Chapter 15 Chapter 15 Establishment of the People's Action Party

One day in the second half of 1954, I told the Chinese school students that I hoped to get in touch with the Chinese trade unions and asked them to introduce me to some leaders of the Chinese trade unions.Two weeks later, on a Sunday morning, two young men came to Oxley Road...their names were Lim Ching Siong and Fang Shui Shuang.I got connected with Chinese-educated working-class activists... After numerous meetings in the dining room of my house on Oxley Road, by mid-1954 we decided to form a political party by the end of the year.In order to be an active force in the Legislative Assembly in the next phase of political reform, we need to give ourselves enough time to gain visibility, organize, and have a chance of winning enough seats in the upcoming elections.Up to this point, we have had enough support in the trade unions, guild halls and trade associations, but we have not yet been able to get in touch with the Chinese-speaking or dialect-speaking masses of workers.

One day in the second half of 1954, I told the Chinese school students that I hoped to get in touch with the Chinese trade unions and asked them to introduce me to some leaders of the Chinese trade unions.One Sunday morning two weeks later, two young men came to Oxley Road.Chi was in the hallway with her two-year-old son, Long.I went to meet them in the reception room, and they claimed to be from the Singapore Bus Workers' Union.They spoke in low voices and knew a little English. Their names were Lim Ching Siong and Fang Shui Shuang.I got connected with Chinese-educated working-class activists, and I was excited because I had the opportunity to try to find people among them to join us in building a democratic, non-communist, socialist Malaya. cause.

Lim Ching Siong and Fang Shui Shuang seem to be the right candidates: they are polite, earnest and sincere, and their clothes are frugal—Fang Shui Shuang's clothes are even a bit ragged.Their faces and demeanor speak volumes for their enthusiasm and dedication.I explained to them that I intend to form a political party to represent the workers and the disenfranchised, especially the Chinese-educated, not just to win future elections, but to win enough seats to expose the entire system And the existing political parties, recharge their batteries for the next round of elections.They were noncommittal about the plan.I'm not surprised because I've worked with Chinese school students and I know that before any major decision is made, they have to go back and give their opinion, and then their superiors will have a serious discussion, and finally put the party's route communicated to them.About two weeks later, they planned to form a political party with me, not for the purpose of seizing power, but for exposing the corruption of the colonial regime, exposing the flaws of the Linde constitution that was to be implemented, and crushing the political party that came to power.

We were going to start the People's Action Party at a public meeting on November 31, 1954, and I wanted them to be the founders.The two discussed in private for a while, and then said they wanted to discuss it first.The next time they came back, they said that Fang Shuishuang, who was the paid secretary of the Singapore Bus Workers Federation, would be the convener of the meeting, and Lim Ching Siong would not attend for the time being. I am already content.I think that if Fang Shuishuang joins, the new party will have a relatively broad base of the working class.We already had English educated people and Malay blue and white collar workers, and now we have Chinese associations, trade unions and blue collar workers.

In October, we announced the formation of the People's Action Party. lIn January we vowed to strive for "a multilingual legislature with simultaneous interpretation facilities, because it is not sound".Other political parties have had to do the same. Difference between Tunku and Chen Zhenlu In order to balance the obvious radical policies and the left-wing background of some promoters, I persuaded Tunku Rahman, the then leader of Umno and member of the Executive Council of Malaya, and Sir Chen Zhenlu, the president of the MCA, to speak at the inaugural meeting. speech.I met Chen Zhenlu at various dinners and Tong Tunku when he wanted to sue a Singaporean newspaper for defamation.The Tunku came to meet me at the office, after which I invited him and the Umno leaders of Singapore to my home for dinner.So these two very respected leaders spoke at the inaugural meeting of the PAP out of my personal relationship.They probably also think that I will be a useful ally to them in the future.The Tunku did not want me to participate in federal political activities, but Chen Zhenlu hoped that the fundamental differences between the two reflected their fundamental contradictions in electoral interests.The Tunku hoped that the Chinese would not be united and scattered in small areas, preferably in a state of disunity, so that the Malays could easily cope.Chen Zhenlu hopes that young people can unite the Chinese community.

