Sometimes I really hate politics. But even when that happens it may still be very entertaining. It seems that 377A has posed some serious challenges for the Workers Party and how they handled it backfired in the most hilarious way.
They appear to be trying to reconcile their earlier positions, their internal divisions and what they see as an opportunity to score points vs. PAP all at the same time - though the way it has turned out is quite a comical mess.
This is why I said I hate politics, though. I think politicians should just speak freely, honestly and directly.
The nature of true leadership is the ability to show the path forward and have people follow you, instead of trying to sidestep contentious issues, for the fear of alienating certain groups of voters. Instead, politicians often resort to a poorly scripted wayang in the hope of milking the situation for their benefit instead of pushing for meaningful change to policy.
Today we had an example of how that ends.
So, Pritam lifted the party whip on the 377A debate and vote. Did he do it out of the need of conscience or care for democracy? I don't think so - I think he just tends to do the opposite of what PAP does, that's all. It was an opportunity to present WP as a party of many voices, which cares about debate and whatnot.
And he may have even pulled that off if it wasn't for his clumsiness, which revealed the true motivation behind it.
Not only is he effectively reversing course on WP's earlier official stance - that it was against the repeal - but he has managed to throw LGBT folks under the bus at the same time (now they know how it feels to be Raeesah 😉 ).
He claimed that supporting the repeal earlier "would not have served the interests of the LGBTQ+ community" - basically repudiating years of Pink Dot events.
I think some people will need to take a few days off to process this betrayal 😉
At the same time, of course, by changing party's stance on the matter, he is also alienating the PAP-skeptical conservatives who believed WP was on their side.
So many years of opposition to the repeal and now, when push comes to shove, it turns out that WP is trying to play on both teams.
Is anybody going to believe another word now?
