The Workers’ Party’s winning margin in Hougang has dipped, but it can still claim a record that no other, not even the People’s Action Party, is able to boast of. Since 1981, the WP has never been voted out of any seat that it held.* Today, this strong loyalty to the Hammer brand withstood internal ill-discipline, embarrassing leaks and allegations of flip-flopping, as Png Eng Huat beat the PAP’s Desmond Choo.

After months of drama precipitated by the misconduct of former MP Yaw Shin Leong, the status quo has been restored, with the WP in charge of Houngang-Aljunied and the PAP enjoying an 81:6 majority in Parliament. But the 2012 by-election was never going to be about the Hougang seat alone. Its significance was always in its implications for 2016. In that regard, both the WP and the PAP are due for a sober post-mortem.

WP’s growing pains

Putting recent controversies behind it, the WP can continue to trot forward as the top dog in the Opposition pack. It looks like it’s here for the long haul, unlike the National Solidarity Party with its conveyor belt of leaders; and, unlike the Singapore Democratic Party, it’s able to avoid stunts that alienate that section of the electorate that holds the key to the Opposition’s long-term success – PAP voters who might be persuaded to switch to the Opposition.

But the tightest ship in the Opposition flotilla has been showing some cracks. Since the WP’s historic victory in May 2011, it has been hurt by high-profile exits, including the ignominious loss of its original Hougang MP. The conduct of Poh Lee Guan, who kept the public and even his party guessing as to whether he would stand against its chosen candidate, has yet to be satisfactorily explained.

The truth is, internal cohesion will continue to be a challenge for the WP.

First, Low Thia Khiang’s management ethos is a key reason for the WP’s electoral effectiveness but it also creates internal strains. Those who can’t accept his tight party discipline will leave. This is nothing new: several star candidates in the 2006 GE defected soon after (Goh Meng Seng, James Gomez, Chia Ti Lik).

Second, the weight of public expectations on the WP means any cracks exact a higher political cost than before. To be entrusted with more seats in Parliament House, it must show that its own house is in order. Leaks and resignations in lesser parties hardly cause a ripple, but they can hurt the WP. Any ambitious, self-serving member (which every party has plenty of) knows that. This makes the WP vulnerable to political blackmail by individuals and factions within the party.

Third, the stakes will be higher in the coming years than before. Now that winning additional seats is a realistic proposition, restless wannabes will be jostling for a place in the East Coast GRC team and other key 2016 targets. Younger members will be positioning themselves for the WP’s third generation leadership, which, if Singapore does arrive at a two-party system by 2021, would be the generation that reaps the benefits of Low’s hard work. For every individual the party appoints to a coveted position, there will be others who feel cheated.

Fourth, although the WP is the party to join if you want to be part of a winning Opposition team, it has limited powers of patronage. With very few exceptions, former PAP politicians keep their mouths shut. Often, it’s because of a lifelong sense of esprit de corps. As for any disaffected members of the establishment who are tempted to betray the cause, a hankering for GLC and statutory board appointments may be enough to keep them smiling stiffly at the powers-that-be. The WP can dangle no such carrots to keep its members happy.

Fifth, Opposition solidarity has never been more than temporary marriages of convenience, and it is getting harder for the WP to avail itself of this resource. As a byproduct of its spectacular 2011 success, it is now seen as set apart from the rest of the Opposition. It’s striking that (as far as I can see from their websites) neither the SDP nor the NSP issued statements in support of the WP in the run-up to the Hougang battle. The battle was framed as PAP vs WP and not PAP vs Opposition, which may help explain the surprising amount of anti-WP sentiment online.

Many anti-PAP Singaporeans want to believe that all talk of intra-Opposition friction is a fabrication of PAP-controlled media. But the truth, as anyone who has spent time talking to Opposition politicians knows, is that there is no love lost between them. You don’t have to look far to find Opposition members who think the WP has grown too big for its boots.

PAP’s uphill road

The PAP has chipped away slightly at the WP’s winning margin in 12 months. The ruling party will try to draw encouragement from that. It has to. It is important for its activists to maintain credible pressure on Hougang and Aljunied and keep Low and his team busy in their own backyards – because if the WP has too much time on its hands, there is a good chance that East Coast GRC will be the next Aljunied, come 2016.

