"Walkover terrain, 20 years and counting", "Opposition misses deadline"

MM Lee Kuan Yew has lead Singapore for umpteen years, and has literally "raised Singapore from the dead" after the separation with its hinterland Malaysia. Today, he gives the victory sign to supporters at the Singapore Chinese Girl's School after the opposition, Socialist Front narrowly missed the deadline for filing the nomination papers. This is the 20th year that there has been a walkover in Tanjong Pagar GRC. However although newspapers state that the walkover was caused solely by the Socialist Front submitting their nomination forms late, the truth may not be so simple.

Firstly, MM Lee, as stated in the previous paragraph, has led Singapore, such a tiny country with only people as its resources, and on bad relations with neighbouring countries, to such a successful nation today. How would anyone want to challenge such a great leader? The things that MM Lee has done for Singapore are not easily forgotten by the citizens. Any challenger just has to ask himself this question: Can you lead a nation with no resources, teeny land space and on bad relations with other countries into the fifth richest nation in the whole world? Then they will immediately back off and call of the challenge. There is almost no hope of winning. Why waste 16,000 dollars?

Secondly, the Socialist Front had signaled its intention to contest the GRC earlier, only to abort its plans on Monday, but nevertheless showed up at 11.30 at the nomination centre. This will show the residents that the Socialist Front is unreliable as it constantly changes its mind, particularly at the eleventh hour. How then can residents expect them to carry out promises if they are elected? A leader of the nation should stick doggedly to promises made, or he will appear as untrustworthy.

Thirdly, the Socialist Front withdrew so abruptly because they had insufficient funds. Let's think about the reasons why such a scenario could occur. Maybe poor financial management? Or lack of support? The Socialist Front only scraped together the money on Thursday. They appealed for help on Monday. They needed only 80,000 dollars. And it is impossible that they need all the 80,000 from supporters. Therefore they must have insufficient supporters or supporters who were unwilling to help. Who wants a government like that?