Dear Workers’ Party,
I am writing this open letter to you to share my thoughts and concerns. I am not a politician or civil servant nor do I belong to any political party. I am a Singaporean with an interest and commitment to making Singapore a better place. Like many Singaporeans, I have been observing the events in our country in the last month and am concerned by what I see, especially coming from your party. Please allow me to share this in the spirit that it makes you, a better opposition, and, consequently, Singapore, a better place.
Contesting Strategy
You contesting strategy has baffled many of us. On one hand, you had raised hopes of many Singaporeans in the past five years of being an alternative voice and, someday, an alternative government. With the ground sentiment and the political capital you have built up over the last few years, the time was perfect for the WP to contest and break the PAP’s super majority in Parliament. The WP has been campaigning on the grounds of the PAP having a supermajority in Parliament and yet, when the time came for you to do something about it, you fell short. It was rather disappointing to many Singaporeans that you decided not to field a larger slate of contesting at least 1/3 of the seats in Parliament. After bringing many of us Singaporeans on a ride and on a high and only to be let down like this, you owe us an explanation. And please don’t hide behind the perennial excuse of gerrymandering. Singaporeans are not stupid and want to know the truth. Since you have not come out to be honestly accountable to Singapore voters on this front I can only guess what the reasons may be. Did you not have enough people to put forward 7 more candidates to account for a third of all parliamentary seats? Surely, with the growing WP brand name and support, this cannot be the case. Anyway, as has been seen from your teams in East Coast and Punggol, you typically anchor your teams with one or two star names and get quite regular party activists and volunteers to complete the slate. So this reason doesn’t seem plausible to me. Or it is that you were afraid of spooking Singaporean voters. That you feel, the time is not right to show your hand on the WP’s intentions to work towards forming government and, in the process, erode the PAP’s 2/3 majority in Parliament. Perhaps you feel that older Singaporean voters, may still be concerned about such scenarios crippling or hampering the policy making process. So, in the meanwhile, you make slow and steady ground in Parliament, and when the ground is ripe, you may make a bigger play. If this is the case, Singaporeans, and particularly those who have placed faith in you, need to know. Please be honest with us and stop hiding behind PAP weaknesses to hide your intentions. You just can’t take us all on a ride without letting us know what the destination may be, how we will get there and how long it will take us to get there.
For example, your strategy of not contesting Marine Parade-Braddell GRC was a strange one. I know you have come out to say that it is due to the EBRC changes – once again hiding behind gerrymandering as an excuse – but haven’t the boundary changes also affected other constituencies you are contesting like East Coast, Punggol and Tampines? So what is so special about Marine Parade that you had to forgo it even though you have consistently been on the ground there for years and chose instead to compete in a new GRC, Punggol. Many Marine Parade voters want to know the truth and we are tired of your dishonest and convenient “taiji” tactics. The GRC became smaller this year (131,493 voters) from when you contested it in 2020 (139,738 voters) so how come you are not contesting it when your party has strengthened over this period? You did see more than a 6% swing in votes in Marine Parade in 2020, which was even more than your stronghold of Hougang. The voters of Marine Parade had put their faith in you. Why didn’t you repay them for that trust? Surely it just cannot be about gerrymandering as MacPherson’s 27,000 voters, which were brought in by the new boundaries, form only a fraction of the more than 131,000 voters in the GRC. Is it because, Marine Parade-Braddell GRC with 22.4% of voters over the age of 65, have a higher proportion of voters than the other constituencies you are competing in? Perhaps you think that you have a bigger supporter base among younger voters, which explains why you opted instead for Punggol where above 65 year old voters accounted for only 9.4% of the total voter base. Maybe it’s more strategic because you think senior voters may be more mindful and cognisant of some of the recent WP transgressions – namely the Raheesa Khan case or the Pritam Singh verdict in court. Maybe you will wait till the next elections to return to Marine Parade when you think many of them would have passed on and the average age of the voter base falls. Whatever it is, there are seniors who had placed their faith in you and you have let them down because you think they won’t be on your side.