One comforting sight for the PAP must have been the online support it received. In the 2011 GE, the ruling party was shellshocked by the barrage of one-sided criticism on the internet. In the immediate aftermath, the conventional wisdom was that netizens would continue to play the role of a 12th man for the Opposition, helping to counteract PAP dominance offline.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the by-election. No longer was cyberspace so uniformly hostile to the PAP. Suddenly, the WP was getting its share of criticism online. A “Fabrications About The PAP” Facebook page run by a supporter of the ruling party, Jason Chua, has been injecting a steady stream of pro-PAP messages into social media.

TREmeritus, the successor to Temasek Review, appeared more balanced than its predecessor, which had the loudest anti-PAP voice in the 2011 GE. More interesting was the role played by Temasek Times. Its name is reminiscent of the old Temasek Review and it claims to have Temasek Review readers among its editors. With its consistent focus on public unhappiness over immigration, it was never entirely pro-PAP. Overall, however, Temasek Times was unmistakably tougher on the WP than on the ruling party – making less of an effort to be fair and balanced than the Straits Times.

Extrapolating from 2012, it appears that the 2016 online environment will be quite different from 2011. It will still pose a major worry for the ruling party, which will continue to be thrown curve balls by online critics. The big change, though, will be that Opposition parties will no longer get a free pass, which is good news for the PAP.

Style, substance and structure

Realists in the establishment know that, whatever the PAP does, Singapore’s dominant party system is eroding. In its place will be a much stronger Parliamentary Opposition that, even if it doesn’t amount to a full-blown two-party system, will more accurately reflect public opinion in a complex city-state.

The PAP needs to manage that transition in a way that keeps its own authority and integrity intact, and without unwittingly accelerating its own decline. This will require changes in style, substance and structure.

The PAP’s stylistic changes include its frenzied adoption of social media such as Facebook. More importantly, it is changing the tone of its delivery and trying to appear less high-handed. An air of pained sincerity has replaced the we-know-best glare as the preferred face of PAP politicians. Teo Chee Hean may have replaced Wong Kan Seng as the PAP’s tough-talker, but Teo’s style is nowhere near as hardline or divisive as the PAP of old. However, since public expectations have also evolved and today’s Singaporeans are more sensitive to perceived arrogance, it is not clear whether the PAP has changed enough in this regard.

The ruling party continues to struggle in its search for an effective campaign formula. When it tries to exploit Opposition missteps, it risks coming across as an undignified bully. Teo Chee Hean’s allegations that Png was being less than honest probably had mixed results. Among swing voters who are not quite sold on the Opposition, the doubts cast on Png may have been sufficient to pull them into the PAP camp. Equally, swing voters hoping for a kinder gentler PAP may have seen enough evidence in this campaign that the PAP hasn’t changed, and cast their votes for the WP.

As for substance, this is the PAP’s traditional strength – the area where its technocrats come to the fore. The government has been realistic enough to avoid claiming that the effects of its policy changes are already being felt on the ground. For this reason, it avoided treating the 2012 by-election as a confidence motion in the PAP. Ideally, the PAP would have liked to take the full 5 year term before going back to the electorate.

However, it may not be able to wait till 2016. Since the late 1970s, the PAP has used elections not only to renew its mandate but also to induct fresh blood for self-renewal. PAP rejuvenation has become worryingly slow. By the 2006 GE, it had become clear that Singapore’s fourth Prime Minister would have to emerge from that or the next cohort of 30-somethings or 40-somethings, who would step into the top job midway through 2016-2021 term.

If there is indeed somebody in the current Parliament who can take the helm, he/she and the party have certainly done a good job of hiding the fact. The PAP has always been justly proud of its record of planned leadership succession. By its own high standards, the PAP – and Singapore – risks a leadership crisis unless there is a significant injection of heavyweight talent at another by-election well before 2016.

Singapore also needs to insure itself against the possibility that the PAP will ultimately fail to deliver. This is why structural reform – not just changes in style or substance – is important. Without institutional safeguards, the PAP’s problems will automatically become Singapore’s problems. If the party goes down, there is a high chance that, in desperation, it will clutch at whatever levers are within reach, including national institutions that should represent the public interest, not party interests.

In the Hougang campaign, the WP highlighted three such problem areas. There is the Elections Department, which currently answers to the Prime Minister’s Office when it should be an independent authority. The People’s Association, a key nation-building institution that should bring Singaporeans together, can be abused in a way that divides people along party lines. And, finally, Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp operate under close government supervision, undermining their credibility in the coverage of controversial political issues.

