SINGAPORE: As they say, in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Pundits also say that when you go into politics, you sleep with strange bedfellows, and most often, you sleep with the enemy. Is this what’s happening to Elysa Chen?
While she was still a correspondent, she thought the People’s Action Party (PAP) made all the decisions for the people it governs and employs. A detractor of Singapore’s ruling party, today, she’s a candidate under its banner. Why the sudden flip-flop?
Currently a contender vying for the General Election with the PAP, Chen estimated that bad news and rough times come in diverse forms.
In an interview with CNA, this candidate for the Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency (GRC) stated that confronting her father’s death made her grow up and evolve as a person fast. The experiences of society’s realities ushered in maturity that was eventually coming.
“You have to hold the difficult moments and press on so that you can show up for your team. You get the work done. You make sure that life goes on,” she said.
But why get into politics now?
Chen was doing well as a journalist. The years she spent as a correspondent were amazingly action-packed. According to her, in one moment, she could be in a lavish bungalow and in the next, she would be in a one-room flat.
“It gives you exposure to so many segments in society that really helps you to have a broader perspective to understand how they live,” she said.
Her shift into politics was triggered by an experience with a story she was working on.
This shift was elaborated in another interview posted on YouTube wherein Chen recalled that time she was doing a story about a man who slayed his two young children, then wasted himself right in front of his wife, all because the wife wanted to divorce him.
“Too often, as journalists, we arrive on the scene just that bit too late. When I encounter stories like that, it makes me feel that we could have prevented this tragedy,” she said.
This time, though, it’s going to be different. Chen thinks that politics will allow her to gather as many resources as possible to support individuals and families in crisis. It also gives her the platform to advocate for their needs so that policies that can help them will be efficiently implemented.
She also added that when she was still a journalist, she got to write the stories after only what had happened, but with the steps she’s taking now, she gets to write the stories “with the people” and now has the chance to change these stories to have happy endings because of the power she can wield provided by politics.
“That’s a really big motivation why I have been doing what I’m doing and why I decided to step up to serve.”
Change of heart
“I used to think that PAP was very paternalistic,” she mused. This thinking was during her time as a journalist, as she heard how editors had to go for meetings with the authorities because of certain articles they wrote. “It coloured my perception,” she recollected.
So, what brought the change?
Her constant discussions with party members made her realise that PAP actually valued varied perspectives within the party. She also thought that it was appropriate of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to conduct a “consultative approach with the Forward SG exercise.”
The said initiative was a year-long assessment of Singapore’s social compact to plan the city-state’s future.
With that, Chen grasped the purity of their purpose and saw “the sweat on their brows”.
She thinks their sincerity won her over, but more than the sincerity she saw, she thinks PAP has the shrewdness to make tough policy decisions, even when these policies are not popular and will be taken the wrong way.