S'pore opposition joins ranks for poll

S'pore opposition joins ranks for poll

By Ajoy Sen

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Singapore's splintered opposition groups are talking among themselves about a strategy to maximize their showing in an expected parliamentary election this year, opposition politicians said.

"We are talking to each other to avoid three-cornered contests," said Joshua Jeyaretnam, secretary-general of the opposition Workers Party (WP) and a potential candidate.

Opposition leaders say they could have won more seats in the last general election, in 1991, if the anti-government vote had not been split.

"We expect the opposition will win at least a total 10 seats in the polls which we expect to be held this year," Jeyaretnam told Reuters. In 1991 the opposition took four seats.

Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), shares Jeyaretnam's optimism. He told Reuters that the SDP, in its campaign, will tell Singaporeans there is an alternative to the ruling People's Action Party (PAP).

His book "Dare to Change, an alternative vision for Singapore", defines the alternative as calling "for a more open and human society where people participate and are deeply involved with the nation's interests and goals."

The government -- controlled by the PAP -- has not said when the elections will be held, but they must be called by April 1997.

In the past, the government has called polls about a year ahead of the deadline, but some political analysts say Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong is keen to have an election sooner to capitalize on a weak opposition and on a record of double-digit annual economic growth since 1990, when he became prime minister.

Another theory has it that elections could come in late August or September this year, just after the country's National Day, expected to center around the 30th anniversary of Singapore's break from Malaysia and its emergence as a prosperous independent country. All 30 of those years have been under PAP rule.

One key PAP leader recently suggested the opposition has little impact. Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Chinese-language television that the opposition barely exerted any pressure compared with that faced by the government in the 1960s.

But the pressure has been on the opposition party leaders. Jeyaretnam was disqualified from holding a seat in parliament for a five-year period ending November 1991 after a conviction in local courts for making false declarations about his party's finances.

He has been involved in several libel suits. Jeyaretnam has said that over the years he has paid libel damages of more than Singapore S$780,000 ($557,143) to Lee Kuan Yew.

More recently, the Singapore Straits Times withdrew a bankruptcy petition against Jeyaretnam after he paid up more than S$80,000 in cash and cheques in costs he was ordered to pay after he lost a libel suit filed against the newspaper.

Last year, the Singapore high court ordered Chee to pay PAP parliamentarian S. Vasoo, a professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and head of the department in which Chee worked, and two other NUS staff members S$315,000 ($225,000) in damages and legal costs in a defamation suit over remarks he made after a parliamentary debate on his sacking from the university.

Bruce Gale, regional manager of Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, said that since the demise of the left-wing Barisan Socialis in the late 1960s, opposition parties in Singapore have tended to be built around personalities."

"Opposition unity, often fragile, has typically been based more on a common dislike of the PAP's authoritarian rule than adherence to any alternative policy platforms," he said.

Some opposition leaders and academics also say that many Singaporeans, among the wealthiest people in Asia, will not risk their luxuries and comforts for an elusive humanitarian philosophy.

"Most Singaporeans are extremely materialistic and are concerned more with bread-and-butter issues than with human rights and political questions," Chiam See Tong, an SDP executive committee member, told Reuters.

"The opposition must realize that most of them are affluent and keen to protect that position," he said.

"My approach to them is that without the threat of a strong opposition in Parliament, you cannot wrest any gains from the PAP. They (PAP) will give only when they are under a threat", Chiam, the longest serving opposition member in Parliament, said.

Shee Poon Kim, a senior political science lecturer at the National University of Singapore, said the majority of Singaporeans are more concerned with policies of economic well- being and a better life-style.

However, WP secretary-general Jeyaretnam said there is a gradual awakening of sentiment against an authoritarian and paternalistic rule that he believes has gone too far in controlling the lives of three million Singaporeans.

Jeyaretnam -- who won a by-election in 1981 to break more than a decade of total dominance of parliament by the PAP -- criticized the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the government to detain people without trial indefinitely.

The government defends preventive detention, with officials emphasizing its current use against vicious gangsters and notorious drug traffickers rather than its past and potential use against those considered politically subversive.

In August 1991, the SDP and the WP won three and one seats respectively in a house of 81 seats. All the rest went to the PAP. The PAP polled 61 percent of the valid vote, compared with 63.2 percent in the 1988 elections.

While by many other nations' standards that might seem a landslide victory for the PAP, it was its lowest percentage in 20 years and caused considerable party soul searching.