Multi-cornered fights? We should trust our voters, says DPP's Pwee

SINGAPORE — Voters are mature and smart enough to choose between the People’s Action Party and “the best of the opposition candidates”, regardless of how many candidates there are in the same constituency. This is the view of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) secretary-general Benjamin Pwee, 46, on multi-cornered fights. 

“We should trust our voters,” he said in an interview on Tuesday (July 28) . 
With the opposition parties set to hold their traditional horse-trading talks on Monday (Aug 3), the spotlight in recent days has been on the potential multi-cornered fights that some analysts feel could be inevitable given the high number of political parties that are set to take part in the coming General Election. 

Compared with the previous GE in 2011, three more parties are expected to enter the fray — DPP, People’s Power Party and Singaporeans First — bringing the total to nine. Out of the 29 constituencies in all, a dozen are being eyed by more than one opposition party. 

“If our fellow opposition friends field a candidate stronger than ours, we will obviously either not field our candidate there, or pull back our candidate,” Mr Pwee said. “If our candidate is stronger... then we will certainly continue to field our candidate there against the PAP, and trust that the other weaker opposition candidates will pull out. If they don’t ... I strongly believe that voters would learn from the last Presidential Elections and not split their votes.” 

Dr Tony Tan won the 2011 Presidential Elections with 35.2 per cent of the votes, beating three other candidates — Dr Tan Cheng Bock (34.9 per cent), Mr Tan Jee Say (25 per cent) and Mr Tan Kin Lian (4.9 per cent). 

Mr Pwee also referred to the Punggol East by-election in 2013, as an example of how the two strongest candidates in a multi-cornered fight would capture the lion’s share of the votes. Workers’ Party’s Lee Li Lian won the by-election with 54.5 per cent of the votes, with her nearest challenger, PAP’s Koh Poh Koon, garnering 43.8 per cent of the votes. Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam and Singapore Democratic Alliance secretary-general Desmond Lim received only 1.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent of the votes, respectively. 

Mr Pwee felt that there is “enough mutual respect” among the various parties to work together. There is a new generation of opposition members who are free from historical baggage, he said. “We have definitely been talking to each other, and informal discussions have been ongoing,” he said.