The SDP team that could not have lost

The GE is over, the results are cast in stone. Should have let it to rest and move on. I just want to make a last comment on the SDP’s Holland Bukit Timah team that I wrote earlier that could have taken down the PAP team. Not only that they did not, they fared worst than the team in 2011 and that made the result so much more disturbing. Technically, the SDP team had all corners covered, a medical professional in Professor Paul Tambyah that was a head above Vivian, a woman candidate in Chong Wai Fung to match Sim Ann, a most feared opposition candidate in Chee Soon Juan and a Malay candidate in Sidek Mallek.

The SDP team was carefully crafted to counter the PAP team. With Vivian and his political bloops, he would not be able to stand up against Tambyah, at the very best they would both split the votes evenly. Sim Ann had an edge for being the known factor but many voters were turned off by her antics during the rallies. She too could not gain much advantage over the SDP candidate for the female votes. And Sidek Mallek would have made a clean sweep of the Malay votes as none in the PAP team could be picking them up. Chee Soon Juan’s return would be well placed to increase the anti PAP votes. The SDP could not fall lower than the 30% hard core opposition supporters. How could the team get only 33% of the votes, 6% lesser than the 2011 team?  It just did not make sense. There was no weakness in the team unlike in 2011.

With a hard core of 30% as base, just the Malay votes would take it to near 40%. All Chee Soon Juan and Tambyah needed to do was to bring 5% each and they would be neck to neck with the PAP and likely to win.

The 33% meant that practically all the Malay votes went to the PAP. It also meant that Chee Soon Juan and Tambyah could not convince the voters to give them any vote and actually lost more votes to the PAP team.

I have discussed the reasons for a 10% swing votes, 4% due to new citizens and 6% due to the goodies handed out and changes in some govt policies. The 10% swing would mean the PAP team adding on 5% to the 61% in the last GE and the SDP losing 5% from its 39%, ending with 34%, still one 1% more than the final 33%.

If the demographic distribution of Malay voters was even, there should be a 10% Malay votes in the GRC to square off the 10% swing, and the result should be more or less the same as the last GE.

The final result was just too incredible and unbelievable. This must be the biggest mystery of this GE. It was like a strange event in the Bermuda Triangle that defied all logic and reasons. How could a SDP team that was technically superior or at worst equal to the PAP team lost so badly?

Call it a miraculous win for the PAP team. The other mystery must be the near loss of the WP team in Aljunied GRC. The voters could not switch camp just like that, and without a big crisis. The AHPETC was no crisis but a red herring. The voters of Aljunied were not so daft not to see it to affect their voting decision.

Yes, the truth is stranger than fiction.