Support SDP in Punggol

The Wayang Party has turned down multiple invitations from the SDP to meet to discuss the opposition's participation in the by-election in Punggol East.

We don't need more of the same.

In an authoritarian political system like in Singapore where a single political party wields absolute power for more than half a century, there is inevitably a sense of apprehension and suspicion on some so-called opposition politicians strutting around with impunity.

One such politician who falls under the scanner of dubiousness is the Chairman of the Workers Party (WP), Ms Sylvia Lim. There is growing evidence to conclusively show that Ms Lim is helping to promote the interests of the PAP, rather than that of the opposition or what the WP likes to call “the alternative”.

Firstly, she is a senior associate in Peter Low LLC while being the MP. This is unique in Singapore’s politics, which is intolerant and ruthless in dealing with oppositionists.

Even minor opposition members and supporters have not been spared the “big stick” of PAP’s ruthlessness. Not long ago, an official of a union affiliated to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), was told to step down and give up his union activities. This is because, in the eyes of the PAP, he is a misfit in the NTUC, which has a symbiotic relationship with the ruling party.

There were several such cases of victimisation that cut across all shades of professions and careers, such as journalism, the legal fraternity, and the civil service. Ask any of your friends and family members who are in such fields, and they would vouch for these unpleasant incidents with their own anecdotes.

In this long and continuing PAP hit list, a prominent person that comes to mind is invariably Dr Chee Soon Juan. Almost everyone knows the fate of Dr Chee when he showed his hand up in support of the opposition in 1992, when he was still a young lecturer at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was made to pay a heavy price by being given the boot from his teaching profession, losing his landed property and other such possessions in the process.

There were other cases of unreported harassment and intimidation of academics in Singapore who are known to be active even in civil society. Lecturers from institutions of higher learning are known to be warned not to step “out of line”. Just a couple of months ago, a lecturer at NTU was given a subtle hint not to cross the invisible OB markers. The academic got the message that it would mean losing the job if the warning was not heeded.

But what about Sylvia Lim? Not only did nothing happen, but she is riding high on the patronage of the powers that be.

Together with her party’s full-fledged MP, Low Thia Khiang, she is performing her role in the house as a loyal opposition to the authoritarian regime.

In her occasional speeches in parliament, she avoids getting involved in bread-and-butter issues. The major problem that Singaporeans face today is one of high cost of living. But Sylvia Lim hardly touches on this burning issue.

Even past non-elected members of parliament such as Steve Chia and Siew Kum Hong were bold enough to raise issues of concern to the people. But Sylvia Lim, representing the Workers Party, has hardly spoken on the plight of the workers. Even PAP’s so-called labour MP, Halimah Yacob, had added her feeble voice to the vast majority of low income earners.

But all that Sylvia had commented in the House, as far as one can remember, was about criminal justice and the rule of law. Even on the topic of judiciary, she had given her solid support to the much maligned system in Singapore.

Not long ago, when the International Bar Association (IBA) held its conference in Singapore, Sylvia Lim was one of the staunchest supporters of Singapore’s judiciary. She even told the 3,000-odd delegates that her party and its leaders had not been subjected to legal persecution.

Ms Lim has obviously forgotten about how her former party leader, the late Mr J B Jeyaretnam, was made to suffer for stepping on innumerable “legal” landmines and booby traps. One must not forget the fact that Mr Jeyaretnam was a senior district judge before he took over the helm of the Workers Party in 1971.

Of course, Ms Lim would have forgotten this fact for she had joined the WP only after Mr Jeyaretnam had left the party in 2001 in an acrimonious parting of ways with his protege Low Thia Khiang, who in fact owes his first electoral victory in 1991 to the indomitable J B Jeyaretnam.

Not only J B Jeyaretnam and other old guard leaders of WP who had become disenchanted and wary of Sylvia Lim, but also there are still members and ex-members who hold this suspicion of the current WP Chairman. This is rightly so, because Sylvia Lim’s words and actions speak louder and louder by the day, echoing the views of the authoritarian PAP.

Characters such as Sylvia are a boon to the regime that is bent continuing its rule for the next 50 years. To achieve this, Sylvia and her like will inevitably be propped up to perpetuate the system.