Campaigning Strategy
However, I am most disappointed by your campaigning strategy which has been dishonest, manipulative and irresponsible. You must recognise that since 2020 you have been bestowed an official title as the main opposition party with your party leader having an official role as Leader of the Opposition. This is not just a nice to have title but a commitment, responsibility and recognition of your role as an alternative voice. You are not, and can no longer, operate as any other opposition party. You need to be constructive, serious and think big and not engage in small level and narrow-minded politics anymore. I am startled and disappointed that you have campaigned on anger, which has been divisive. Which is why I have written this note anonymously as you have created a culture of fear and hatred that ordinary Singaporeans like me fear speaking out as we will be cancelled and targeted by your party apparatus.
Against the backdrop of what is happening in the world with job and economic security in serious trouble, I expected the WP to really come out to offer credible, workable and sustainable solutions. Instead, the solutions in your manifesto were mostly populist with little or no impact on solving our problems. Even those that addressed issues such as cost of living were not workable, a stretch and one that has long term implications on our fiscal strength and economic competitiveness. Here we are, dealing with job losses and there you are proposing more public holidays and school times starting later. Seriously?? You seem to have a lot of research capabilities and I give you high marks for narrative shaping. So why can’t you generate those resources in coming up with serious and credible economic solutions.
At your rallies, all I have heard is – the PAP is bad; so and so PAP Minister or politician said something wrong or fell short; vote for the WP as an alternative voice because, apparently, more of you in Parliament is the silver bullet that will solve all our economic woes. We have no qualms voting you in. But what are we voting you in for? Just to make grand speeches, file parliamentary questions and make parliamentary interventions? That was ok when you were just a regular opposition party but no longer acceptable when you are positioning yourself as a credible alternative. How will having more of you help me and Singaporeans? How will you, talking more, help me and other Singaporeans? It won’t, sadly. If you had spent your rallies focusing on policies and actions that will help Singapore and Singaporeans during this time of need, I assure you that more Singaporeans would have rallied behind you if your suggestions were sound and logical. You need to mature and graduate beyond just taking potshots at the PAP and just campaigning on being an alternative voice. Because what Singapore and Singaporeans need are alternative ideas and actions, which you have fallen short of.
You have shown time and time again this GE that you care more about your party than Singapore or Singaporeans. You talk about injustice and use that as a rallying cry to lobby voters to support you. Yet, you, yourself, are selective about injustices that happen around you. When the SDP candidate dished our racial slurs against Indians, where were you? How come you chose not to speak up against that injustice? Why did you turn a blind eye to that? Sure, it was politically expedient to talk about declaring Thaipusam a public holiday rather than step up for your Indian supporters who needed immediate and rallying support behind them. What’s the point of such lip service? Clearly it only achieves your political aims.
You have taken aim at many of the government ministers during this GE. Surely, anyone with any logic can understand that if you lose out on a key portfolio minister you have to wait 5 years for the government to strengthen that bench. One minister out, has to be replaced with another pulled out of somewhere else and possibly fast-tracking newer and younger politicians up the ladder. The consequence of this – there is a net loss for Singapore, and that to during these turbulent times when we need all hands on deck. Imagine this football analogy. You are going to be playing in the UEFA Champions League Final and Real Madrid has 5 key players injured. They are bound by transfer rules to not being able to go out and buy new replacements even though they have the resources to. So what do they do – they look into their reserve and junior teams to bring on untested and emerging talent. It’s a risky but inevitable gamble. Are we gonna hollow out the government leadership bench when we need them the most? Is that what you want Singapore to go through just so that a few more of your backbencher MPs can get voted on to make more speeches in parliament? Unless you are stepping up to present yourself as an alternative government, it is highly irresponsible of you to cripple Singapore’s capabilities to battle this storm. It shows once again that you think more about your party than you do about Singapore. That, to me, is an utter disappointment. After 4 terms or more in parliament, your leadership is still mired at this low level of politics, Please step up, step out, or don’t get in our way!