COMMENT: What The Workers' Party’s leadership fight means for Low, Chen
The Workers’ Party (WP) secretary-general Low Thia Khiang (right) with Chen Show Mao behind him. REUTERS/Edgar Su
The man was the prized weapon of Low Thia Khiang when The Workers’ Party (WP) secretary-general plotted a bold strategy to win a Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in the 2011 general elections.
Harvard-Oxford-Stanford educated lawyer Chen Show Mao didn’t disappoint. He turned out to be a trump card in the giant-slaying feat in Aljunied when the two teamed up with three others to send former ministers George Yeo, Lim Hwee Hua and Zainul Abidin Rasheed packing from Aljunied.
Expectations went wild with many looking forward to Chen providing a more robust debate in Parliament.
Five years have passed and Chen turned out to be a mouse. He hardly said anything to make people sit up and take note. No swords were crossed with the ruling party ‘s members. No major critiques of PAP policies were articulated.
Then on Sunday, we saw a new Chen emerge when he challenged his leader for the secretary-general’s post. Both the insurgent and the incumbent put out a PR spin to say that such challenges are good for a democracy.
Moving away from the spin, the challenge shows something more significant happening in the party. It is clear some people in the party want a new leader and a new way forward from Low’s ham-fisted way of running the country’s most important opposition party.
Look at the maths that emerged from Sunday’s party polls. Forty-five of 61 cadres showed their desire for change during the biennial party election. Although 16 votes separated the two, the margin was close for a party leader who was celebrated as a folk hero after he took a big political gamble to move out of his safe seat of Hougang to take on the might of George Yeo and company in Aljunied in 2011.
Back to the maths again. The induction of 28 new cadres by Low, as opposed to fewer than 10 in the last party election two years, tilted the fight in Low’s favour.
What if these 28 had not been brought into the cadre fold? Could Low have lost? Perhaps not, but the margin of victory could have been razor thin, dealing a low blow to Low in his first leadership challenge since he became party boss in 2001.
The maths again. Challenger Chen got the second-highest number of votes, after Pritam Singh, for a seat in the central executive committee. It can mean an indication of Chen’s popularity among the cadres.
But an insider gave a counter view when he gave this number: There were nine Chen nominees but only two got elected into the central executive committee with the balance of power firmly in Low’s fist.
Low’s strategy has always been to talk less in Parliament and do more on the ground. The strategy has worked electoral wonders for him and his party as they saw their popularity from having a single seat in Hougang to making huge dents to PAP’s image in neighbouring constituencies.
His grassroots work was impeccable, gaining him the moniker “ funeral MP” because he was there at every wake in his Hougang constituency.
But today, the expectations are different. Voters want WP members to engage in verbal battles and cut-and-thrust debates in Parliament. And Chen could have seen himself as an embodiment of that desire.
Chen’s open challenge might well be an attempt to tell Low that he has to change tack to resonate with this new trend. Will Low listen to Chen and those who voted against him and change strategy?
A former party office holder said, “I don’t think so. Low is not the type who is likely to change. He believes in running a tight ship. Dissent is hardly tolerated. Everything must emanate from him.”
But, he said, this does not mean this is the end of the road for Low. He is a master of the political manoeuvre. “Look at the way he brought in the new cadres to blunt Chen’s attack. That is Low.”
Chen seems to be in a more precarious situation as Low and his supporters are unlikely to make things easy for him.
P N Balji is a veteran Singaporean journalist who is the former chief editor of TODAY newspaper, and a media consultant. The views expressed are his own.
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