Vincent Wijeysingha should publicly condemn SDP & Dr Chee Soon Juan

[metalmickey]

There is one piece of the puzzle that doesn't make sense. Let's accept what some other guys have been saying in this thread, that for a while SDP and VW had been moving apart in terms of aspirations and their philosophy. That they're going to concentrate on making policy, and away from NGO kinda stuff like gay rights, migrant worker rights and the freedom to protest.

Then why were VW and Paul Thambyah slated to be candidates in the Punggol East election campaign? This looks like a very very big reversal from that time. So we're saying that in a short span of time, VW changed from being the party's great white hope and one of the most important people, to somebody who represents something that the party is moving away from?

Or is he another Chen Show Mao, a very electable public figure, but not that much clout within the party?

 

[ray_of_hope]

Hardliners within SDP have clearly lost out.

Who would have thought that SDP under CSJ would ever publicly praise the police? Well, now we have it:
SDP commends police for permit for forum
http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/09/07/sdp-commends-police-for-permit-for-forum/

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Hardliners within SDP have clearly lost out.

Who would have thought that SDP under CSJ would ever publicly praise the police? Well, now we have it:
SDP commends police for permit for forum
http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/09/07/sdp-commends-police-for-permit-for-forum/

The hardliners in SDP have not lost ground. Praising the police is just a PR exercise to show the regulations are oppressive - in reality highlighting the need for to apply for a permit in the first place.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Then why were VW and Paul Thambyah slated to be candidates in the Punggol East election campaign?

You don't get it, do you? At election time it does not matter who gets slated as long as the person can put up a credible front and make the party look good. All differences are swept under the carpet. How else would Chee Soon Juan have tolerated the likes of Tan Jee Say and Michelle Lee?

It is not like WP where you have to prove yourself first on the ground and also prove your loyalty to the party leadership before you can be fielded. For SDP, as long as you can make SDP look good, you're fielded.

It is when elections are over then the moderates and hardliners gut it out.

 

[metalmickey]

First that's a very strange way to run a party. You put up candidates who are not central to the party to stand for elections. Then what happens when they actually win?

And second, you make it sound like Chee Soon Juan is the moderate who "puts up" with the radical VW. That's amazing - CSJ has been in the news for 20 years now and this is the first time I'm hearing him being called a moderate.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

First that's a very strange way to run a party. You put up candidates who are not central to the party to stand for elections. Then what happens when they actually win?

And second, you make it sound like Chee Soon Juan is the moderate who "puts up" with the radical VW. That's amazing - CSJ has been in the news for 20 years now and this is the first time I'm hearing him being called a moderate.

CSJ put up with TJS and ML, I did not say he put up with VW.

P/S: You think Jeanette Chong and Nicole were central in NSP when they were fielded? Of course not. They had the glitz and made the party look good.

 

[metalmickey]

Yeh but NSP is different. After the RP refugee gang got their guys fielded, in short order they moved to the centre of the party. They didn't quit NSP to do NGO stuff although it does seem that a few of them feel that maybe they don't have to quit NSP to carry on their NGO work.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Yeh but NSP is different. After the RP refugee gang got their guys fielded, in short order they moved to the centre of the party. They didn't quit NSP to do NGO stuff although it does seem that a few of them feel that maybe they don't have to quit NSP to carry on their NGO work.

You know, we say the PAP always parachutes candidates. TJS & AYG were the quickest parachutes ever. Don't think they even logged a single hour of groundwork before being put through the press conf.

In some sense, SDP was a virtually an NGO support outfit. They decided to turn political when they saw the 39.9% and smelt blood. Irony being of course that the men & women responsible for that 39.9% have disbanded.

 

[metalmickey]

Yeh, but TJS and AYG are not really NGO people are they? They are not special interest groups? TJS ran for presidency, which is in spite of what our gahment says is a political office. Ang Yong Guan and Paul Thambiah are doctors who are fed up with the way that the PAP is running the health system so in a way they are NGO but this is also political.

It is possible that the first phase of the rehabilitation of the SDP is the restoration of the brand name through the big names. Then you attract a lot of people who feel that the SDP is a rising force (and of course you want them to be the SDP type of people, whatever that may be.) Then you grow the movement. I've always wondered whether the mistakes made during the Punggol East by-elections were a blip on an otherwise positive trend, or if they were a sign that SDP is finished. This remains an open question. And consider this: what they did during that time is only a mistake because they aren't powerful enough. Otherwise it would not be a mistake.

It seems that with this change in direction, we will have people who were previously bitching about them not being political enough start to bitch about them suddenly being political.

 

[ray_of_hope]

Yeh, but TJS and AYG are not really NGO people are they?

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not TJS & AYG approach other parties first, including WP? Only after the parties turned them down did they approach SDP which was only to happy to accept them. Which party will now accept TJS? Or will he form a new one? These are pertinent questions.

