Singapore Democratic Party

Template:Politics of Singapore

The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) is a liberal party in Singapore. The party is a member of Liberal International and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.

It was founded in 1980 by Mr Chiam See Tong, a British-educated lawyer who had contested several by-elections and elections as an independent since the mid 1970s. The party had originally wanted to contest the Anson constituency by-election in 1981 but for the sake of opposition unity, gave way to the Worker's Party candidate J.B. Jeyaretnam. It paid off, as the opposition won their first seat for the first time since Singapore's independence. The party's success continued in the 1984 General Elections, as their former leader and secretary general Chiam See Tong won the party's first and only seat at Potong Pasir which since then has been won by the opposition in following elections. Chiam's election victory was all the more significant as it showed voters repudiated the People's Action Party's (PAP) arrogant and aloof style of campaigning, in which the ruling party at one time urged voters not to vote for Chiam because his O-level results were poorer than those of the PAP candidate.

In the 1988 general elections, following the dismissal of J.B. Jeyaretnam from parliament in 1986 after a financial conviction, the party managed to defend its sole and only opposition seat. As a result, Chiam See Tong became the opposition leader in parliament. A moderate, Chiam was praised for not opposing for the sake of opposing and for analysing issues critically and objectively.

In the 1991 general elections, in its biggest success ever, probably as a result of the by-election strategy employed since then in which opposition parties would agree to contest less than half of the seats in parliament, allowing the PAP to be returned to power on nomination day thus reassuring Singaporeans of a PAP government, the party won 3 seats at Potong Pasir, Bukit Gombak and Nee Soon Central. The victory at Nee Soon Central was very close as the winning candidate Cheo Chai Chen only won by 168 votes against the PAP incumbent Ng Pock Too. Apart from Chiam See Tong and Cheo, the other winner was the lawyer and chairman Ling How Doong.

Together with one seat won by the Workers' Party of Singapore in the election, the opposition won 4 seats. Though this was still very small compared to the 77 seats won by the PAP, the results were considered as a grave setback to the ruling party and the then prime minister; Goh Chok Tong, who was only in his first year in office. It was also the best ever opposition performance since 1963, when the Barisan Sosialis Party managed to win 13 out of 51 seats.

Buoyed by the results in 1991, the SDP decided to contest the 1992 4 seat Marine Parade GRC (Group Representation Constituency) by-election. The GRC was held by none other than the then premier; Goh Chok Tong, which made it a sure election win for the ruling PAP. Nonetheless the SDP decided to put up a good fight by recruiting Dr Chee Soon Juan,a university lecturer, for the election. In the by-election, the PAP won 72% of the votes, whereas the SDP won 25% and other smaller parties won the rest of the vote.

However the rise of the SDP was not to be, as differences soon emerged in 1993 about what the party should do with Chee Soon Juan's hunger strike which happened after he was sacked from his university post when he was found to be misappropriating hundreds of dollars of research funds by the National University of Singapore (NUS). Chee Soon Juan claimed this was a political vendetta plotted by the ruling party (one of the PAP MPs is a NUS professor; Mr S.R. Vasoo). The PAP has however denied the accusation and insisted the offense was real. Chiam See Tong urged Chee to stop the accusations and get back to real business. However, Chiam was not supported by most of the party and the Central Executive Committee voted to get rid of him as general secretary and replace him with Chee. Supporters of Chiam quickly left the party and formed the Singapore People's Party in 1994.

As if this was not enough, the party even decided to strip Chiam See Tong's membership in the party. Had he lost his membership, under the current law, he would also have to lose his seat in parliament. This invoked unhappiness among opposition supporters in Potong Pasir. Chiam took up this issue to the courts which ruled in favor of him as it was illegal to do so. Hence between 1993 and 1997, Chiam kept his seat in parliament officially as a SDP member. In the 1997 elections, he took over from Sin Kek Tong as the secretary-general (leader) of the Singapore People's Party.

