For the social media pundits and political watchers, the Singapore Democratic Party (SD)’s loss yesterday (Sep 11) may have been a surprise. Even party chief Chee Soon Juan had admitted that the party had "felt good at certain stage" of the SDP campaign.

“We hit all our marks but unfortunately we just didn't get where we want to with voters,” Chee told reporters at a press conference after the results were announced.

Surprises abounded in the SDP’s campaign in GE2015 - there was SDP chief Chee Soon Juan’s meteoric rise in his first campaign for office in over 15 years; crowds abounded in their rallies; and the wait to get an autograph for Chee’s book Democratically Speaking - the book that helped propel him out of bankruptcy and into GE2015 - stretched into midnight.

The party barely managed the one-third mark:

Yuhua SMC (Jaslyn Go): 26.46%

Bukit Batok SMC (Sadasivam Veriyah): 26.40%

Bukit Panjang SMC (Khung Wai Yeen): 31.63%

Holland-Bukit Timah GRC (Chee Soon Juan, Paul Tambyah, Sidek Mallek, Chong Wai Fung): 33.38%

Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC (John Tan, Bryan Lim, Damanhuri bin Abas, Wong Souk Yee): 31.27%

Why is this so? We give three plausible reasons below:

1. A lack of time for the SDP to do proper grassroots and local ground work

The SDP has always been a very tech-savvy party - it has consistently pushed out its social media and online platforms, especially the party’s website, which it has emphasised on its election posters.

The party has also been very dependent on the alternative media for a voice - when asked by The Online Citizen about the effects of alternative media on their campaign, Chee spoke about how they had not been able to reach out to voters who were not very tech savvy.

This meant that the elderly - traditionally a strong voter base for the incumbent PAP - would have generally missed out on much of the online videos and broadcasts of their political messages, along with other things such as the documentary on Chee’s life - which propelled Chee’s campaign into the national spotlight.

It was likely that the SDP had very little time to start on their groundwork despite starting their campaign way earlier than the rest.

Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, a new constituency created in this General Election, was stitched together from Choa Chu Kang GRC and Sembawang GRC, previously contested by the National Solidarity Party and the SDP in GE2011; the slate of candidates in SDP’s Holland-Bukit Timah team was largely untested and consisted of new faces, with the exception of Chee and Tambyah. The same went with SDP’s slate of candidates in Bukit Panjang, Bukit Batok and Yuhua.

All of these essentially translated into SDP having a lower presence on the ground and thus a greater degree of unfamiliarity with the residents relative to PAP. Apart from Chee and Tambyah, residents were more unsure of the other candidates and what to make of them.

2. The proposal to cut the defence budget

The SDP’s bold proposal to cut the defence budget by 40% basically dominated the conversation during the General Election, with incumbent (and now MP-elect) Vivian Balakrishnan quipping in response: I get… uptight [and] aggressive when someone comes along, talks very well, but sells ‘koyok’ and puts our country in danger. I fight back.”

And fight back his party did - the PAP rolled out its argument on how vulnerable Singapore was - Liang Eng Hwa insisted in a Sep 7 rally speech that Singapore as a small country will always be vulnerable and has to “constantly worry about who will bully us”

Even PM Lee himself turned Chee’s own words against him during his lunchtime rally on Sep 8. “I was very, very surprised yesterday [to hear] that here, on this spot yesterday, Dr Chee Soon Juan (said), ‘Reputation is temporary, but character is permanent.’,” Lee said. “I agree. I think Dr Chee has every reason to know that character is permanent. It doesn’t change.”

Sim Ann joined in on the offense, asserting that Chee was just “chut pattern” only and lambasted him in Mandarin for scolding himself, then attributing those comments to others.

3. The proposal on taxes

Almost as controversial was the SDP’s proposal to raise personal income tax to 28% and raising $1 billion through corporate taxation in order to fund their plan of universal healthcare. Sim Ann pointed out how this would be extremely harmful to SMEs and send the larger companies relocating--a definite hit to Singapore’s reputation for being the most business-friendly country in the world. Sim Ann added that this was “nonsensical” in Mandarin during the PAP Holland-Bukit Timah rally on 7 September.

Compounding this policy was the call for minimum wage which would, according to Liang Eng Hwa, have “employers...just (paying) the minimum wage and they will not be prepared to raise the income of their workers. Minimum wage becomes maximum wage.”

It may be likely that voters might not have endorsed SDP’s alternatives - though that remains to be seen. In Paul Tambyah’s words - all the opposition parties have suffered - and thus the SDP does not consider their loss as a rejection. The party - according to Marsiling-Yew Tee candidate John Tan - ‘fought a good fight’.

“If given the choice to work harder, we might, we would… We will work harder to find out what else is missing, what else the people think is missing,” John Tan said in the SDP post-election press conference. “We want people to come and tell us what is it we can do.”

It may be an uphill task to get voters to accept the party’s idealism. But the SDP is slated to continue its idealistic path, if Chee’s words yesterday are any indication:

"I do worry. I do worry if we do continue on in this fashion, the future of Singapore is not going to be where we want to see it go… There is something better. We must try to reach for it. The only thing we can do is continue to look forward.”

All photos by Ng Yi Shu.