NSP wants to rejoin Opposition alliance?

Wednesday • July 30, 2008

Loh Chee Kong

cheekong@mediacorp.com.sg

EIGHTEEN months after it broke away from the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), the National Solidarity Party (NSP) has made overtures to rejoin the grouping.

According to sources, the NSP made the unofficial approach last month to SDA chairman and veteran Potong Pasir MP Chiam See Tong. Said an SDA source: “We don’t know what’s their intention, so we are quite wary.”

Mr Chiam declined comment when contacted on Friday, but NSP president Sebastian Teo conceded that his party has broached the idea for NSP and SDA to “come together as one”.

While details are still sketchy, Mr Teo insisted the latest move, if it materialises, would not be a U-turn.

Saying it was “the people’s wish” for Opposition parties to band together, Mr Teo said: “Pulling out is pulling out. What I’m thinking of is whether we can come under one party.”

Whether or not either party will subsume the other “has not come under discussion yet”, said Mr Teo, who reiterated that an alliance structure was less efficient and “makes it hard for the component parties to move together”.

Since it broke away from SDA, the NSP has been conducting activities in areas that include Kallang Bahru, Choa Chu Kang and Tampines.

Sources claim that NSP was finding it hard to cope on its own, not just in terms of logistics but also in its ability to recruit new members without Mr Chiam’s iconic appeal.

But Mr Teo dismissed such suggestions, adding that NSP has “increased in strength” although he did not reveal numbers. “We are working well but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for greater synergy.”

One familiar face seen at many NSP activities is former Non-Constituency MP Steve Chia, who reportedly stepped down from politics two years ago after his second failed attempt to win a seat in Choa Chu Kang in the 2006 General Election.

When contacted on Friday, Mr Chia said he was misquoted by reporters then and had no intention to throw in the towel. But he was tight-lipped on whether he intends to run for the next elections, due by 2011. “We’ll wait and see”, he said.