 

[metalmickey]

I don't disagree with you when you say that TJS is a bit of a white knight looking for a convenient horse to ride in to town on. Ang Yong Guan is somebody who I think is a well meaning person and a doctor but he's not really a politician. He wants to do good and fight for peoples' issues but I don't know if he can put in the hours demanded of him by WP.

TJS: well it's good for some opposition party to have him around since he's a person who has operated in the higher levels of govt. But he has to play ball and not think that he's bigger than any political party. And I don't think he's capable of doing that. And if he doesn't learn how to do that his political career is over. Ironically the question of whether he's going to have a political career is only important if he's going to have a political career. Otherwise he's a non-entity and it doesn't matter if he has a career.

That is not what I really meant when I said that TJS and AYG are not NGO people actually.

 

[ray_of_hope]

TJS... has to play ball and not think that he's bigger than any political party. And I don't think he's capable of doing that. And if he doesn't learn how to do that his political career is over.

That is the pertinent point. TJS, just like that RP sec-gen, is not able to play second-fiddle to anyone. Their own lofty opinion of themselves is only shared by a small segment of voters. The vast majority of voters have a distaste for their highly inflated egos. Until now both either do not realize that or are completely in denial.

 

[jw5]

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not TJS & AYG approach other parties first, including WP? Only after the parties turned them down did they approach SDP which was only to happy to accept them. Which party will now accept TJS? Or will he form a new one? These are pertinent questions.

TJS and GMS should get together and form a party.

 

[I_Hate_Pappies]

TJS and GMS should get together and form a party.

I wonder how TKL will feel about this combination. :o

 

[wwabbit]

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not TJS & AYG approach other parties first, including WP? Only after the parties turned them down did they approach SDP which was only to happy to accept them. Which party will now accept TJS? Or will he form a new one? These are pertinent questions.

Story I heard is that WP wanted them to do some stuff like selling Hammer, help out in MPS, organize events, etc before being considered (no guarantees) as MP candidates.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Story I heard is that WP wanted them to do some stuff like selling Hammer, help out in MPS, organize events, etc before being considered (no guarantees) as MP candidates.

This is what everyone has to go through. Problem with TJS and AYG is that these two chaps want the short cut to success. TJS in particular. Perhaps he think as ex PPS he doesn't have to get his hands dirty and go through all the rank and file. Unfortunately that's not how they do things in WP.

 

[tanwahp]

I've always wondered whether the mistakes made during the Punggol East by-elections were a blip on an otherwise positive trend, or if they were a sign that SDP is finished. This remains an open question.

SDP saw their role in the Punggol East episode as a publicity campaign and they never intended to contest.

It was difficult to do the same for Hougang as it was an opposition held ward and would have incurred worse backlash. As a result WP moved ahead in etching impressions in the electorate minds and they risk being sidelined in 2016.

What I think is SDP could have pulled this off if not for Chee's absolute tone and bizarre power-sharing proposal gaffe. The whole thing could have been better executed and managed. The problem is that SDP tends to be very absolute in saying things that they look unprincipled when they take it back later.

 

[ray_of_hope]

SDP saw their role in the Punggol East episode as a publicity campaign and they never intended to contest.

I am shocked you would say this. We saw the pics of two sets of posters for VW and Dr Tambyah having been printed. Stacks amounting to hundreds of posters for each. I do not know the total costs for those posters but I'd imagine it wasn't a small amount of money. (Insiders of the various parties who know about such details can perhaps give a ballpark figure for such printing costs.) As such, to say that an already cash-strapped party can blow precious resources for "a publicity campaign and they never intended to contest", is hard to believe.

 

[steffychun]

SDP always and will have cocked up ideas. Punggol East of "i enter parliament, you run the town council" is just the start. Next time what, "you clean the office, I do the campaigning?

 

[OverTheCounter]

SDP saw their role in the Punggol East episode as a publicity campaign and they never intended to contest.

It was difficult to do the same for Hougang as it was an opposition held ward and would have incurred worse backlash. As a result WP moved ahead in etching impressions in the electorate minds and they risk being sidelined in 2016.

What I think is SDP could have pulled this off if not for Chee's absolute tone and bizarre power-sharing proposal gaffe. The whole thing could have been better executed and managed. The problem is that SDP tends to be very absolute in saying things that they look unprincipled when they take it back later.

The sdp punggol east episode was idiotic. Their publicity stunt gained them nothing. WP will not change its attitude toward 3CFs no matter what sdp said or did. WP will also never accommodate sdp in any way shape or form. All the published email left a very bad impression on me because it appears that sdp was just trying to make a political point, but in a very amateur manner. Sdp basically maneuver itself into a position where it looked very bad and desperate. Any political point it was trying to make was totally lost.

And to cap it all, 3L won. Not just won but won with a good majority. That meant sdp had it contested would have been a spoiler like TJS and in fact denied Singaporean the chance for another opposition politician to enter parliament. 3L's victory totally destroyed SDP's credibility.