Grandpa’s Revenge

Opposition Politics in Singapore is a thankless task. Generally speaking, the role of the opposition in Singapore has been to serve as a punching bag for the government party. The government, which controls some 79 seats out of a total of 84 in a unicameral parliament, has a habit of using every trick in the book to make life miserable for anyone who even considers running for a seat under the banner of anyone except the ruling party.

Singaporeans have developed a rather strange attitude to the opposition. The opposition MPs were people you clapped for (“Dude – You’ve got guts”) but you’d never actually vote for them. For many years, we kept Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang in Potong Pasir and Hougang simply because their presence was enough to irritate the powers that be.

Then in 2011, we decided that the powers that be needed more than an irritant and so, we handed the Group Representation Council (“GRC or in electoral math – 4 seats”) to Mr. Low’s Workers Party. This was officially the worst showing in the ruling party’s history and things were made even worse when Dr. Tony Tan, the ruling party’s preferred candidate scrapped through the presidency by less than a whisker against Dr. Tan Cheng Bok, a former member of the ruling party.

The ruling party seemed to have gotten lucky in 2015 when it called for an election not too long after our founding father Mr. Lee Kuan Yew died and then, it changed the rules to make the Presidency a preserve the Malay Minority, which the rest of us seemed to think was a ploy to keep Dr. Tan Cheng Bok out of the any organ of state.

Well, things have gotten interesting since 2015. The biggest start to this was when Dr. Tan Cheng Bok found a “Venture Capitalist for Dissidents,” namely Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, the Prime Minister’s younger brother. Dr. Tan has founded the Progress Singapore Party or PSP. The PSP has become something of a hot stock in the field of Singapore’s politics and I had the good fortune of being invited to their Chinese New Year dinner on Friday 17 January 2020.

What a party it was? The food was amazingly good (as Chinese New Year food usually is), there was a rock band called “Evolution” (Dr. Tan has said no to revolution because it involves bloodshed – so he’s proposing evolution) and they were very good. They launched their party song and a mascot. Dr. Tan also introduced new members to his leadership team, all of whom were credible candidates (one of them was a former Air Force Colonel.)

However, what was most telling was the fact that the under 35s were in a significant minority in the room. Dr. Tan is 79 and while admittedly sprightly, he’s definitely an old man. There was a token young girl somewhere but by and large this was a party for the New Old.

When I think of this fact, I’m reminded of a speech that Mr. Leslie Fong, former Vice-President of Marketing at Singapore Press Holdings gave at Ad Asia in 2005. Mr. Fong was speaking at a forum at a time when respected papers around the world were going “tabloid.” Mr. Fong described the whole exercise as “A futile effort to dumb down for younger eye balls at the expense of more valuable older ones.”

I think of that moment and the PSP dinner because it looks like the PAP has forgotten “more valuable older ones.” The people at the PSP had all benefited from the system created by the PAP government. This wasn’t a gathering of louts or the systems losers. The man who was appointed to be Dr. Tan’s number two is a former hedge fund manager. You’d imagine that this lot would be cheering the ruling party on for giving them so much.

Yet, they weren’t cheering on the ruling party and there has to be a reason for this. My Mum would argue that this is because while people may benefit from something, they’ll turn on it if it hurts their kids. One only has to think of cases of battered wives who happily put up with a battering and then, when the abusive spouse turns on the kids, she does what she should have done ages ago. What does it say about the state of things when a loyal member of the ruling party becomes a member of the opposition?

Likewise, with the “Baby Boomers,” also known as those heading into their 70s. They have benefited from the system but have their children? I’m brought back to the days before I was trying to get my passport renewed to go back to school in England (a process that the government enjoys complicating to ensure kids come back for National Service). My Dad had just lost a contract to shoot an ad for the Air Force to an Australian who had a Hong Kong Crew (My Dad’s crew being Malay but Singapore Born). It was at this point where he said, “I’ll vote for the other guy, even if he’s an idiot. Why is my son doing National Service but they’re giving benefits to the guys whose kids don’t serve?”

I think of these moments because the powers that be need to studying the ground. Its moments like what my parents went through that make people change their minds so to speak. The PAP Government has on the whole done a good job for Singapore but it needs to look beyond and build for future generations rather than for a single one. They’ve done well but to remain in power they need to make people feel they’ll continue doing well.