In every election, there are winners and losers. Sometimes even when you win, you lose. And sometimes even when you lose, you win. My take on the winners and losers of the General Election (GE) 2011;
Losers
George Yeo- The Foreign Minister was the leader of the PAP team in Aljunied and with his loss, the PAP just lost one of its more popular politicians. His gracious speech accepting his defeat was great and the PAP need to find a way to keep George Yeo in the spotlight. Already, there is talk of him being a candidate for the next Presidential Election. Whatever the case, he is a loser in this GE but I don’t think we had seen the last of George Yeo.
Chiam See Tong/SPP- Unlike the WP’s gamble in Aljunied, Chiam See Tong’s decision to leave Potong Pasir to lead a Singapore People’s Party (SPP) team to contest in the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC prove to be disastrous. The SPP lost in Bishan-Toa Payoh, Mr Chiam’s wife Lina Chiam lost Potong Pasir and the SPP has a lot of soul-searching to do now. GE 2011 has proven to be a sad swansong for the longtime opposition leader but it is his party that I’m worried about. If Mr Chiam is not at the helm, is there even a need for the SPP?
Kenneth Jeyaretnam- Like many people, I had an eye out for Kenneth Jeyaretnam. Son of long-time opposition leader J.B Jeyaretnam, many Singaporeans were wondering how well he’ll do in the election. Answer: not well at all. As chief of the Reform Party (RP), Kenneth Jeyaretnam was unable to hold his party together before the election and he was also unable to reach a compromise with the National Solidarity Party (NSP) on the various seats to contest in. Basically, J.B.J’s elder son is a new inexperience politician and it showed. Hopefully he will take this GE as a learning experience and come back stronger the next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment