Chee Soon Juan explains why the SDP does not change leaders like the PAP

Singapore – Dr Chee Soon Juan took to social media on Monday (Apr 12) to explain why the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) leadership renewal programme is different from that of the People’s Action Party (PAP).

In a Facebook post, the SDP secretary-general wrote that Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat’s stepping aside as the leader of the PAP’s fourth-generation (4G)  team on April 8 led to repeated questions about the SDP’s leadership renewal. “The allusion is that since the PAP has had succession plans, other political parties ought to have one too,” Dr Chee wrote.

He added, “The PAP’s highly engineered method of finding a new leader reminds one of clunky political systems that are better suited to old-world politics where the staid and uninspired take centre stage”.

Describing planned power transfers as “antithetical”, Dr Chee explained, “This is because leaders emerge – through suasion – from the rightness and imperativeness of their cause. They are not anointed by their predecessors which often means that fealty to party overrides commitment to country.”

In leaving the power to choose with the people, Dr Chee wrote that “vision and capability trump gender, race and age”.

“The reality is that Singaporeans have little say in the change of leadership. We are reduced to hoping for an administrator who is a little more personable here or a wee bit more articulate there,” he added. /TISG