During GE2015, Singapore Democratic Party's (SDP's) Chee Soon Juan made waves with the turnabout in his image which contributed greatly to the hype of SDP rallies.

This year, with Chee’s new image and the rest of the SDP members now more or less quite well-known, the rally was unsurprisingly tamer, perhaps even expected at times. We take you through 5 areas to compare how the first SDP rally of the by-election compared to the rallies of GE 2015.

Atmosphere

By about 7:30PM, a sizable crowd had amassed at the open field along Bukit Batok Industrial Park A. While the turnout certainly surpasses that of a typical PAP rally, it was somewhat ‘humble’ by SDP’s recent rally standards. We suspect that this was concomitant of the smaller constituency size of Bukit Batok SMC, as well as pervading sentiments that little (or lesser) was at stake. Or maybe many Singaporeans decided to go on holiday over this Labour Day long weekend. Perhaps more apparent, was the lower energy level of rally-goers.

Concisely, rally-goers were nowhere as spontaneous or responsive as the crowds at SDP’s GE2015 rallies had been. On many occasions, claims and hyperboles aimed at invigorating the crowd were met with lacklustre replies - the likes of which you may more readily associate with the GE2015 crowd.

Speech line-up

This year’s speech line-up did not see a build-up in momentum to Dr Chee. Rather, it felt more like a bad case of Sagging Middle Syndrome - starting well, ending well, but with a dreary middle.

The rally started out strong, with three noteworthy speakers, Dr Wong Souk Yee, Dr Paul Tambyah and Damanhuri Abas (one of the former candidates of SDP’s Marsiling-Yew Tee) managing to fire the crowd up occasionally. Dr Wong Souk Yee lambasted Chan Chun Sing and his role as party whip for “ensuring that the MPs vote according to party line”.

Later, Dr Paul Tambyah drew cheers with his reference to his patients complaining about how “it’s better to die than get sick in Singapore,” along with his jab that “we need hospitals, but we don’t necessarily need hospitals that look like country clubs.” Finally, Damanhuri Abas drew laughter with his lines, “What does an ex-military man know about train and engineering? When you appoint an ex-general as CEO of a train company, where is the meritocracy in that?”

Sagging Middle Syndrome then set in with the next few speakers going through the nitty-gritty of running the town council, the promise to implement PAP’s promised upgrading plans and re-treading the usual rhetoric of Chee Soon Juan, the beaten down guy standing tall once more. Y’know, stuff that we’ve heard before, since last year’s GE2015.

Maybe it was part of their plan to make the final speech from Dr Chee all the more dramatic.

Merchandise

Apart from an unexpected no-show from plush toys of their endearing mascot Danny the Democracy Bear, SDP kept to their nifty standards on the merchandising front, both in terms of quality and variety. Merchandise on sale include SDP logo-emblazoned jerseys, LED batons, as well as a range of publications authored by Dr Chee and ex-political detainees such as Dr Poh Soo Kai and Lim Chin Siong.

Business was brisk and it should come as no surprise that there was a snaking queue of supporters awaiting Chee’s autograph. Kudos to the man himself for honoring his promise to entertain all requests.

Amos Yee re-appears

Or maybe, he never really disappeared to begin with. Lo and behold:

Compared to GE2015, we guess his hair got longer.

Chee Soon Juan himself

The crowd finally stirred to life as Chee took the stage as the rally’s final speaker. Wasting no time in first displaying his multilingual skills, Chee began with a modest speech in Malay, followed by a short spiel in Tamil and then a long speech in Mandarin before finally switching to English.

Sticking by his stance from the GE2015 to not get into gutter politics, Chee stated that he refuses to harp on David Ong because “I’ll not kick a man when he’s down.” Chee also called for a restraint from making personal attacks on Murali.

He acknowledged however, that when he was first told that David Ong had resigned, his first reaction was “Who’s David Ong?” He also referenced how the Internet has had a field day with the unfortunate implications of his surname and the word “by-election”.

On PAP policies and management however, Chee pulled no punches. Taking issue once more with Murali’s “mandate” statement on the upgrading plans, Chee called it “appalling”. Chee also questioned Murali’s ability to commit fully to the job of Bukit Batok MP and stated, “There is absolutely no way you can be a part-time MP. If like that, everybody also know how to do.”

He then threw at Murali the challenge of working in the day at Bukit Batok and returning to Shenton Way in the evening. Finally, he criticised the outsourcing of estate management by PAP to profit companies which raised expenses unnecessarily and assured the crowd that if the SDP fails, they can throw them out at the next election.

Chee finally ended his speech on a somewhat apocalyptic note, warning that Singapore was in danger of ending up like Kodak and Nokia-obsolete-with the current direction of its economic policies and that there would be no economic growth “in the foreseeable future”. But Bukit Batok can be the starting point for a “long, difficult struggle” to change this direction.

Oh and just before Chee took the stage, the emcees addressed the question of “How is Dr Chee Soon Juan currently making a living?” The answer? The sales he makes from his books.

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