We had an inaugural meeting at Victoria Memorial Hall on Sunday, November 21st at 10:00 am, and we had to stop until 1:00 pm because someone had booked a recital there that afternoon.It was a hot and humid morning, and the venue was full, but not full.Everyone sat on rattan wooden chairs. The Singapore Standard reported 1,500 people, while The Straits Times said 800.There was no enthusiasm in the venue, nor was it tense.Supporters from unions took up about two-thirds of the seats, with the rest being observers from other parties and interested outsiders.We read out the speeches, there was no long speech.We wore open-collared shirts, Tan Cheng Lok in casual suits, and Tunku in Malay dress—a button-up silk jacket, baggy trousers, and a decorative sarong at the hip.

The meeting was good, but not inspiring.We officially established the People's Action Party, and the media reports were kind to us.We promote ourselves without rhetoric, balloons or pigeons.When the authorities announced February 28, 1955, as election nomination day and April 2 as polling day, we were ready.After a heated discussion, we selected five candidates: besides me, Lim Chin Siong for Bukit Timah, Devan Na for Farrer Park, Goh Choo Chuan for Punggol (he is a friend of Bain, 60 Aged, a contractor by profession, lived in the Punggol area and known to the locals).Fang Shuishuang was born in Johor and cannot be a candidate.We have also sent Ahmad Ibrahim to run as an independent candidate in Sembawang District, where the votes of the military port workers will be decisive.

At that time the PAP was organizationally weak, almost disorganized: no salaried personnel, no branches, no grassroots leaders. Nominated on February 28, 1955, two opponents in the Tanjong Pagar Constituency (one educated in Chinese and one educated in English) opposed my nomination on the grounds that I did not have the qualifications.According to the Privy Order issued by the Queen's Privy Council in London to hold elections under Linde's new constitution, candidates must have lived in Singapore for seven of the past 10 years.But it appears that the provision itself may be faulty, as Singapore was a separate colony for only 8 years and 11 months, and it was part of the Straits Settlements until April 1946.The electoral officer accepted my nomination, advising the two opponents that the reason for objecting to insufficient residency could only be done by submitting an election petition after I was elected.

I informed Qingrui, who was in London at the time, of this news, and he passed it on to Labor MP Aubrey.Oberley questioned in the House of Commons. In March, Colonial Under-Secretary Henry Hopkinson replied: "Malayan students in Great Britain during the relevant period before the forthcoming federal election, if for no other reason, are disqualified from standing Continuing to call the Commonwealth their home, they are all registered as eligible voters. They will undoubtedly be deemed eligible to stand as candidates." Although he was referring to Malayan students, my opponents decided not to raise the issue.They know that London will backdate the rule if necessary to rectify the situation so that the absurd rule does not lead to unpleasant political squabbles.As I pointed out at the time, John Eade was born and raised in England and lived in Singapore for seven years before he was eligible to be a member of the Legislative Council. qualification, the earth must be square, not round.

This is just the first hurdle I've encountered.According to newspaper reports, Democratic Party opponent Lan Tian, ​​who was born in a Chinese school, said that I can't read or write the Chinese language, and I can't represent the Chinese voters.This embarrassed me publicly.I bravely retorted: "So, since Tamil and Malay Blue Sky cannot be read or written, logically this means that he does not intend to represent the Malay and Indian residents of Tanjong Pagar ’” I casually claimed that I could read, write, and speak Mandarin, Hakka, and Hokkien, as well as Malay.It was a bluff during the election, and some Chinese newspaper reporters advised me not to admit that I don't know my mother tongue.At that time, I remembered that my grandmother had hoped that I would study Chinese at Chun Yuen School. I didn't listen to her, and I was very regretful.Today one has to exaggerate one's linguistic abilities.I can write some Chinese characters, but I have forgotten most of them because I haven't used them since I quit my job at Shimoda in 1943.My Hakka and Hokkien dialect are poor, and I can only speak a few sentences.I vow to make up for past neglect.