Some in the PAP may fear that structural reform of Singapore’s democratic institutions will just accelerate its decline. But this would be the case only if the PAP’s electoral success so far has been hollow, and built on an unfair political foundation. If it wants to preserve its status as Singapore’s dominant national movement, there is no alternative to winning the contest of ideas fair and square. If it can do that while subjecting itself to the check and balance of transparent and neutral democratic institutions, its standing will only be elevated.

NOTE
* Since 1981, two Workers’ Party MPs have lost their seats – J.B. Jeyaretnam and Yaw Shin Leong – but both through disqualification and not at the polls.

towards a democratic society…

Text of a talk given at a post-election forum organised by Maruah and The Online Citizen on 15 May 2011.*

This has been the most written about, most video’d, most followed and most discussed election in Singapore history, so I am not going to review the scores, the highlights and lowlights. That would put you to sleep – and I don’t have the licence to slap you awake.

Instead, I would like to offer some perspectives on what these polls mean for democratisation in Singapore.

Yesterday’s shock announcement that Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong would retire from government confirms what has always been true about Singapore elections: the mathematical results are less important than how the numbers are interpreted. Even though last weekend’s vote amounted to an extension of the world’s longest running winning streak among countries with multi-party elections, even though Singapore’s is still a system with one dominant party, the government has interpreted the results as requiring it to undergo a significant makeover.

Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong scored their share of own goals during the campaign, but in apportioning blame for unpopular government policies, it’s not the case that they had to bear more responsibility than their Cabinet colleagues. But, again, it’s the symbols, the narrative, that counts more than the facts. Lee Kuan Yew has chosen to sacrifice himself to give the strongest possible signal that this is a government able to mount a revolution from within, for a national cause that is greater than the future of the PAP’s high priest.

Similarly, the future of Singapore’s unfinished democratic project is not to be gleaned from last week’s score or even any survey results. It’s more of an exercise in reading tea leaves.

Today, I’d like to argue that a few steps have been taken towards greater democratisation, though probably not as much as the hype suggests. I’ll argue that although the political culture has evolved to be less amenable to top-down government, Singapore remains inhospitable to progressive causes and has yet to develop spaces for mature debate.

The struggle for Singapore’s soul, to borrow George Yeo’s expression, is just beginning. And, I’ll argue, it’s not just the politicians but also leaders of civil society and public intellectuals who have a role to play in producing a good outcome.

Changing political culture

The GE has reshaped the political terrain in a couple of indisputable ways.

First, Lee Hsien Loong’s promise to keep the system contestable cannot be reversed. It is clear that the electorate is less willing to accept an unfair playing field. To the extent that the public sees unfairness, it will apply a kind of electoral affirmative action: it will give the opposition a discount and judge the PAP more harshly. Thus, people crucified PAP candidates for saying silly things, but politely pretended not to notice when opposition candidates did the same. Tactical missteps of the PAP were dissected in detail, while the mismanagement of the Reform Party went unqueried, even by the ordinarily probing and perceptive Online Citizen. I’m convinced that the public will judge the PAP fairly only when the PAP plays fair with the opposition; oh, and when the PAP reviews ministerial salaries.

Furthermore, this GE is forcing the PAP to outgrow its dependence on a non-level playing field. This hasn’t happened yet, but it is moving in that direction.

Interestingly, this is not mainly the work of the Singapore Democratic Party, which has campaigned fiercely against injustice in the political system. Instead, it’s due to Low Thia Khiang’s Workers’ Party, which has chosen a strategy of scaling the walls instead of bringing them down. That’s the democratic significance of the WP victory in Aljunied: it taught the PAP that it can’t hide behind credentials or reputation, because the opposition can find credentialed candidates and build an attractive brand; nor can the PAP so readily use safety in numbers in GRCs as a way to hold on to seats, as the WP has shown that GRCs are a way to win big. Henceforth, the PAP will have to focus more squarely on issues that matter to the electorate, and that’s good for Singapore democracy.

Second, it is clear that Singapore’s political culture has shifted.

Decades of depoliticisation, in which normal politics has been replaced by technocratic administration, seem to have given way to an openly contentious culture. The largely unrestricted internet has played a major role here. Fifteen to twenty years ago, PAP leaders demanded deferential treatment in the name of “Asian Values”. Today, Confucian norms are no match for a citizenry accustomed to freewheeling blogs and online forums. The GE made it clear that Singaporeans no longer tolerate being talked down to.

