In America, when politicians fight for their top party
leadership, dirty tricks and personal insults are par for the course. In
Singapore, a seemingly friendly leadership tussle in the opposition Worker’s
Party (WP)is big news.
Politics in Singapore is dominated by the ruling People’s
Action Party (PAP) and leadership changes in that party comes from on top. Any
disputes and in-fighting is kept strictly in-house. So when long-time WP
secretary-general Low Thia Khiang has to fight off lawyer Chen Show Mao for his
position, it is news.
It shouldn’t be.
In most other countries, this is normal and it is Singapore that is weird. An open transparent leadership challenge like this is good
for Singapore. If anything, Singaporeans need to encourage this as it is good
for Singapore. Singaporeans can see that in the WP, orders from the top are not
followed without question and there are clear, open, and transparent ways for
differences to be settled within the party.
So a public open leadership challenge like what happened in
the WP is good. No, it is beyond good; it is great! Singapore is becoming a normal country.
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