David Bowyer, a prominent PAP activist, has switched camps to join the National Solidarity Party (NSP). Explaining his move in his Facebook, the 49-year-old sales manager of a multinational software corporation said that a “long hard look at the reality behind the mask and the direction we are being taken in”, prompted his decision.
Responding to a friend’s comment, Bowyer said that he tried to effect change from within the People’s Action Party (PAP) for the last five years, but without success. Bowyer added that he “learnt the hard way (that) everyone outside the inner cadre is window dressing and only those that will follow the CEC will get invited in (to the PAP).”
The ex-Briton was featured in The Straits Times in the year 2012 to highlight that new citizens were active in grassroots and political work. He was volunteering at former Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew’s Meet-the-People Sessions in Moulmein since he got his pink identity card in October 2011. Bowyer was also assistant secretary to the Cambridge Neighbourhood Committee. He was referred to Mr Lui by his former classmate, Michael Palmer.
The ex-Briton who had been a permanent resident of SIngapore since 2001 was also a participant in last year’s National Day parade as part of PAP Community Foundation (PCF) contingent. He (with other participants) was featured in the PAP website.
An anonymous website last year pointed out that NSP’s President, Sebastian Teo, was convicted for graft in the year 1979. Political activist Martyn See claimed in his Facebook in 2014 that NSP was “formed in 1987 by agents of Internal Security Department (ISD) in order to get a foothold in the opposition’s door following the “Marxist conspiracy” arrests.”
Secretary-General of the People’s Power Party, Goh Meng Seng, in responding to See’s post said that it is no secret that a PAP stalwart was behind the founding of NSP and that it was an effort by PAP provocateurs to dilute and slow down the growth of opposition which had broken through PAP’s monopoly.
