SPP leader Chiam See Tong (right) shakes hands with supporters after an election rally in Singapore on 2 May, 2011. (Reuters file photo)

SINGAPORE — Veteran opposition politician Chiam See Tong will go down in history for changing the face of the opposition in Singapore, says London-based political analyst and author Loke Hoe Yeong.

Speaking to Yahoo News Singapore over the phone from London, Loke was discussing his recently launched book “The First Wave: JBJ, Chiam And The Opposition In Singapore”.

It tells the story of Singapore’s political opposition from 1981-2011, starting from a period when the Workers’ Party’s Joshua Benjamin Jeyaratnam (JBJ) and later Chiam were the only elected opposition Members of Parliament (MP).

“The opposition used to be undesirable and unelectable, and Chiam has made it more acceptable to Singaporeans. He really revamped the whole opposition’s image and brought in credible candidates,” says Loke.

“His contribution surpasses JBJ’s, in terms of changing the opposition’s image.”

Last week, Chiam announced that he would be stepping down as secretary-general of the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) after 25 years. The party will be electing a new leadership team at its biennial conference on 16 October.

Chiam, the founder and former secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), is the Republic’s longest ever serving opposition MP, having held office in Potong Pasir from 1984 to 2011. In 1991, the SDP made history when it won three single-ward seats in Parliament.

In 2011, Chiam led a team that contested Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, but failed to win the constituency. In recent years, the 84-year-old has been in poor health.

Loke, a former SPP member, is also the author of Chiam’s biography “Let The People Have Him: Chiam See Tong, The Early Years”, which covers his early life until his election to Parliament in 1984. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize in the non-fiction category.

While the latest book was initially meant to be the second volume of Chiam’s memoirs, Loke said that his research led him to realise that the opposition figure’s story included key events such as his acrimonious split from the SDP. The narrative therefore needed to be intertwined with the stories of other characters and personalities, like JBJ and SDP’s current chief Chee Soon Juan.

“It needed to be more objective, and a biography is not a suitable platform,” he said.

Authoritarian tendencies?

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Ironically, while Chiam has openly professed his love of democracy, his detractors have accused him of running the SDP like a dictatorship. Loke, who examines this at length in “The First Wave”, noted that the likes of JBJ and the People’s Action Party (PAP) have also been accused of being authoritarian.

“We should not be woolly-eyed, because to build democracy, you also need very strong parties. Discipline and structure are needed, and that’s not always going to be popular with everyone. This is in order to make in-roads into parliament,” he said.

“The party is there to advance its views and manifesto for the country. They are not social clubs, so you need a fighting force.”

Alluding to the “very messy Brexit debate” in Britain, the analyst added, “Even in the home of democracy, where the Brexit debate is so chaotic, you need the structure to advance what you believe in as a party.”

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