While there are many who praise the WP and their role as underdogs in keeping the PAP in check, I wonder whether they have curbed their own potential by constantly using this underdog approach. Ito am perplexed why they constantly say that their role in Government is to keep the PAP in check. Their mere presence being the justification for a MIW panic.
Is that really enough? Can we realistically, hand on heart, attribute all the positive (incremental) changes we have witnesses solely to a party that sits quietly in Parliament?
Shouldn't they aspire higher and really contest to take over control of the Parliament, to really make a change as a WP Government? At this stage it seems that their reach barely reaches their grasp. A First World Parliament was promised in GE2011, and what we got an opposition that strives to irritate, rather then replace the PAP. They should be aiming to form their own Parliament, a WP Parliament.
You don t need to win Punggol East SMC simply to get control of another town council to check for shady transactions. To make the PAP work harder. What they should say is that they want to win Punggol East and thereafter garner enough seats to form the next Government!
This is where I feel the SDP would have fared better. Dr Chee would not be content to play ombudsman to the PAP. He wants to really transform Singapore for the better. He and the SDP have a very clear vision for a totally different Government.
In this respect, the WP has been disappointing in this BE, wasting the graciousness of the SDP pull-out from the race. How many elections can WP run on the same platform to be bridesmaids to the tyrant? Without ambition in Parliament, WP have only themselves to blame for all the lame duck criticisms leveled against them by the PAP. The WP should take a leaf from their greatest leader, JBJ who had single-handedly stood up without fail against the PAP in Parliament. I really do hope that for Punggol East, his son can beat the bridesmaids to the alter, and show Singaporeans how it should be done.