Still focused on good governance

Beyond that, I would be cautious about claiming that Singaporeans are suddenly great supporters of democratic competition, and I am even less persuaded by claims that this was an internet revolution. I don’t think we can explain the GE outcome without reference to good old fashioned economic factors. Although Singapore has been enjoying double digit growth, the structural problem is that is growth pattern has changed. As one of the most open and exposed economies on earth, it has had three externally triggered recessions in the past decade, with heady growth spurts in between. Such volatility has played havoc with the government’s much vaunted planning capabilities. Policies concerning public transport, public housing and immigration have all been buffeted by violent swings in the economy, and all were major election issues.

So, before we conclude that Singaporeans are suddenly pro-democracy, it would be prudent to entertain the possibility that they are still mainly in favour of good governance. What is clear is that they want the PAP to govern better. By returning the PAP to power on Saturday, Singaporeans accepted the reality that it remains the natural party of government. By the end of the campaign, the need for the PAP to change was not in dispute. The debate was instead over whether the PAP’s own internalised values of service could drive that change, or whether it needed a stronger opposition to force the pace and and set the direction of the change. The electorate rejected, possibly permanently, the PAP’s model of self-motivated self-improvement. For decades, Singaporeans have bought the line that accountability and transparency could be pursued on the PAP’s own terms, with no need for strong external checks and balances. This position, bucking the global trend, was made plausible by the PAP’s record of corruption-free government and well distributed economic growth. This is no longer accepted, due to economic volatility coupled with the widespread conviction that the PAP is the only group that thinks that the PAP does not suffer from groupthink.

Nothing in this election has challenged the viability of the PAP’s brand of illiberal democracy. But Singaporeans are evidently not immune to a dose of democratic common sense: government, they’ve concluded, will perform better when confronted with a threat of unceremonious eviction, a threat that must occasionally be realised if it is to be taken seriously.

Democratisation, though, is more than about seats in the legislature going one way or another. It can also be measured by the progress made in values such as tolerance of diversity, as well as practices such as the exercise of public reason.

Is it a great victory for progressive causes?

That Singapore has hardly become a liberal society is shown by the fact that Singapore’s middle ground continues to reject the SDP. Yes, it was the most improved party. But despite having the most progressive platform – or I should say, because it’s the most progressive – its result was still a little below the opposition average.

As for the WP, I, like thousands of others at Serangoon Stadium, felt roused by the tide of people power. But I also felt uncomfortable when Low Thia Khiang, in the final 10 minutes of the most important speech of his political life to date, played the anti foreign worker card. He reminded Serangoon Gardens voters that they did not want a foreign worker dormitory to be built in their back yard. He criticised George Yeo for saying that the “the important thing is to do what is right, you cannot always worry about votes” and not resisting the dormitory.

I am proudest of my friends at Maruah and TOC when they stand up for what’s right even when the government and the majority of Singaporeans are not interested. In ordinary times, Maruah and TOC have not been afraid to champion foreign workers’ rights. I hope election fever hasn’t obscured anyone’s commitment to such causes.

Nurturing public debate

This leads me to my final point about the state of democratization, which is about creating a climate conducive to the exercise of public reason.

Personally, this has always been my main beef with the government. Singapore’s openness and diversity have always been great strengths in the cultural and economic realms. But the government has been intolerant of political diversity, and some of us in this room have personally suffered the consequences.

One of the positive developments we saw in this GE was ordinary citizens blowing the whistle on PAP politicians who displayed their intolerance and disrespect for opposing views and values. The public gave a strong signal that it would not stand for the kind of demonisation of the opposition and castigation of the electorate that had occurred in past elections.

The problem, though, is that while netizens helped to neutralise the PAP’s negative campaigning they did little to create anything positive. Other than a handful of influential bloggers such as Alex Au, netizens did little to grow the space for the kind of deliberation that is associated with a mature democratic political culture.

Instead of being cultivated as a space for reasoned debate, large expanses of online public space evolved into a grotesque mirror image of offline public space. The offline world has been rendered unconducive to the exercise of public reason by a thin-skinned, all-powerful government that builds pseudo-consensus by marginalising opposing views. In reaction, opponents of the government have colonised cyberspace with a vengeance, ensuring that its spectrum of views are limited in range – from the rabidly anti-government to the moderately anti-government.

Unlike the government, they cannot easily use defamation law as a political weapon; nor are they able to fix the careers of opinion-shapers in the media or in the universities; nor control the activities of NGOs that do not share their narrow worldview. They can use only words to punish perceived ideological opponents, which include those who dare utter anything positive about the government. Personal attacks, flagrant lies and twisted logic are all part of their arsenal.

