SINGAPORE: Singapore Democratic Party chairman Paul Tambayah has recounted interactions with residents of Bukit Panjang, who see the need for diverse of voices in parliament, in a social media post published against the backdrop of the looming polls.
Dr Tambyah, who contested the ward in the 2020 General Election and lost by a slim margin, has continued to be active and regularly does outreach activities on the ground at Bukit Panjang.
In a Facebook post on Thursday (June 6), the SDP chair wrote about visits to residents the night before where he and his team of volunteers met many new and soon-to-be citizens, whom he said were very encouraging.
“One told us he was watching the results come in from the world’s largest election and he hoped for a similar change in Singapore,” wrote Dr Tambyah.
He was referring, of course, to the election in India which closed on June 1 and involved 642 million voters. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be serving a third consecutive term, the election was still a setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
With the BJP-led alliance falling far short of obtaining the number of seats it had hoped for, India’s opposition has seen a boost.
Dr Tambyah added that he had a conversation with another resident, who told him that while she has never voted, she is following the political developments in Singapore and will be encouraging her children to vote for the SDP in the upcoming elections.
“It is indeed promising to recognise that new and ‘old’ citizens alike see the need for a diversity of voices in parliament,” he wrote.
Dr Tambyah, a renowned infectious diseases specialist, is the assistant Dean of Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. He is also the president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, the first Singaporean to hold this position.
He joined the SDP in 2011 and was elected chairman of the party’s Central Executive Committee in 2017.
Together with Dr Chee Soon Juan, SDP’s current secretary-general; Sidek Mallek and Chong Wai Fung, he was a candidate in the 2015 General Election at Holland–Bukit Timah GRC. The SDP slate to the People’s Action Party team headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan won against SDP with 66.6 per cent of the vote.
Dr Tambyah fared better in the 2020 Election, when he won 46.27 per cent of the votes at Bukit Panjang. /TISG
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