Meanwhile the party itself was rapidly moving towards the left-wing. The remaining two members of parliament, Mr Cheo and Mr Ling, began to oppose for the sake of opposing. Mr Cheo however, was almost silent for most of his term except when defending Chee Soon Juan, whereas Mr Ling's performance as the opposition leader was clumsy and not very convincing. Chee Soon Juan continued his fight against the PAP by publishing a book called Dare to Change in the mid 1990s. He has also frequently travelled abroad and spoken of Singapore's situation to foreign universities. The PAP however, has frequently accused him of deliberately misstating facts to gain political capital and has even called him a megalomaniac.

In the elections of 1997, the SDP suffered its greatest setback since its founding. The party lost all seats in parliament and its leader Chee Soon Juan failed to get himself elected as an MP. The SDP pointed out it was also a setback for the rest of the opposition as they had only won 2 seats (one won by the Workers' Party of Singapore and the other by Chiam See Tong of the Singapore People's Party) and the opposition vote dropped from 40% to 35%.

In 1999, the SDP leader Chee Soon Juan came to national attention when he was giving a public speech in the financial district despite not having a permit to speak publicly. Chee argued that the permit laws were draconian and it often took a longer time to approve than when the PAP-affiliated National Trades Unions Congress protested outside the U.S embassy in 1990 against what the government claimed the 'U.S interference of internal affairs'. Though it was not neccessarily expressed, partly as a result of Chee's efforts, the government decided to open a speaker's corner at Hong Lim Park in 2000. Between 2000 and 2001, Chee Soon Juan along with Jeyaretnam, had used the park to propagate their ideas and the desire to remove the Internal Security Act. Later, they complained of the ban to use the microphone since the speaker's corner is near a busy road.

In the 2001 elections, the SDP failed to win any seat but captured national attention when during the campaign, Chee Soon Juan refused to greet Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at a hawker centre, and along with his followers, lifted up their fists and chanted slogans. Later, from his campaign vehicle, Chee taunted Goh Chok Tong asking, "Where is the S$18 billion that you have lent to Suharto?" (in actual fact, the government had only lent S$5 billion to the Indonesians in 1998). The PAP took Chee Soon Juan to task, demanding he should apologise or else he would face defamation lawsuits. Apparently under pressure from the governing party, Chee Soon Juan and his party apologised a day later. However, the party soon went on the offensive by continuing to criticise the PAP's economic policies and urged for the minimum wage of S$5 per hour for the rest of the campaign. The SDP's economic alternatives were later criticised by the PAP as leading Singapore to bankruptcy and inflation. In the election, the opposition vote dropped again from 35% to 25% and the SDP members were lucky to win enough votes to collect their election deposits (S$13,000 for each candidate) back.

Singapore Rebel controversy

In 2005, a documentary by Martyn See Tong Ming on Chee was withdrawn from the Singapore International Film Festival after the government warned the director that he could be jailed over its political content. Martyn See's Singapore Rebel focuses on Chee Soon Juan, a frequent government critic who was ordered to pay 500,000 Singapore dollars to modern Singapore's founder, Lee Kuan Yew, and former leader Goh Chok Tong for defaming them during the 2001 elections. However, See decided to pull his movie from the film festival after the Board of Film Censors said he could be jailed for up to two years or fined S$100,000 if his 26 minute film was screened. The board had also advised festival organizers to remove See's documentary because it was a "party political film". Under Singaporean law, local films that "contain wholly or partly either partisan or biased references to or comments on any political matter" are banned.

Account of the event by Martyn See:

"I received a call at 1800 hours yesterday 11 March 2005 from Ms Lesley Ho, programme director of the Singapore International Film Festival, to advise me to withdraw my short film Singapore Rebel which chronicles the civil disobedience acts of opposition activist Dr Chee Soon Juan.

She told me the following:

1. That the Board of Censors may deem the film to be a violation of the Films Act, and that the crime carries a $100,000 fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

2. That I should agree to a withdrawal immediately because the Board of Censors had wanted an answer by yesterday.

3. That the Singapore International Film Festival has had a good track record for supporting local filmmakers.

4. That I should not make an issue out of this.

5. That if I disagree, "they will come after you, Martin."

Based on the above, I dutifully agree to withdraw Singapore Rebel from the Singapore International Film Festival."

See also

• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberal democracy
• Liberalism
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties

External links

• Official Singapore Democratic Party website (http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/)
• Singapore Rebel blog (http://www.singaporerebel.blogspot.com/)