Instead of positions being arrived at through argument, arguments were marshalled according to entrenched positions. At best, the cyber-opposition showed that it could outshout the government, thus giving the government second thoughts about its own intolerant approach to public debate. There is, however, no guarantee that Singapore will evolve a less polarised, more deliberative democracy. The internet has the potential to facilitate that evolution, but as of now this remains a promise that is largely unfulfilled.

Role of civil society

Allow me to conclude with some remarks on the role of non-partisan civil society in pursuing a progressive agenda for Singapore. Although Low’s winning battle cry was to start investing seriously in an alternative to the PAP, the ruling party’s continued dominance for at least the next five and probably 10 or more years is undeniable. Therefore, internal reform within the government is still an important avenue for change. In the short term, it is the most important avenue.

For anyone interested in this process, former administrative service officer Donald Low has written possibly the most important analysis of the government’s internal dynamics post-GE. He points out that “internal party politics, the party’s conservative ideology, and its hierarchical structure” are obstacles to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s goal of achieving genuine reform. Donald Low points out the risk of a conservative backlash if liberals in government demand too much too soon.

Reading such analyses, it is tempting to give up on the possibility of revolution from within. I know many Singaporeans who right now want to believe that the time has come when they can stop factoring the PAP into their calculations: post-GE, they can now demand political change on their terms and if the PAP doesn’t like it, they’ll just kick them out next time. This is politically naïve.

Just as it is a mistake to put all our eggs in the government basket, it is surely also a mistake to put all eggs in the opposition or non-government basket. I think reformers outside of government need to encourage and reinforce the government’s internal reforms, applying pressure that is perceptible, but without inviting a conservative backlash.

Singapore’s more experienced civil society activists and public intellectuals have a crucial role to play here.

These are individuals who have seen it all before; who have been slapped down many times, insulted, condescended to, treated like carriers of communicable diseases – but are still suckers for unpaid public service.

These are people who approach problems with open eyes. They see the obstacles, they are not naïve. But they also look out for glimmers of opportunity. This is the kind of skeptical hopefulness and idealism that many experienced hands in civil society already possess, and that I think will be indispensable for encouraging positive change in Singapore.

* Apologies to those who commented on this blog post while it was hosted on Apple’s Mobile Me servers. Comments were lost when I belatedly transferred the content to a new host after Apple ended its Mobile Me service.

LOW THIA KHIANG’S GIFT TO SINGAPORE

A quick response to the opposition victories in the 2011 election.

Read More

SDP’S LIGHTNING-ROD POLITICS

Anyone watching party politics over the last couple of years would have seen the signs: the Singapore Democratic Party was heading for a comeback. Even if it didn’t ace the examination that is the General Elections, it was going to win the prize for most improved performance and mount a serious challenge for the Workers’ Party’s position at the head of the Opposition class.

The writing was on the wall. The SDP’s Facebook wall, that is. Plus its website, publications and videos, and its steady flow of events, together upending the stereotype of Opposition parties as hibernating in between elections. Set aside the question of whether you agree or disagree with the SDP’s mission or its messages. Even if few were listening and fewer were persuaded, the simple fact is that such a level of activity would not have been possible without a critical mass of people, talent and organisational ability.

With the GE less than two weeks ago, the even clearer sign of the SDP’s resurgence is the slate that it has put together. Following its dismal showings in the last three GEs, the SDP appeared unelectable. Chee Soon Juan’s brand of angry idealism may have helped place important issues such as freedom of expression on the agenda, but the electorate’s rebuff was unequivocal. Chee was rubbing middle-of-the-road swing voters the wrong way. They rejected the SDP wherever it stood. After GE 2006, it looked as if any heavyweight opposition wannabe would join the WP and avoid the SDP like the bird flu.

Yet, in the run-up to GE 2011, a surprising number of serious contenders have tied their immediate futures to Chee’s party. Clearly, they’ve seen new promise in the SDP. It’s also possible that they’ve found the WP too lacking in internal democracy. Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim seem cautious to a fault, desperate to avoid any lightning rods that would expose the WP yet again to the explosions that greeted the more confrontational politics of J. B. Jeyaretnam, Francis Seow and Tang Liang Hong.

PAP ready to exploit any differences

The SDP’s new energy will generate interesting dynamics in the coming GE and beyond.

The ruling party will demand to know SDP candidates’ stand on their party leader, who it believes is a destructive force. The PAP will say that Chee has repeatedly broken the law in order to win for himself the attention of foreign human rights groups; that he has run down Singapore in international fora; and that his methods are rejected even by other Opposition leaders. Thus, the PAP will attempt to shake SDP candidates’ allegiance to Chee and divide the party.

