After a 5-day stay-home medical leave and with phase 2 re-opening of the Circuit Breaker, the journey continues.
This morning, it was attending to the daily cooked food distribution, now at three locations across the Marine Parade GRC, followed by a visit to a market. In the evening, it was house visits.
For the evening, I chose the spot right outside my house, within the now-defunct Joo Chiat SMC and in the Marine Parade GRC, to start off the daily visits to come.
I recall in 2011, I joined WP and was assigned to take on Joo Chiat SMC. I was new to political campaigning. I was new to the Party and did not know anyone well. I was assigned just one member, Shaun to be my Elections Agent.
And so I started, at this spot where we did our visits this evening. There were only Shaun and I on day 1. I did not even know what to say to the residents.
As the campaign of 2011 went on, I started to polish up my presentation to keep it short. I treated each person I meet as a 20-second elevator pitch. I wanted to explain why they should vote for WP and me, and to hopefully generate enough reasons from them within 20 seconds to consider giving us their vote, especially the swing voters. From just Shaun and I, we eventually grew to more than 40 people regularly helping when the campaign ended on 7 May 2011. Friends and relatives came along to help in the campaign. Then friends of friends and strangers, most of whom we met while on the campaign trail. Several stayed on even after the campaign had ended with a narrow 1% defeat. One of them is Dennis Tan, now a key member of the Party.
GE2020 will be so different. It is likely to come and go too quickly. There cannot be large numbers when we visit. We will not have time to visit many households given no visit was allowed during the two and a half month of the Circuit Breaker. Even the way we engage will be more distant than before. There will not be physical rallies.
But it will be an important GE. I joined in 2011 because I believe there must be a strong alternative. In business, we are told that we need anti-monopoly laws to keep companies innovative and responsive to the consumers. We want to prevent profiteering and exploitation. Yet in politics, we are told there can only be a team A. We cannot just rely on a team A and wish things will go well with Singapore forever. It takes a long time to build up a respectable, rational and responsible alternative. It takes many people of commitment and courage to take the difficult route. The PAP speaks of the ‘sacrifice’ their handpicked high flyers will have to make to take a pay-cut to join, or the loss of their privacy. After a long uninterrupted and very dominant rule since independence, they have forgotten what it is like to be on the other side; what it really means to take sacrifices and what loss of privacy means for some who had to face with smearing of their character.
The ruling party has said this is about the 4G and about Singapore’s future. Sure, it is important. It is also about defining the alternative, about the continuity of the alternative, about whether good men and women will continue to join the alternative, and about whether we can have a Singapore where we can thrive even with diversity of views.
Are we prepared to go back to the days with 100% PAP’s monopoly of parliament? As an ex-NCMP, I can tell you that the contest is not about having the alternative only as NCMPs. Being an NCMP means you have lost in the elections. You have no ground to sink your roots in. Constituencies that are narrowly lost can be reconfigured just before a GE with the snap of a finger. You face big hurdles in how you can serve the people who have voted for you. The PAP will definitely wish for a parliament with 12 NCMPs. It will mean a total loss for alternatives, yes even Hougang and Aljunied can be lost. The PAP came quite close to achieving that in 2015. A pandemic GE is now a good opportunity for them to push for that scenario.
The journey towards a first world parliament that began in 2011 continues. What Singapore do you envisage? The choice is for Singaporeans to make.
