As its Sunday, thought regular readers might like to read the gossip making the rounds of the chattering coffee-house classes. Take u/m with a large pinch of salt as its all based on hearsay, much of it secondhand.
Dr Tan Cheng Bock is not planning to form a new party. He is believed to be advising Benjamin Pwee and other SPP members who helped him in his recent presidential campaign. He is helping them plan the transition from brand Chiam, and how to get support in Western S’pore, his territory. Tony Tan came second in the West. Tan Jee Say and Tan Kin Lian were nowhere to be seen.
Hopefully, the Chiams are onside on these issues. Otherwise, the SPP will die when Chiam departs from the stage. Mrs Chiam is a very capable grassroot activist. But she is no leader of a political party, few people are.
Tan Jee Say “has plans to build up a coalition of forces, reaching out to those dissatisfied with the ruling party. He did not give details as to which party he intends to join”. He is keeping open the possibility of setting up a new party. The rumour is that Michelle Lim and Dr Ang Yong Guan will resign from the SDP and join the new party. That they are not on the mgt commitee of the SDP is taken as a sign of them wanting to leave.
People close to Nicole Seah, celebrity superstar, and Jeannette Chong Aruldoss both on the NSP mgt committee, deny that these two ladies will join the new party. But with the rumours of tension in the NSP leadership (most of the mgt didn’t turn up at the birthday party of the NSP’s Malay Bureau), the speculation is they may jump ship. Superstar Nicole has also been criticised by long-time NSP cadres for being TJS’s polling agent.
But if they jumped party again, they would look like fickle, airhead bimbos. They joined NSP from RP only before the May GE, and they had joined RP only last year.
People who know but don’t like TJS say that all this talk of unifying the Opposition shows he is trying to leave politics gracefully. But then, these same guys said he applied for the COE because he wanted to leave the SDP gracefully. They said he thought he wouldn’t get it but kanna played-out. But whatever the truth, he fought hard and wisely, unlike Tan Kin Lian who fought hard but not wisely.
TKL is still makes pronouncements on public issues on his FaceBook page and blog site. But less and less people are visiting the sites. People close to him say he still feels the hurt of being rejected by voters and losing $48,000 and more of his own money. They also say he is in denial abt his defeat, refusing to accept that his campaign was badly run, and hence accident prone. He still thinks he could have been president, but for the Yahoo! survey and TJS.