As we all now know, the Workers’ Party Central Executive Council (CEC) has just passed a new regulation curtailing CEC members’ Internet activities, prompting the resignation of Chia Ti Lik, the leader for the WP’s team for East Coast GRC during the last elections.

This was what Mr Chia had to say about the new regulation passed by the CEC.

“I think the party leadership is overly conservative. Some might say that it’s about being cautious. But I think sometimes you can be too cautious, shy away from important issues, and you don’t perform as an opposition should”

He further argued, “The opposition at the moment does not live up to its role. It is too silent or too restrained in its criticism of the Government.”

With all due respect to Mr Chia, I do not really agree with what he said.



From my little knowledge of politics in Singapore, I would like to offer my 1 cent worth of opinion.


I do not agree with the Mr Chia’s statement that the opposition shy away from important issues. Since the end of the elections in May, the Workers' Party had addressed at least 4 major issues affecting Singaporeans through its press releases. Notwithstanding that, the Workers’ Party, I believed had also voiced out strongly in the casino issue, issues on taxes, utilities, and even the political process.

I can understand the cautious nature that the Workers’ Party is taking. Basically, the party is learning from past experiences encountered by the opposition. The PAP will pounce at any opportunity to discredit the opposition and make them look really awful in the eyes of the public. More often than not, the words and comments of opposition personalities have been taken out of context by the PAP, which in turn pave the way for the eventual demise of the opposition. Francis Seow in 1988, Tang Liang Hong in 1991, Ling How Doong during one of his parliament speeches, Chee Soon Juan and more recently James Gomez.

Essentially, the leadership of the Workers’ Party is trying to prevent a repeat of what happened to the SDP in the aftermath of the 1991 elections. SDP was in a sense, quite similar to the WP in 1991. Riding on their successes during the ’91 elections, they became bold, too bold for the liking of the PAP, which eventually brought about their downfall ever since.

Furthermore, with the internet emerging as a potent yet unknown political tool, every party including the Workers’ Party is still figuring out the correct and proper strategy to cope with the internet, so as to fully utilizing it to their advantage. I would not be surprised that the new regulations passed by the WP CEC are a temporary one. Even the ruling party is pouring in large sums of money to understand and research on the internet and its proper utilization.

From this perspective, it can be seen that the party is outward looking, with an eye for the future, contrary to what Mr Chia said about the conservative nature of the leadership. Imagine this. If the WP were to allow its CEC members to freely voice out their opinions before they fully grasped the nature of the internet and the amount of harm it can do to the party as a whole, it will be too reckless on the part of the leadership, which might in turn, given all the institutional and structural obstacles placed by the PAP government, lead to the demise of the party with the most potential to brand itself as the alternative to the PAP.

I thus applaud the Workers’ Party and its leadership for its foresight and humility in learning from past experiences. Essentially, the WP do not oppose for the sake of opposing. Rather, they seek to be relevant and constantly presenting their own point of view, but definitely not at the expense of their survival. Most definitely not at the expense of presenting Singaporeans with a credible and worthy alternative choice.