Apr 17, 2011
The quiet reformer
Low's efforts transformed WP into arguably Singapore's most credible opposition party
The charges Mr Low Thia Khiang made ranged from clothing to culture. He stressed simple concepts like respect, tolerance and power to the people. -- ST PHOTO: TERENCE TAN
When Mr Low Thia Khiang took over the reins of the Workers' Party (WP) in 2001, one of his earliest tasks was to play fashion police to his party members.
Members of Singapore's oldest surviving opposition party preferred slippers and T-shirts on their walkabouts. But to Mr Low, a former Chinese teacher, such a rag-tag appearance was unbefitting of a political party.
'I think if we want to move together as a party and you want people to look at you, to respect you, you have to respect yourself with more discipline,' Mr Low said in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Gradually, the members came round, sporting the party's signature sky-blue polo tees with proper shoes. In recent years, they have even started wearing trendy blue wristbands.
Besides looking neat, Mr Low has transformed WP into arguably the country's most credible opposition party. He also holds the more secure opposition seat, Hougang, which is expected to let him celebrate his 20th anniversary as an MP this August - if he chooses to stay put.
Depths of 2001
When he first took over, WP was at a low. Relations with his predecessor, the late J.B. Jeyaretnam, were strained. The erstwhile secretary-general had been bankrupted by lawsuits, preventing him from contesting elections. Mr Jeyaretnam accused Mr Low of not doing enough to help him clear his debts.
At the 2001 polls, the party fielded just two candidates, including Mr Low, who had been the MP of Hougang since 1991.
'We were almost extinct... the opposition just could not compete,' he said of the 2001 polls. The ruling People's Action Party enjoyed walkovers in most of the seats that year.
Despite his holding on to Hougang for 10 years, many wondered if Mr Low was a worthy successor to the larger-than-life 'JBJ'. Compared with his leonine predecessor, Mr Low, a Chinese- educated Nantah graduate, was understated.
The new Hammer
But bit by bit, from clothing to culture, he set about transforming his team.
Instead of an ideological party of 'isms', as he called it, he stressed simpler concepts like respect, tolerance and power to the people.
'I will not go for confrontation or taking an adversarial approach for the sake of doing it to show I'm opposition. No, I don't believe in that,' he said.
Renewal was stepped up. In 2001, Mr Low at 45 was among the youngest in the party's central executive committee. Now he is about the oldest in the 15-man council, with eight under 40 years old.
In this respect, he may be succeeding in proving critics wrong - that opposition parties are largely one-man vehicles.
The party has also been trying to move away from being one seen to be more closely tied to the Chinese ground than other communities.
'I'm now the only one who is really Chinese-educated here,' he revealed.
The clearest sign of the party makeover came in the 2006 elections.
Besides star catch Sylvia Lim, the 54-year-old party rolled out 20 candidates, including 15 rookies, many of whom were graduates, bilingual and professional.
The electorate liked what it saw, giving WP candidates the highest votes - 38.4 per cent - of any opposition party. Mr Low retained his Hougang perch with his biggest win ever - 62.7 per cent of valid votes - and Ms Lim, a law lecturer, earned a non-constituency seat in Parliament as the best loser.
For the coming polls, WP may again lead the opposition charge, ready to field at least 23 candidates - including possibly more than 10 new faces. Again, a star recruit has been reeled in - top lawyer Chen Show Mao, 50.
'We have successfully transformed,' Mr Low said.
The changes have drawn bouquets, but also brickbats. Some have criticised the Low-era WP for being too moderate and not deviating enough from the PAP's line.
But in fact, going by the WP's manifesto for the upcoming elections, the party is opposed to many of the PAP's fundamental policies: It wants to abolish the elected presidency, the GRC system, the Internal Security Act and some grassroots groups, and says the public transport system should be nationalised.
Responding to the criticisms, Mr Low retorted: 'If they're saying that WP is disciplined and moving together as a party like the PAP, I think that's a compliment to me.'
Political observer Wong Wee Nam, when contacted, said Mr Low's low-profile approach has been a double-edged sword for the WP.
While it has helped the party attract new faces, he said it may have also limited its ability to draw in more high-calibre candidates who prefer a more robust approach.
Dr Wong said: 'Actually, there are enough 'good people' coming out in the opposition, like former government scholarship holders, but they are joining other parties. Why? That says something about the WP leadership.'
Reluctant politician
Mr Low's current status is unexpected for a man who said he had no ambitions to be a politician when he first got involved with the WP in 1981 and joined as a member a year later.
He joined politics as he was unhappy with the education system and the closure of Nanyang University, or Nantah. But all he wanted was to help the WP with its Hammer newsletter, said Mr Low.
He was pushed at the 1988 polls to stand in Tiong Bahru GRC because Mr Jeyaretnam was disqualified and no one else had been working the ground there, he revealed.
He lost in that round. But since 1991, his low-key manner, his Teochew background, and his meticulous attention to residents' concerns, including turning up at funeral wakes, have helped him clinch Hougang again and again.
While the coming polls have thrown up more high-flying opposition candidates, the tantalising talk is over whether Mr Low will leave his Hougang safe haven to lead a bid for a GRC.