blue sky challenge Lan Tian then challenged me to go to a street meeting in Chinatown, which speaks Cantonese in the Tanjong Pagar district, for a debate.I avoided it, retorting that in order to do things in the Legislative Assembly and the government, candidates must speak good English, so I would be more efficient than him as a deputy.However, when I went to the most well-attended mass meeting in Wanda Street, another Cantonese district, I did my best and spoke a few words in Mandarin.Yi Runtang, a friendly reporter from Xinbao, wrote two paragraphs for me. He could finish the speech in three minutes, but he spent several hours teaching me how to read it.The crowd supported me and applauded my efforts. But the problem is not over yet.I learned an important lesson from the total disapproval of my pro-Communist elements and my lack of concern for my election fate.The Chinese-speaking and dialect-speaking left-wing trade unions and middle school students from Chinese schools gathered all their strength to go to Bukit Timah and Farrer Park to assist Lim Ching Siong and Devan Nair, and did not help me and other candidates at all.With this experience, if I had any doubts about whom they listened to in the past, I now have no doubts.We formed a united front only for the convenience of both parties.They wanted two of theirs elected and I was only useful to them because I covered them.I will never forget this incident. This election campaign is completely different from the situation in 1951 when I was Le Kyaw’s election agent in Katong.It was an upper-class event, with tea parties and dinners for 48,000 registered voters in a population of 1.8 million.After those born in Singapore were automatically registered as voters, there were 300,000 voters in 1955, and 60% spoke Chinese and Chinese dialects.The language used by voters is Pasar Malay next and English last.Among the people of mixed ethnicities, those who can understand Malay in Pasar are the most, and those who can understand English are the least.English speakers are the upper class of Singaporean society, close to the center of power, but with limited votes.Mass meetings in streets and open spaces, with speakers standing in lorry or minivans, speaking through loudspeakers and improvised horns, and illuminated by electric lights, attracting large crowds in areas with majority Chinese and Malay-speaking voters . Gone is the political game of the 1951 election, which was full of rhetoric but no action. One of the valuable experiences I got was campaigning in the oldest district of Tanjong Pagar.Tanjong Pagar is a residential area on the docks of Singapore, where dock workers, tricycle drivers, and shopkeepers who do their business gather; opium dens are also concentrated here.I visited places like the Dormitory for Malay Daily Wage Workers of the Singapore Harbor Authority on Reclamation Road.Wooden huts everywhere, no sewerage, no drainage, and the stench is so unbearable that I want to vomit as soon as I get to the area.But within these families, the Malay leaders had a network of contacts that made the Malays a close-knit community.I was introduced to the local Umno leader, who quickly had me meet key members of the hundreds of families who lived there.They promised to vote for me. On Naxis Street and the roads leading to Naxis Street where Tanjong Pagar Square is now located, are rows of dilapidated and shabby shophouses.It is also a scene of filth and decay.Every time I come here, I also feel nauseous. When I get home, I can only wash my hands. I have to take a shower and change all my clothes before I can sit down to eat. The topics that most excite people who speak Chinese or dialects are Chinese culture and the need to preserve Chinese traditions through Chinese schools.This is not a proletarian question, it is pure and simple chauvinism.But Communists know that these issues can touch the heartstrings of the Chinese and win the masses over.They worked hard on it.In past elections to the Legislative Assembly, the speakers were limp, stagnant, dry, and neither emotional nor persuasive.They usually speak English, otherwise Malay, with occasional translations into different Chinese dialects.This time the Chinese speakers used their own dialects - Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew - and had no trouble eliciting enthusiastic responses from the audience.They are eloquent, borrowing idioms, metaphors and legends to describe the past and the present.With enthusiasm, they preached the great prospect of China to the audience, which moved the audience and inspired them.For Singaporean Chinese, the situation has completely changed. powerful person In this election, Lim Chin Siong has emerged as a persuasive speaker.He is young, thin, not tall, with a baby face, and he speaks his hometown dialect in Fujian charmingly.The girls adored him, especially the union ones.Apart from Chinese culture, he talked about the downtrodden workers, the insidiousness of the imperialists, and the emergency decree restricting the rights of the masses, freedom of speech and association.His response to the speeches at the first two conferences was silence, but everything went smoothly afterwards, and his speeches always aroused enthusiastic applause.By the end of the campaign, he was seen as a powerful figure, a figure to be reckoned with in Singaporean politics, and even more so within the PAP. Fang Shuishuang also gave speeches at mass meetings, but he was not as captivating as Lin Qingyang, nor was he as charismatic as Lin Qingyang.His condition is