Proposed alliance of smaller opposition parties to contest GE under single banner, other parties ‘can join anytime’

SINGAPORE — With the clock ticking down to the next General Election (GE), which must be held by April 2021, leaders of four of the smaller opposition parties here have decided to form an alliance.

The alliance will comprise the Singaporeans First party (SingFirst), Reform Party (RP), People’s Power Party (PPP) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), they confirmed with TODAY on Sunday (Jan 5).

As an alliance, the four parties will contest the coming GE under one banner, and they will be working together to decide how many candidates to field in the coming GE.

In the last GE held in 2015, the four parties contested in six Group Representation Constituencies and one Single Member Constituency, fielding a combined total of 30 candidates.

Talk of the opposition parties forming a coalition first surfaced in July 2018 at a meeting involving the four parties, as well as the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), National Solidarity Party (NSP) and People’s Voice.

The plan then was to invite former presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock to lead them, but that was before he announced that he was setting up the Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

Since then, Dr Tan had given no indication that he would be interested in helming the coalition, and so the four parties have gone ahead to form the alliance.

The proposed alliance was first reported by The Straits Times on Friday, mainly citing unnamed sources about how the four parties aim to register the alliance by the end of the month and that it would be led by SingFirst secretary-general Tan Jee Say.

Mr Tan Jee Say had gone on Facebook on Saturday to state that he had merely played the role of approaching other parties to join the alliance, and that Dr Tan Cheng Bock would still be invited to lead it.

Speaking to TODAY, Mr Tan Jee Say reiterated that the four parties “look forward to Tan Cheng Bock agreeing to lead the alliance”. TODAY has reached out to Dr Tan Cheng Bock for comment.

Mr Tan Jee Say said the parties plan to submit their application to the Registry of Societies this month and hope that the approval will be granted by March.

He added: “Other parties can join us anytime. We believe one united front is what the voters want to see instead of too many different parties contesting for opposition votes.”

DPP secretary-general Hamim Aliyas said he is ready to back Mr Tan Jee Say as the alliance’s “official” leader if no major developments were to come.

“(Mr Tan Jee Say) will be a good leader,” he said, noting that he had fronted talks with various opposition parties — including Singapore People’s Party (SPP), PSP and NSP — before plans for the alliance are more firmed up.

Of the approached parties, SPP is the only one that had declined the proposal. The rest appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding if they would join the alliance.

RP chairman Andy Zhu told TODAY the purpose of this new alliance is to “bring about opposition unity”, so all parties are welcome to join. The parties that have come onboard are the ones with “a similar mindset”, he said.

Asked why they did not join an existing alliance platform — the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) — PPP secretary-general Goh Meng Seng said SDA did not reply to his party's request for a meeting a few months ago.

When TODAY approached SDA chief Desmond Lim, he said: “Any party can come together to form a new alliance. As far as SDA (is concerned), our stance is clear since day one. All are welcome to join us, but have to comply with our constitution.”

Mr Goh reiterated that the four parties’ wish is still for all opposition parties — including the Workers’ Party, the only opposition party here with seats in Parliament — to come onboard their platform to “thrash out” their differences and “consolidate” their views.

“It is not about the number of parties that we have. It is about the confusing messaging where we have different parties and policy views,” he said. “It would be quite confusing to the voters what to actually vote for.”

Mr Goh said the key candidates and their contributions across the 11 opposition parties in the scene currently are “undervalued” because of the way things are.

“We are not short of talent... we are not clear (on our messaging) or organised,” he said.

Mr Goh said that if Dr Tan Cheng Bock and his party eventually choose not to join the alliance, a council of leaders comprising Mr Tan Jee Say, RP secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam and him would likely co-lead the group.

The current arrangement is not ideal but necessary, Mr Goh said. “Unfortunately, we cannot wait forever because the general election is taking off soon,” he added.

WHAT ANALYSTS THINK OF THE MOVE

Political analysts TODAY spoke to described the formation of the alliance as an attempt on the part of the smaller political parties to avoid being consigned to irrelevance in the next GE.

Law lecturer Eugene Tan of the Singapore Management University (SMU) said there is “no magic” in this alliance as all four parties fared poorly at the last GE.

“The new platform is not going to automatically boost their electability overnight,” the associate professor said.

He pointed out that there needs to be a unified image and coherent substance in what the alliance stands for politically. Otherwise, the new bloc, he said, would only serve as “an alliance of convenience and expediency to have more bargaining power with the other parties” during horse trading when the electoral map is drawn up and avoid three-cornered fights.

“An alliance may well be the easier thing to do for now,” said Assoc Prof Eugene Tan. “Making it work and having a strong appeal are more challenging tasks.

“It (remains) a crowded field and they will have to differentiate themselves positively from the others if the alliance is to be larger and more impactful than the total sum of their constituent parts.”

SIM Global Education associate lecturer Felix Tan said that parties in the alliance are “rather insignificant to begin with”.

“They will not make much of a difference in the coming elections — not even a dent, I would say,” he said.

Instead of bringing about progress in the opposition scene in Singapore, the planned alliance may instead erode the support base from the other stronger opposition parties, he added.

“They take away support from the more credible opposition,” he said.

Dr Lam Peng Er, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asia Institute, called the alliance a coming together of “mosquito parties”.

For the alliance to be credible and stand a chance at winning at the polls, they “really need to join hands with Tan Cheng Bock”, he said, as they are not household names at all, but exist as “personality-centric parties”.

‘BIG EGOS ARE A MYTH’

Mr Goh, however, said the development shows that small parties are determined to present a more electable slate. “At first, people thought that it is the small parties that cannot come together, which is not true. We’ve shown that we have the political will and determination to come together,” he said.

“We cannot cheat ourselves of the reality that we are facing. All of us are small compared to the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). The only logical option is to come together to provide a common platform to give confidence to voters.”

While analysts have noted that it remains to be seen how well the “very strong personalities” in the new alliance, including Mr Jeyaretnam and Mr Tan, could work together, Mr Goh said it is a myth that the leaders in the alliance have big egos.

“If Dr Tan (Cheng Bock) comes in, we are glad for him to lead the alliance. We are quite open and flexible about it. Nobody wants to be the leader of any alliance or any party that cannot win seats,” he said.