It would not be a cold, political or dispassionate decision, he revealed.
'I think over 20 years, Hougang has become a big part of my life. It's an emotional link,' he said, eyes reddening before trying to compose himself by showing some photographs of himself and Hougang residents.
But whichever he decides, he is confident that 'magnanimous' Hougang residents who treat him like 'a family member, their son' would understand.
His political views have remained steadfast over the years: to see a robust parliamentary system with the opposition able to provide effective checks and balances on the Government so that policies would benefit Singaporeans.
While he has said winning a GRC would help achieve this aim, Mr Low was coy about how he would swing in his decision or his own assessment of the WP's performance at the next general election.
'Of course, we hope to have more elected MPs but we don't set targets,' he said.
He is at least certain that his life won't be like a blank examination paper, he said, when asked to rate his own political career so far.
'I don't judge my performance but I'm satisfied with my life... Whatever way people look at me, whether I'm stupid, it doesn't matter.
'But I know I've done what I need to do. I've responded to the call of my generation. Other than that, how people look at me, never mind lah.'
IN HIS OWN WORDS
'Of course, we hope to have more elected MPs, but we don't set specific targets. What Singaporeans should watch out for is the political system they want for the future: Whether we're going to turn up with a Parliament which will become a feedback unit with only Non-Constituency MPs without elected MPs, or do they really want a Parliament with some mechanism of checks and balances.'
'I've been challenging people: If you have evidence, you tell me. I'm prepared to go to Parliament and ask the minister. So I really don't understand. To me, fear sometimes is just an excuse.'
'I don't quite understand how a First World Parliament can be detrimental to Singapore. If you are arguing that perhaps a dominant one-party system is the most efficient system, that it's in the interest of Singapore, then perhaps we'd better install a dictatorship. Why do you need elections in the first place?'
'These questions are best left to political analysts or historians to go and take a look... For me, I'm a politician in practice, so I will practise politics.'
'Let the people decide and judge. I mean, look at the WP today. I'm the only really Chinese-educated there. Who else? No, there's no Chinese-educated from my generation.'
'But they (former opposition candidates) are not disappearing. They don't disappear. This is not murder, in other words, not (like) in other countries. So what is there to be so fearful about?'
'I told all my candidates that, look, we are competitors but we are not enemies. I mean, shake hands when we see each other, say 'hello'. I'm happy to see the shift and change from a very tense and confrontational kind of challenge to a more robust challenge, but yet, you know, a more relaxed and civilised environment as you go into political competition and campaign.'
Apr 17, 2011
Low the family man
For years, it was the humble fax machine that kept Mr Low Thia Khiang and his wife connected.
When he was first elected as MP for Hougang in 1991, work would detain him at his town council office late into the night.
By the time Mr Low returned home, his wife and their three young children would have gone to bed. And she would leave home early for work as a customer service executive.
It was the age before mobile phones and e-mail, so the couple resorted to faxing notes to each other.
'It went on for quite a while until I said, hey, a bit jialat like that,' he recalled, using the Hokkien slang for 'trouble'.
The high school sweethearts, who met as classmates in Chung Cheng High School and married nine years later in 1982, felt things had to change.
They were worried about the well-being and academic performance of their three children: two boys and a girl, all under the age of 10 then.
'Teacher called, said that their spelling got zero,' he chuckled.
In 1993, his wife, Madam Han Mui Keow, quit her job to become a housewife. Mr Low, 54, said that this was a tough decision to make.
He said that before he became an MP, his wife earned more than what he was making as a contractor.
His eyes reddened visibly when asked how he felt about her support.
'She's my pillar, okay? Pillar in the way that she understands me and she supported my political participation,' he said.
'Without her, I would probably not have been able to go along the path for such a long time, given the fact that sometimes it's really tough.'
Her sacrifice allowed him to focus on party work and gave him peace of mind, knowing that the children were being looked after, he added.
The proud father lets on details about his three children. The two sons, aged 27 and 26, are an architect and a researcher respectively, while his daughter, 22, is a law student at a local university.
Asked if they had faced any unfair treatment in school or at work due to his position as an opposition MP, Mr Low dismissed it.
'That's why when people talk about fear, my reaction is, 'Really or not?' Since the 1980s until now, I've been in business, my children go to school until they go to work, they don't face any problems,' he said.
He urged anyone in the opposition who complains of such unfair treatment to provide him with the evidence, saying he is 'prepared to go to Parliament and ask the minister'.
While his children are interested in discussing policies with him, he said they are not keen on politics and are not involved in party work, unlike his wife, who often attends Workers' Party walkabouts.
But it is not a deliberate decision to keep them out of politics, said Mr Low, quipping that he practises democracy at home too.
The children can decide for themselves if they want to join politics, he said, adding that he has not thought about how he would react if they were to join the ruling People's Action Party.
He said: 'I believe they are their own persons. They go into society and they will look at different things, and they are aware of what I'm doing.
'They have to decide what they want to do, whether they want to go into politics or they don't, or whatever it is.'
Kor Kian Beng
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