scoring political points

After the relentless attack on Gomez, he came out and apologised. But that was not to be the end of the episode. In Low Thia Khiang's view it was an honest mistake. In the eyes of the PAP, it is not only a Gomez issue. It is about the credibility of WP, about transparency, about the quality of all WP candidates. This is the same kind of reasoning that people will use in politiking. Once a mistake is made, when there is doubt on one of its members, then the whole organisation will be questioned. It is lucky that Durai is not a PAP member or candidate. Or he and PAP will be grilled like how Gomez and WP are being grilled. Scoring political points!

7 May, a new political landscape

On the wee hours of 7 May 06 half of the Singaporeans were soundly asleep. Another half was griped by a state of shock that swept through the island. The youth of Singapore have spoken. And their disillusioned parents have joined forces with them to deliver a crippling blow to the ruling PAP govt. A totally unexpected result was frozen on the tv screen. PAP lost 3 GRCs, East Coast, Aljunied and Ang Mo Kio. Lee Hsien Loong was voted out by a team of young upstarts, all still wet behind their ears, inexperienced and with school text books still left around their tables. Jayakumar, the deputy Prime Minister, lost his stronghold in East Coast. And together with Aljunied, two of the most promising young ministers, George Yeo and Raymond Lim were also sent packing. And all the single ward seats were won by the opposition candidates! It was a crisis beyond imagination and of a scale that shook the whole nation. What now? The worst nightmare had started. It is a bad dream on a Sunday morning. No it can't happen. The election now in its third day is only a formality, a cake walk to another 5 years of PAP rule. Time for breakfast.

an alternative opposition strategy

What I would consider a better strategy to win one GRC is for WP to borrow Abdul Rahman Mohamad from SDA to join Sylvia Lim's team instead of Gomez. And Mohammed Rahizan Yaacob be replaced by either Chia Ti Lik or Perry Tong. Then field the team in Hong Kah or West Coast. The second WP team can take on one of these two PAP team. In this way, the likelihood of scoring a goal is much better than the current strategy of diluting their strength and competing fairly strong PAP teams. I am still puzzled why they think Aljunied and East Coast are easier to take. The slate of opposition teams indicate very clearly that they were unable to attract good professional candidates from the minority communities. Until they are able to bring in a few good minority candidates, theirs is an uphill task.

scoring on the gomez slip

The PAP is not going to let this blunder get away without scoring political points. And they delivered some heavy blows last night, hitting at the incompetence and the non admittance of an error as an attempt to distort a mistake. This is what WP is going to pay for dearly. Sylvia Lim is perhaps the strongest of all the oppositon candidates. Probably much stronger than Low Thia Khiang and Chaim. But her GRC team is now a three legged horse. Even before the first round is over her team is already limping around. What a shame to lose a fight this way.

strategy of convenience

For the sake of logistic convenience, the opposition alliance has concentrated their effort to battle in the north east sector. Superficially this looks clever and convenient. But strategically it is a very simplistic approach to a serious battle like a general election. They have missed taking on the weaker GRCs in the process and instead taken on more formidable opponents in East Coast and even Aljunid and left a few weaker GRCs in the west completely untouched. This may prove very costly as this election could be a watershed and provides a golden opportunity for the opposition to make a dent. But this strategy of convenience may allow this chance to slip away.