There is an important election this Sunday, April 8, 2018. And you most likely haven't had it marked down on your calendar.

WP electing new leadership

The Workers' Party (WP) will elect a new leadership team to take them into the next General Election (GE) happening in about two years' time.

And the leadership change starts from the top, as April 8 this year will be Low Thia Khiang's last day as the chief of our nation's main opposition party.

14 leaders

WP will select 14 leaders at the biennial Central Executive Committee (CEC) election, including its Secretary-General and Chairman.

The last CEC was pretty exciting, with a challenge for the Sec-Gen post too.

Why is an opposition party's internal election so significant?

1. The choice of Sec-Gen will reveal whether extensive party experience and the young leaders' support mean something.

The two likely contenders for the Secretary-General position are Pritam Singh and Chen Show Mao.

Both became WP candidates in 2011 and are fellow Aljunied GRC MPs.

Both have also spotted new looks.

Pritam now wears a clean-shaven look, while Chen has lost his "lion-maned" hair-style.

Both are also popular within the party. Pritam and Chen came in first and second respectively in the CEC contests two years ago.

Chen, who was Mr Popular in the 2012 and 2014 CEC contests, floated a trial balloon to the WP cadres on his leadership support.

And the response was decent -- a close 45-61 loss to Low.

But this is where the similarities end.

Chen's role in the party has gradually diminished, especially in the past two years. Chen stepped down as the treasurer in 2016, a role that he was appointed in 2014. It was also his only significant party role.

In contrast, Pritam's star in WP continued to rise. In 2014, he was named as the new organising secretary.

In 2015, the WP MP-elects appointed Pritam as the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) chairman.

In 2016, he was named assistant secretary-general, a post vacant since 2006.

More importantly, there is a clear difference between Pritam and Chen's support base.

The core of WP next generation leadership -- Non-Constituency MPs Daniel Goh, Leon Perera and Dennis Tan, as well as ex-NCMP Gerald Giam -- have already publicly endorsed Pritam.

In contrast, a Straits Times report noted that many of Chen's supporters are "mainly veterans who joined when the late J.B. Jeyaretnam helmed the party from 1971 to 2001".

Compare the age of the two leading contenders.

Pritam, 41, is more than 15 years younger than the 57-year-old Chen.

In other words, Pritam is younger than the two younger Prime Minister contenders (Ministers Chan Chun Sing and Ong Ye Kung, both 48), while Chen is as old as the oldest PM contender (Minister Heng Swee Keat, who turns 57 this April).

The latest word on the street is that Chen will not be making a bid for the Sec-Gen role, as reported by ST on Saturday, a day before WP's internal election.

2. The election of the 14 members of WP's top decision making body will determine whether WP is looking forward or going backwards

Enough about who the new WP Sec-Gen would be.

The CEC election will also determine and affirm who the next generation of WP leaders would be.

As Low said in Walking with Singapore, the WP 60th Anniversary book published last year:

"I believe that strong personality is always helpful in politics. But if a party is driven only by strong personality, then the party is very shallow. It is high risk because personalities will come and go. It needs to be an organisation that will carry on. You need to build a team and an organisation".

In other words, Low is sounding very much like Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who prefers not to focus on who the next leader is, but how the fourth generation (4G) team is shaping up.

As PM Lee told the media in another 4G leader speculation on Jan. 26:

"Singaporeans become... maybe it’s the way the media and public politics is displayed in many countries nowadays, it’s personalised as one person. The face becomes familiar and you think everything is done by that person. Actually it’s not. Actually there’s a team, the team works together, and they have one, as Mr Lee Kuan Yew said, striker, now you have to strike from time to time, but you are really sometimes spokesman on behalf of the team, bringing together a collective wisdom and giving voice to that."

In other words, the CEC election is about selecting a dynamic and diverse team that would do the work of building up WP after Low.

The difficult first step was already carried out in the last CEC election two years ago.

With 28 new cadres included in the 2016 CEC election, there was already a consensus among WP cadres on its next generation leadership.

With the majority of the ousted CEC members being above the age of 50 in 2016, the average age of the CEC members has fallen slightly, from 47 to 45.

With only five members above the age of 50, there shouldn't be an influx of too many new and young CEC members.

WP also has to maintain the progress it has made as national and multi-racial party with many working professionals at the helm.

In other words, cadres should embrace stability rather than change in this election, especially since the WP leadership team of 2018 must surely include a leadership core of a majority of its nine parliamentarians.

Hopefully, the party will make inroads in female representation though, since only two women -- Sylvia Lim and Lee Li Lian -- were part of the CEC in the past four years.

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3. The election will determine whether Low's legacy will continue.

For a millennial in Singapore, Low is Mr Workers' Party.

With 17 years under his belt, Low is not the longest-serving WP chief though. JBJ has that distinction.

But Low has made WP a viable opposition party with a constant parliamentary presence.

This is something that many new WP CEC members may have taken for granted.

Except Lim.

It was Lim who stood side by side with Low as his chairman between 2006 to 2011, as WP provided two specks of blue in parliament.

Important for Lim, she has improved her standing among her WP colleagues following the 2018 Budget debates, when she led WP in opposing the Budget and crossed swords with Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat and Leader of the House Grace Fu.

Goh posted a group photo of WP parliamentarians (minus Chen Show Mao), and praised Lim, saying that her parliamentary colleagues were "mere men in awe of her".

This is likely to strengthen Lim's hand in the upcoming election.

Lim told ST previously that she was not interested in the position, and intended to run for her current role as WP chairman.

Unlike other WP NCMPs, Lim has not endorsed Pritam or Chen as the next Sec-Gen. This means that her vote and "soft power" will make a big difference.

In his foreword for the book as the Chairman of WP60, Pritam said:

"Since the publication of the Workers' Party's 50th anniversary commemorative book in 2007, no one could have predicted that 10 years later, the Party would have six MPs and three NCMPs in Parliament, from one MP and one NCMP ten years ago...

The last ten years of the Workers' Party have also seen more members, particularly younger ones, joining its ranks, thereby strengthening the team and infusing a dynamism and vigour critical to the Party's continued growth and success."

It was Low’s political savviness and sheer grit that made WP the dominant opposition party today, a party that believes, in Pritam’s words “that rational, respectable and responsible opposition politics defines a loyal opposition”.

In their aim to continue the good work laid by Low and grow its parliamentary presence, WP cadre members will do well to remember the mistakes made by the largest opposition party in 1991.

Top photo by Edwin Koo.

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