By Ravi Philemon –
"Avenues of dissent are being blocked in Singapore as a new generation of hand-picked leaders, one of them Mr. Lee's son, Brig. Gen. Lee Hsien Loong, move into place. With general elections expected to be called within a year, the Prime Minister is known to fear a swing at the polls away from his People's Action Party, which suffered a decline in its percentage of the vote in the last general election, in 1984.The governing party lost only two seats in Parliament, but one of the opposition members, J. B. Jeyaretnam of the small Workers Party, has since resigned after a series of court challenges that Singaporeans describe as legalized harassment that drove him out of both his office and, ultimately, his profession. He was later disbarred."
What has the alleged Marxist Conspiracy got to do with the by-election in Hougang?
At the Singapore People's Party's (SPP) event on 20 May 2012, 'That we may dream again: Chiam's finest hour', Ms Teo Soh Lung, one of the former detainees of Operation Spectrum launched by the Internal Security Department in 1987, said that she and several others who were detained with her , openly supported the Workers' Party.
The Workers' Party under Mr J B Jeyaretnam won the Anson by-election in 1981. He successfully retained his seat as a Member of Parliament in that ward in the General Election that followed, in 1984.
"In a two-part television documentary titled Tracing The Conspiracy, the detainees spoke of the roles they played in an intricate network…Tan (Wah Piow) also insisted that they infiltrate the Workers' Party and on his insistence the group helped to print and distribute Workers' Party pamphlets during the 1984 General Elections. After the elections, (Kenneth) Tsang and Tan Tee Seng slowly moved into positions of influence within the party. They later took control of the party's publication, The Hammer, which they used as a channel to propagate anti-government sentiments and influence public opinion against the government."
This article is published by The Online Citizen, 20 Maxwell Road, #09-17 Maxwell House, Singapore 069113.