The truth is, the SDP will have a tough time addressing this issue. Political novice Tan Jee Say took a swing at it in his introductory press conference, and scored what to Chee must have felt like an own goal. Tan said that Chee and the SDP had “changed”, which was of course tantamount to admitting that the vintage SDP hadn’t been doing things right.

Chee tried to kick the ball out of the net by blaming the media – who else – for the poor impression that Singaporeans had of him. It is one thing to claim that any shortcomings in press coverage played a decisive role in a close fight. That would be quite plausible. However, when you have polled some 15 percentage points behind the leading Opposition party, it strains credibility to claim that you’ve been misrepresented and misunderstood.

It’s also implying that a rather large chunk of Singaporeans are too dumb to see past government propaganda – not a clever tactic when you are asking for their votes. And it doesn’t explain why J. B. Jeyaretnam – who was given a far rougher ride by the PAP and the media – secured much higher support from the electorate than Chee ever has. As difficult as it is for Chee and his supporters to admit, a more realistic appraisal would have to conclude that his methods – from his early hunger strike, to heckling the prime minister, public protests and so on – have simply not connected with Singapore’s middle ground. And just as the customer is always right in business, it’s not good politics to say that so many Singaporeans have got it wrong.

Political cost of SDP’s activist strand

Chee has created a fundamental tension within the SDP that is both the source of its dynamism as well as the dynamite that could blow it up. On the one hand, he inherited a political party with the goal of winning seats in Parliament. On the other hand – perhaps as a result of his electoral failure and then disqualification – he has fashioned the SDP into a protest movement committed to extra-parliamentary struggle. So far, he has been more impactful in the latter mission than in the former.

Since progressive issues are not necessarily populist issues – take gay rights and capital punishment, for example – Chee’s willingness to look beyond votes in picking his battles has helped to broaden Singapore’s political debate. This activist strand, however, has exacted a heavy toll on his party’s ability to achieve its primary Parliamentary goals. His strategy of civil disobedience, in particular, has guaranteed his party front row seats in the government’s firing line. By refusing to work within laws it considers unjust, the SDP has lurched from one crisis to another.

Lately, the SDP has been relatively quiet on this front, so it is not surprising to see Tan Jee Say musing that Chee had changed.

A more illuminating explanation can be found in an in-depth interview with Chee by The Online Citizen in February.

In it, Chee maintains that democratic change would not come through elections alone. “If you read history… elections had to come as a result of change, it’s not a means of change,” he says. There is a role for civil disobedience, he adds – but it is a matter of timing. “You don’t try to do this before and when the elections are coming,” he notes, explaining that the run-up to a GE is instead a time to position the party for the election campaign. After an election, he says, would be the time for activists to pressure the ruling party to play by democratic rules, using such strategies as non-violent protest.

If Chee sticks to this playbook, we can expect to see the protest movement side of the SDP resurface after the polls. This time, though, there is a strong chance of a significant SDP presence in Parliament, as either elected or non-constituency MPs. There will be a Parliamentary SDP, perhaps led by Vincent Wijeysinghe, and the non-parliamentary activists led by its secretary general.

The record shows that Opposition MPs tend to be unwilling to jeopardise their hard-earned seats through reckless actions by their parties. It would not be surprising if SDP’s MPs or NCMPs are afflicted by this same bird-in-the-hand syndrome, and plead with Chee to stop thrashing about in the bush. It’s even less far fetched to predict that the PAP will overlook no opportunity to exploit the slightest schism and drive a wedge through the heart of the party. The PAP will demand to know whether those representing the new credible face of the party sympathise with Chee’s methods.

It wouldn’t be the first time that SDP has been divided by different perspectives on Chee. One of the main disagreements that led party founder Chiam See Tong to quit its top post in a huff was over Chee’s sacking by NUS and his subsequent hunger strike protest. Chiam disagreed with others in the leadership that the party should stand by Chee in his hour of need. Although subsequently characterised as a power-grab by an ungrateful and ambitious Chee, Chiam’s departure actually reflected fundamental differences over party strategy.

Since a one-party-two-systems position wouldn’t fly, the SDP will have two choices. Either its Parliamentary wing must be prepared to defend the actions of its leader and steel itself for the onslaught that will follow. Or, its leader must disavow civil disobedience – to save face, Chee could say that those methods have outlived their purpose and are no longer needed. Whichever tack is taken will shape Opposition politics for the next several years.