relatively poor.In order to make people understand him as much as possible, he must speak Hokkien, because the Hokkien community is the largest Chinese community in Singapore, so people who speak other dialects can also understand Hokkien; but like me, he is also a Hakka .Speakers in Chinese can only target audiences under the age of 35 who have attended Chinese schools.I was trying my best to learn Chinese at the time, but I realized after the election meeting that even if I could speak it, I couldn’t do it.I am a little hesitant about learning Hokkien.Another language that many listeners understand is Pasar Malay. "Pasar Malay" is a mixed language, but it can be understood by all ethnic groups. It is also the only language for doing business with Malays and Indians, but its expressive ability is limited, it is difficult to impress the audience, and its appeal is not strong. . During this campaign, people came to help me because they were impressed with me and wanted me to win.About 20 postal clerks, led by union leaders, sat on the porch in front of my house on Oxley Road (the campaign headquarters of the four PAP candidates) for days on end, addressing my manifesto for distribution to voter.In the Tanjong Pagar district, the postman carried out canvassing activities for me, distributing leaflets from house to house.Some groups, such as the Traders Guild, also assist us.Some members of the chicken and duck traders association who sell chicken and duck in the market were once charged by the police in court for stuffing too many chicken and duck into baskets tied to bicycles during the Chinese New Year.I begged the magistrate to spare them, because this is the most important festival in the lunar calendar.As a result, they were all fined lightly. But the ones who support me the most are the Hakka Association and its affiliated groups, such as the Cha Yang Hui Kuan, which is a Hakka fellow from Dapu, Guangdong.I remember some total strangers coming to Oxley Road to offer to help, they were big bums (one was older than me and called me "uncle").It seemed to me that they expected nothing in return but a share in my glory.Zhang Mengsheng, chairman of the Singapore Nanyang Hakka Association, mobilized the resources of the association and lent me his car.He has a series of pawnshops (many of which are run by Hakka people) in both Malaya and Singapore. He has a successful business and is my neighbor on Oxley Road.I am the Honorary Legal Counsel of the General Assembly.The Hakka people are a small, close-knit community, so they strongly supported me.The Retail Wine Merchants Association of Singapore even allowed me to use the clubhouse on Paknam Street as my campaign headquarters.Many people came to donate money, and some sent bundles of white cloth to be used as campaign banners.They ask no favor or reward, and I have nothing to give them. One of the big logistical problems we had was finding cars to take voters to the polls.Voters would be embarrassed if they went to the polling station in our cars and had to vote for our candidates.The practice was introduced by the British and favored wealthy parties because their supporters had cars.I only rely on various personal relationships - siblings, aunts, Hakka neighbors and friends such as Han Ruisheng and his brother.On polling day, I asked Jin Yao to take care of the traffic arrangements.It was a daunting task: many cars from all over Singapore gathered at Oxley Road in a mess, then went to the headquarters on Pernam Street, and then went around Tanjong Pagar to pick up voters as requested by the canvassers.He had to try to maintain order and institute a system.He also persuaded some gas stations to accept his and my secretary at Li Jue and Lawyer Wang's office to sign and pay the bill, because my friends lent me the car with full gas, and we had to fill up the gas before returning the car to them.Gas money is paid from election funds. All this is not only for myself, the election agents of Lim Chin Siong and Devan Nair also asked me to allocate a car for them.Gan Shaoyi from the Teachers Association insisted that I allocate 30 cars to Devanna.Gan Shaoyi is a very unpleasant person. On April 21, three weeks after the election, Zhi wrote a letter to Qingrui in the UK, which was intercepted by the Political Department and kept in the file.The content of the letter vividly illustrates who they are actually campaigning for by describing the favoritism of unions and Chinese school students in canvassing and vehicle allocation: "Harry's helpers, canvassers, and speakers were honest workers -- postmen, clerks, clerks, a food vendor in Chinatown, the president of the Printing Workers' Union, etc. "... On polling day morning, Devanna made a mistake. He sent Kam to 38 Owenley Road to pick up the car that was given to Farrer Park. Our transportation committee took a lot of effort, (from the 100 that was loaned to Harry. Many cars) Find out the cars that can be sent to Bukit Timah and Farrer Park, because most people (like the Hakka neighbors opposite us) lend their cars to Lee Kuan Yew himself, not to the Action Party, so they are firmly opposed to letting The cars were driven to constituencies other than Tanjong Pagar. Therefore, the cars had to be carefully allocated, and the cars whose owners had no objections were sent to other areas. When the cars allocated to Farrer Park arrived late, the rude Kam Shaoyi brazenly made a scene, Must have a car. Who does he think he is?" Elected with the highest number of votes In the poll on April 2, I got 6029 votes, and my two