What does Dr Chia Shi-Lu tell us about Ms Tin Pei Ling, the PAP and the electorate?

Many appropriate questions have been asked about the late withdrawal of Mr Steve Tan, and similarly many good questions were asked about Dr Chia Shi-Lu’s walkover victory.  I want to make one point (which is not original, read from a comment on facebook) which is slightly different:  if PAP had a President Scholar Doctor as a reserve in their candidate field, why was Ms Tin Pei Ling fielded in front of him?

Only two possible answers:

(1)  The PAP genuinely thinks that Ms Tin Pei Ling is a superior MP candidate compared to Dr Chia.

(2)  Dr Chia is the superior candidate to Ms Tin, but fielding Ms Tin is a strategic move designed to greater benefit the PAP.

If (1) is true, then residents of Tanjong Pagar should get very worried.

It is much more likely that (2) is true.  Which begs two questions:  aren’t the residents of Marine Parade GRC (and Singapore in general) shortchanged of a better PAP candidate if a weaker candidate was intentionally fielded by the PAP?  How many other “strategic candidates” have the PAP fielded, when there are in fact better reserve candidates down the line?

I won’t answer the above two questions, but let’s do a short discussion on how Ms Tin was originally intended to be a strategic candidate (which obviously backfired).  Firstly she is young, and supposedly new-media savvy, so that she could connect to the younger generation (after the failed P65 attempts).  Secondly, she is from the private sector, and private sector candidates were already in disproportionally short supply, so she helps to make the PAP candidate pool more balanced.  Thirdly, she is female, same argument as above.  Additionally, she is bilingual, something which is harder and harder to find for PAP candidates.

Lastly, and don’t laugh, she was intended to be the “chio bu” vote-getter.  In GE2006, Ms Glenda Han of WP got consideration attention on the internet and mainstream media for being a chio bu, and many felt this helped to result in the better-than-expected performance of WP’s “suicide squad” in Ang Mo Kio GRC, so this isn’t exactly without precedence.  I also remembered articles about PAP’s Dr Amy Khor  being chio bu back in 2006.  [Yes, sometimes reading Straits Times can make you sigh].

As we now know, Ms Tin didn’t pan out very well as a strategic candidate.  And even if there are better reserve candidates, the PAP couldn’t possibly withdraw Ms Tin and replace her with Dr Chia, because that would make the entire PAP look even worse, and opens up questions regarding their selection process.  And to make things worse for Ms Tin, Ms Nicole Seah appeared on the scene and Ms Seah’s rock star following can almost be entirely attributed to Ms Tin’s unpopularity.

While it is quite comical to imagine the PAP big wigs discussing among themselves which young PAP candidate would be the most appropriate to send as the “chio bu”, the real tragedy here is what this reflects about what the PAP thinks of the electorate.  Would something so trivial (but sensationalistic) as a woman’s sexual attractiveness be able to sway voters on deciding something as serious and of critical importance as who should be representing the people as Members of Parliament?

Judging by our adulation towards Ms Nicole Seah, can we really say that they are mistaken?