Sobering Lessons for the Worker’s Party & Us from Recent Sagas

Whenever I watched video clips of Leon Perera or Nicole Seah over the years, I would think to myself: “The Worker’s Party is really climbing the ladder.” The WP’s candidates were becoming increasingly background-diverse, and credentialled.

Fast forward to 2023, and I’m feeling my heart sinking from the announcement of their resignations over revelations about their affair during 2020. It hit much harder than the announcement of resignations from the PAP’s Tan Chuan Jin and Cheng Li Hui (also over an affair).

In a fast-paced world, we're often jumping to the next saucy thing served up by the news cycle. This time, I would rather take a moment to reflect on the lessons to be learned from this episode.

Fuddy-Duddy, Old-Timey Wisdom Still Matters – On the Mentoring between Perera and Seah

“A man and a woman shouldn’t be in a one-to-one mentoring relationship. It could lead to trouble.”

Offer such an ancient opinion at an office lunch, and you’ll tickle your colleagues. “That’s just excuses!”, or “Ah yes, what the man says after things have gone wrong!”, they’d reply, laughing. Tell it to a feminist, and your logic will get questioned. Isn’t cheating about one’s character and not one’s gender? And what’s wrong with the old boy’s club finally opening up to empower women leaders, instead of excluding them? 

Traditional sentiments like this tend to get smothered by modern attitudes. But what if they shouldn’t be? News reports identified the fact that Leon Perera had been selected as Nicole’s mentor in the Worker’s Party. Hindsight is 20/20. Only now is it clearer that this arrangement came with risks.

When a man at the highest point in his career and reputation is mentoring an idealistic and bright-eyed female mentee (or vice versa, gender-wise), cracks in good judgment can start to form.

When that mentee is at her lowest point emotionally, after losing by a slim margin despite giving it her all in the 2020 election, a compassionate mentor would be deeply moved by her pain. You may want to console her, and not notice it as  cracks in your judgment become breaks and one thing leads to another… This last paragraph is hypothetical nonsense, only meant to illustrate that there are endless scenarios that could disable one’s unconscious mental safeguards against a serious mistake.

Traditional, and oftentimes religious, views would argue that it’s not about how moral you are – the wrong situations can entrap anyone and we should not create vulnerabilities for ourselves. In future mentoring arrangements for its precious few stars, the WP may have to heed traditional wisdoms more closely to avoid a repeat of this situation.

WP's Risk Management Needs to Improve

My sympathies lay with the WP during the AHTC saga, and with the Raeesah Khan saga. But I found it harder to muster the same sympathy this time round.

The Party has had past experience with this exact scenario during former member Yaw Shin Leong’s expulsion in 2012 after rumours of an extramarital affair emerged. With the ongoing high-risk issues it is currently managing (AHTC, RK), it really ought to have taken a more proactive approach to identifying and plugging risks, even it came in the form of uncorroborated allegations of an affair from a private driver. 

I don’t take for granted the efforts and sacrifices made by the WP, but I truly believe their leadership may need to spend a little less time going from house to house, and more time sorting out its crisis management approach.

A Lack of Two Types of Critical Talent

Joining an opposition political party can hardly be described as a stable or trouble-free pursuit. This presents a structural problem for the WP. It needs to attract more people with procurement or risk management expertise that could help it better deal with risk situations. But these are the last people who will be rushing forward to volunteer. The Party will need to fill this gap somehow, perhaps through external consultancy.

A Grotesque Reminder that the Two-Party System Matters

Whether it was Tan Chuan Jin, Cheng Li Hui, Nicole Seah, or Leon Perera, all these individuals hurt their families with their actions. The ensuing political spectacle, and the mysterious, clandestine release of a Seah-Perera video hours before the resignation announcement of TCJ and CLH, could only have multiplied this suffering.

If any good came out of these grim circumstances, it would only be a creepy reminder of the value of having competing political parties. The PAP and WP both clearly felt the pressure to hold their members accountable, manage public expectations, deal with real or potential information leaks, and take punitive measures where necessary.
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