MALAYSIAN FOCUS ON SINGAPORE WORKERS PARTY IN SATURDAY ELECTION

By Alan Ting

KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 (Bernama) -- On Saturday, Singapore undoubtedly, will be the focus of most Malaysians as the island republic goes to the polls.

While their interest -- albeit only from across the causeway -- would be purely in its democratic process, there is bound to be keener interest on the Singapore Workers Party, one of only two opposition parties which have won seats in the 87-member parliament.

Observers said the interest would most certainly revolve around the fact that it was a make-or-break situation for the Workers Party (WP) which has placed its best bets in the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

The WP was said to have taken a bold decision to contest the GRC, shifting away from its normal focus on Single Member Constituency, and further more, against People's Action Party (PAP) heavyweights led by Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo.

The WP has put up quite a formidable team, dubbed the 'Dream Team', for Aljunied GRC led by secretary-general Low Thia Khiang. The team includes its chairman, Sylvia Lim, Chen Show Mao, Pritam Singh and Faisal Abdul Manap to contest against the PAP heavyweightS led by Yeo.

Tagging along with Yeo to defend the seat are Minister in the Prime
Minister's Office Lim Hwee Hua, Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Cynthia Phua and Ong Ye Kung.

The GRC, first introduced by Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew during the 1988 election, is a unique electoral system which was established to ensure there will always be one elected member from each minority racial group in parliament.

Some 2.35 million Singaporeans are eligible to vote in 27 constituencies to elect 87 members of parliament (MPs) Saturday, as they can elect an MP in each of the 12 single member constituencies and four-to-six MPs in each of the 15 GRCs.

For example, voters can elect 12 MPs for 12 single constituencies and 75 MPs for 15 GRCs (two six-MP GRCs, 11 five-MP GRCs and two four-MP GRCs).

What makes this election more interesting is the fact that opposition parties have never won a GRC, either the WP (with a total of 23 candidates), National Solidarity Party (24), and one each from Reform Party, Singapore Democratic Party, Singapore People's Party and Singapore Democratic Alliance.

Even the bravest among political pundits does not dare to say if there would be the slightest possibility for the opposition parties to win anywhere near the 44 seats needed to wrest power from the ruling PAP.

But analysts said the result of the election would remain interesting due to rising discontent over bread-and-butter issues which could give the opposition more seats.
It was reported that the reason why WP picked Aljunied with such a
formidable team was that the opposition has gained 44 per cent of votes in the Aljunied GRC in the 2006 election and though it still lost, that was considered a glorious defeat.

WP was said to be counting on a highly-educated candidate, Chen Shao Mao, a 50-year-old lawyer holding economics degrees from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities and a partner with a prominent US-based law firm before returning home to contest in this election.

Chen was dubbed by many as the 'biggest catch' by the opposition.

In the past, many opposition candidates were ridiculed for being relatively non-achievers compared to the PAP's picks, but Chen has changed that perception overnight when nearly 20,000 people turned up at a recent WP rally to listen to him.

However, some political observers pointed out that the Aljunied GRC has been re-demarcated, five years later. As a result, Low was taking a big risk this time on whether he could lead his team to break the spell and walk out from the more than two decades-old dilemma faced by the opposition.

Moreover, they said academic qualification was not only the sole criteria for most middle-class Singapore voters to pick their choices.

Undeterred, WP and other opposition parties used the new media to gain advantage, in addition to mass rallies.

The global phenomenon that the younger generation advocates the new media, has reportedly caused some worries to the ruling PAP when young Singaporeans started to obtain electoral and political information from the new media and that the opposition's website was said to be very popular, too.

One example was, as of 10am on May 3, the number of Singaporeans who joined the Facebook of 24-year-old Nicole Seah, a fresh woman candidate of the National Solidarity Party, was recorded at 60,244, and that of Workers Party's Chen's Facebook, 14,266 fans.

Will the number of fans and hits be translated into votes? Well, that's for Singaporeans to decide Saturday.