All Or Nothing

Nomination Day is over and 82 out of 87 Parliamentary seats will be contested on Election Day, the 7th May. The one thing everyone can gather from Nomination Day is this; the opposition parties in Singapore are going for broke.

The big surprise yesterday was Worker’s Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang’s decision to leave the safe opposition seat of Hougang to contest in the Aljunied GRC. This follows Chiam See Tong’s decision to leave Potong Pasir to lead a Singapore People’s Party (SPP) team to contest the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC. This means that the 2 main opposition leaders in Singapore are both leaving their strongholds to contest in more dangerous wards.

However as they say; the greater the danger, the greater the reward. Both Mr. Low and Mr. Chiam seem to be taking a calculated risk, believing that the ground is ripe for an opposition GRC victory. They are not the only ones. Reform Party’s Secretary General Mr. Kenneth Jeyaretnam is also contesting in a GRC. In fact if you look at the candidates, almost all the heavyweights in the opposition camp are contesting in GRCs.

People say this will be a watershed election for Singapore and one way or another they will be right. If the opposition’s calculation is right, we will see many more opposition MPs after Election Day. However if they are wrong, we could see a wipeout of the opposition this election.

It will be a watershed election indeed.