I attended the Reform Party’s rally at Clementi Stadium for West Coast GRC earlier.
It had not dawned on me that this was the party’s first ever election rally. The party was founded in 2008, after the last General Election in 2006.
I’ll just give some brief personal impressions. I’m assuming the mainstream and social will take care of reporting the content.
- The Quiet Rally
I was quite underwhelmed. At most rallies, there is a dedicated core of party supporters in front of the stage making a huge racket. None here. Initially, there were just a few people at the front. I suspect some were members of the press. It didn’t help that this rally was held at a stadium. The stage was on the field, then a huge gap to the stands, where the early birds were seated. It was only when latecomers came in, after the stands were full, that a crowd started forming in directly in front of the speaker. The RP’s lack of manpower meant there wasn’t a group of people to get the crowd going. There was polite applause and the occasional shout of support, but most of the noise came from the speakers and the very boisterous emcee. - Mr Speaker, Sir
Kenneth Jeyaretnam needs to speak more like a Singaporean. It needn’t be broken English or Singlish. His British accent is a bit too atas. I heard murmurs of “he’s like B B See” (if you don’t know who I’m talking about, please start watching The Noose), and I heard some people saying that they couldn’t understand him. As for the others, most of them were too monotonous or spoke with too much fire and brimstone. For me, the best speaker was Osman Bin Sulaiman, who is an RP candidate at… Ang Mo Kio GRC. He spoke clearly, with good variation in tone and pace. He made a few good points and didn’t get carried away when he did hammer a point home. (Apologies for the Workers’ Party reference.) - Similarity of ideas
Just like Singapore Democratic Party, RP also wants to cut NS to one year. Just like many Opposition parties, they want to introduce minimum wage. Similarly, they want to cut GST and remove it for essential goods. Sometimes, you have to wonder why the Opposition parties won’t just join each other.
