Back with a vengeance?

 If you know a bit of SG politics, you should know what does this got to do with DPP

The Democratic Progressive Party is back (with a vengeance). The long forgotten opposition party has officially made former Singapore People's Party member Benjamin Pwee their new secretary-general. The party has not contested since the 2001 general election. Pwee is targeting to contest in two GRCs and two SMCs in the next election.

On paper, it looks as if DPP is preparing for a comeback with the aid of a scholar who has contested in the previous election. However, DPP is just a carbon copy (CC) of SPP. Like Pwee, many DPP members are former members of SPP which is led by opposition veteran Chiam See Tong.

This reminds us of the infamous Reform Party exodus a couple of years ago. Many RP members including Nicole Seah, Hazel Poa and Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss left the Kenneth Jeyaretnam-led party for the National Solidarity Party. RP faced a shortage of candidates before GE2011 and even had to loan SPP members to contest under their banner.

Hence, it is not surprisingly that people suspect the management of Chiam and his wife Lina at the SPP which resulted in so many members leaving together for another party. Anyway, these ex-SPP members have hardly anywhere to go except DPP. WP wouldn't want them, SDP's ideology differs from SPP while NSP is not lacking in manpower currently.

Thus, the most predictable thing (which really happened) to do was to follow Benjamin Pwee to a "new" party and consider joining the Singapore Democratic Alliance. SDA is the sole opposition alliance in the country and has only ywo parties left in it, the Singapore Justice Party and Singapore Malay National Organisation.

But I believe that becoming part of the SDA would be a wrong move for DPP. Do not forget that Desmond Lim, SDA's secretary-general, contested in the Punggol East by-election in January and received a magnificent 0.57 per cent of the valid votes.

Desmond contested in the same constituency in 2011 and garnered a whopping 4.45 per cent then. Yeah, he lost his election deposit not once but twice. So is DPP really serious on forming an alliance with political jokers like Desmond? I bet Benjamin Pwee, who is a Cambridge alumni, has enough wisdom to think properly.

Anyway, with the emergence of another alternative party, the political landscape of Singapore just got more interesting. More parties means more entertainment. Now, who said local politics was dull and boring?