opponents got 908 votes and 780 votes respectively.Lim Chin Siong, Ahmad Ibrahim and Goh Qiu Quan were also elected.Devanna lost, and a big stone was lifted from my heart because without Devana, Lim Ching Siong would not have been able to function effectively in the purely English-speaking Legislative Assembly.Lim Ching Siong does not speak English fluently, so he could rely on Devanna to help him, but now he has to rely on me. The biggest shock of this election was the crushing defeat of the Progressive Party, which was expected to win the most seats.The Labor Front contested 17 seats and won 10. Marshall was surprised even by himself as Chief Minister.The DAP contested for four seats and won three, with the remaining eight going to minor parties and independents.The Progressive Party won only four of the 22 seats in the race, and the Democrats won three of the 20 seats, but both parties had the most money and the most electoral workers.What the hell happened? The Progressive Party was established as early as 1947, and its members were limited to a small number of English-educated professionals and some British people who settled down in the local area, such as Lai Kyaw.Lai Kyaw, like many others, lost out because they are now much smaller than "Chinese speaking or dialect Chinese".The Democratic Party was established in March 1955.At that time, the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce found that under the automatic registration under the Linde Constitution, many Chinese-speaking and Chinese-speaking dialect voters would be included in the electoral roll.Roughly speaking, both parties represented the middle and upper middle classes, but one belonged to the British colonial establishment and the other was outside that circle.The members of the Democratic Party were Chinese importers and exporters, retailers, shopkeepers, bankers, gum and tin magnates, and lived well.They were leaders of traditional guilds who spoke Mandarin or dialects at the time, and they managed and served on the board of directors of the Chinese schools they had funded and opened.Charity hospitals and other welfare organizations set up by the Chinese Association are also funded and managed by them.They thought the election was their chance to rise to a position of power that would make them do better business.They also believe that they can use the power of Chinese school students to support the Democratic Party, because Chinese school students are their children, and they have always sympathized with the cause of Chinese school students defending Chinese education. Therefore, the cultural gap between the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party is very large and cannot be reconciled.So in many constituencies, they spread votes from the right.English and Malay-speaking voters voted for the Progressive Party; Chinese-speaking or dialect-speaking voters voted for the Democratic Party.If they had cooperated, they could have obtained half of the 160,000 votes actually cast (equal to 7 times the actual number of votes cast in the 1951 election). As soon as operatives from both parties realized they were losing, they sneaked out of the counting center at the Victoria Memorial and disappeared into the night.They don't understand that if they lose, they have to show a posture of not bowing to failure, and vow to fight again in the future, so that the supporters will not be downcast.Communists know this.The non-communist wing of our PAP learned quickly from them.Our entire campaign was aggressive.We've taken an effective, progressive stance that has demoralized both the progressive and democratic parties.We criticize the Progressive Party as lackeys of the colonial powers, and the Democratic Party as the capitalists and the exploiters of the people, but the main target is white masters.In my election manifesto I wrote: "British colonial rule in Malaya was at the root of many of the social and economic ills of the place." Marshall was new to politics.He criticized the DAP's demand for immediate self-government as going too far. "It seems that they are concentrating on confronting and criticizing Britain, and their speech seems unnecessarily anti-British." This may be the feeling of the English-educated middle class, which is quite different from the feeling of the Chinese-educated masses. The British High Commission in Phoenix Park has its own intelligence analysis of the election.They quoted me at a mass meeting: "In my opinion, except for those over 40 years old, all Chinese are very proud of the achievements of Mao Zedong's government. A government that can eradicate corruption in five years makes it the top A government that can hold back the American armed forces in North Korea is worthy of great praise. General Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang are finished - only a few sporadic supporters are still talking about counterattacking the mainland. "But I believe that a generation of Peranakan Chinese is emerging in Malaya. They receive Chinese language and Chinese traditional education, but they hold Malayan views. They think Malaya is their only homeland. They are fighting for China is proud, just as the French in Quebec are proud of France. Naturally, there are those who think that the establishment of a Malayan state is not worth doing. They are the young students who return to China and reintegrate into the mainstream of China. What stays is Malayan. Malaysians, their Malayan consciousness will grow day by day." They thought it was worth reporting what I said to see my real point.