.
Then very coincidentally, an anonymous Opposition party leader spoke to ZB on broadly the same issue.
This very shy politician accused WP of having fallen into the ‘NCMP trap’ laid by PAP. WP was supposedly scheming for its own members to enter Parliament via the NCMP route. This was to be accomplished by sending its candidates to SMCs to reduce the likelihood of other Opposition parties entering Parliament.
While there is no confirmation yet as to who this rather demure and secretive Opposition leader really is, it is not difficult to make an educated guess - only one Opposition leader has thus far been ill-composed and politically audacious enough to broach this issue about WP.
That is despite the fact that negotiations among the Opposition parties are still ongoing, Parliament has not been dissolved, and Nomination Day has not been announced yet.
There are only a few prominent loose-cannons among Opposition leaders. One of them is currently bogged down with salvaging his party from a long overdue implosion. So we can rule that yellow oral spout out.
And based on his retort, LTK seems to be eyeing someone with an orange tinge.
So do we
So LTK went on to mock this particular shamefaced Opposition leader, saying that he was ineptly shooting himself in his foot by going public over this issue.
LTK challenged him to come out into the open, alluding to this person’s cowardice by taunting that “if a person is involved in politics, he should not be hiding”.
[And if I may add: hiding under an MSM reporter's skirt]
"你要搞政治，政党领袖嘛，为什么要畏首畏尾呢？"
LTK then specifically clarified that the number of WP candidates for this coming GE would not be very different from that of the previous one, ie. there will not be a drastic increase. This statement is directed against GMS’s earlier point that “for two parties (ie. WP and NSP) which are growing rapidly, it is just a matter of time that such battles will be waged”.
In reality and rather overtly, the one with the guileful and aggressive approach is NSP. When the Malay Bureau was being launched, GMS had boasted that his party would field up to 30 candidates in the coming GE.
Note that that was way back in Sep 2010(!).
And mind you, that was definitely before the exodus of RP members took place, and from which some of them have since joined NSP in recent days. He could not have preempted this good fortune (at the expense of RP).
Is it possible that NSP, which had languished over many GEs, is able to produce 30 candidates of acceptable electoral quality - a number greater than what a well-established and better organised party like WP can offer?
Based on my rough count, NSP, which contested under the SDA flag in GE2006, only produced slightly over 10 candidates then. And that includes quite a few who have left or is unlikely to contest – Slipper Man, Arthero Lim (the has-been SBC actor) and Edmund Ng (who became RP's Chairman and then hopped into obscurity almost immediately).
Even with the new recruits to the Malay Bureau and new party-hoppers from RP, I doubt it can really produce 30 candidates of decent non-slipper-man, non-has-been, quality.
So one suspects that it is part of NSP’s devious ploy to use this overly inflated number as a bargaining position to buttress its claims over choice constituencies during the Opposition horse-trading sessions, and the ensuing bilateral talks.
LTK probably saw through his devious plot.
That was why he reiterated that WP will be able to produce the requisite number of candidates that it had proclaimed thus far. No empty words.
"空口说白话"
He also said it did not make sense for some people, even when Parliament has not been dissolved, to publicise the disagreements via the MSM. The mentor was showing disapproval of his ex-ward's proclivity to attract the wrong attention to himself and in this particular case, to the detriment of other parties and the collective Opposition as well.
Then LTK went on to indirectly remind GMS that WP had originally intended to contest both Whampoa SMC and Tampines GRC. But it decided against doing so because of NSP.
He sarcastically added that these decisions were reinforced by what he heard about GMS having to even resort to selling his HDB to raise funds for the GE (!).
[Note that GMS's timing for selling the flat was well-chosen - it was at the peak of the property market boom. But I am sure it was purely coincidental that he needed money to fund his GE campaign and had even some spare cash to donate to NSP. But note that he is now asking for measures to "moderate" HDB prices. A very timely call too!
]And after this public rebuke and ridicule, I wonder whether GMS would hold still true to what he said about LTK in his blog: “I still respect him; as the saying goes, once a teacher forever a teacher.”
I have this feeling he’ll reconsider.
But knowing GMS, he will not give up easily and neither will he keep his mouth prudently shut long enough before his next gaff.
Anyway, NSP has just announced that four party-hoppers from RP will skip over to contest Moulmein-Kallang GRC. It is very probably intended to beef up NSP’s bargaining position against WP there.
This is yet another cannon salvo fired across the bow of WP’s mighty blue ship.
Let’s await the response from the workers' howitzer.
