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cover of episode GE2025: Are independent candidates a new force to be reckoned with?

GE2025: Are independent candidates a new force to be reckoned with?

2025/5/15
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Deep Dive

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#political campaign dynamics#political leadership#political influence#political activism#political vetting#political safety#personal and professional challenges#personal growth and resilience#career resilience#career advancement#power dynamics#youth engagement with mysticism People
D
Darryl Loh
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Jeremy Tan
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@Jeremy Tan :这次竞选活动中,我获得的民众支持让我感到非常惊喜。提名日当天就有许多志愿者报名加入我的团队,现在大约有500人表示愿意为我提供志愿服务,并支持独立运动的发展。在与选民互动方面,我遇到了一些挑战,例如有些居民只关心市镇理事会的问题,不关心议会事务。尽管如此,我仍然坚持倡导我关心的议题,例如住房危机和比特币。我甚至公开表示,比特币是解决这些问题的答案,无论你是否喜欢。我承认,我的观点可能比较激进,有些人可能因此不认同我,但我认为传递出我们正面临通货膨胀的定时炸弹的信息更为重要。未来,我将继续关注选区划分,并考虑是否参加下一次选举。 @Darryl Loh :大选结束后,我感到有些失落,好像生活中缺少了些什么。竞选期间每天都在进行走访和敲门拜访,现在感觉精力水平下降了。用华语或方言与年长者交流对我来说是竞选过程中最困难的部分。这次竞选经历迫使我走出舒适区,更加开放地与人交流。我关注的是政府没有明确解决方案的小问题,例如增加对酒后驾车的惩罚。我的父母非常支持我,尽管我的父亲在政府部门工作,但他仍然默默支持我,我的母亲则会剪下关于我的报纸报道并整理成文件夹。我拒绝了所有捐款,因为我认为生活成本正在上升,我不想用别人的钱来资助我自己的竞选活动。未来,我可能会从事与科技政策相关的工作,也许在一家大型科技公司。这次经历改变了我对生活和新加坡运作方式的看法。作为独立候选人参加选举,我认为现在我们激励了更多的年轻人去阅读相关资料。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This chapter introduces the concept of independent candidates in Singapore's General Elections, highlighting the increasing prominence of independent voices. It profiles Jeremy Tan and Darryl Lo, two independent candidates from GE2025 who exceeded expectations.
  • For the first time in 53 years, an independent candidate received more than 35% of the vote share.
  • The election deposit for independent candidates has increased significantly over time, from $500 to $13,500.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

You're listening to a CNA Podcast. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Deep Dive. Now, I'll tell you, I'm going to throw a few terms at you. Businessman, Colombo Plan Scholar, Safety Officer, Renovation Contractor, Lawyer, Hardware Dealer.

You know who I'm talking about? No, it's very random. No idea who you're talking about. Even I don't know who I'm talking about. But they turn out to be? They turn out to be, according to the script, some of the independent candidates that have stood in the Singapore general election since 1968 when the election deposit was guess how much?

500 bucks. Oh, wow. 500 bucks only. In fact, former Potong Pasir MP and opposition veteran, Mr. Chiam Seetong, he was himself a two-time independent candidate before forming the SDP, Singapore Democratic Party, and successfully entering parliament in 1984. That's right. But that deposit has gone up now as we all know, to $13,500. Quite a pretty penny. Okay.

So we all know that independent candidates, they do have a bit of reputation, right? We have seen quite a number of interesting characters, you know, that rock up, you know, to the nomination centres, maybe wearing slippers, carrying sunflowers. And there's this impression like maybe they can't be taken seriously. Yeah, yeah. They're quite colourful, the characters that we've seen in the past, right? Very interesting characters, yep, yep.

So while they did add colour to the hustings, none of them actually successfully voted into parliament and a majority of them actually ended up losing their deposits. I know, sad case. But until 2025 election. And here we are. Who do we have at the table with us today? We have two young gentlemen. We have Jeremy Tan here, 34. Hi, thanks for having me. And of course, we have Daryl Loh, 11.

Hi, thank you so much for having me here. Welcome, guys. And congratulations on not losing your deposit. Yes, not being laughed at, laughed off. In fact, they did better than some smaller parties who didn't get their deposit back, unfortunately. So, a whole bunch of people have questions for you. I mean, basically, they want to know about your journey, you know, why you got into this at all in the beginning. And I guess...

how it turned out for you, what the experience was like. So maybe very quickly, just give us a brief overview. Jeremy, you want to start first? I think the experience was actually very overwhelming for the support I've got. Many of the volunteers actually signed up to be volunteers on the nomination day itself.

Prior to that, it was only like a couple of friends who said they would help distribute flyers. Right now, I think we have like about 500 people who say they would want to work on not only volunteering for myself, but also for growing this independence movement. Wow, 500 people. That's quite amazing. Daryl, you have those numbers, sir.

No, it's not as big as Jeremy's. Not yet, maybe. Yeah, but I think it's about the same experience. It's exhilarating. It's crazy, but pretty overwhelming as well. So I have to admit, right? I have this withdrawal. You know, now that GE has ended, right? You're like, oh, what's next? You know, you feel like... Lacking some meaning in your life. Yeah, exactly. But I'm not even... I mean, you guys are the candidates. So do you also feel that way, Daryl? Yeah, I think...

Because for the past nine days during campaigning period, everyone was like out there, walkabouts, door knocking and stuff. So now I feel like, oh, the energy level has gone low. So that's a little bit of withdrawal for me. What was the hardest part of this whole journey?

It's really like talking to people using Mandarin or even like dialects to speak to people because my side, like most of them are seniors if they're hanging out at the coffee shops and stuff like that. So I will have to like talk to them in Mandarin and like ask them to vote for me. I've read in, you know, your interviews I've seen and you have said that you're actually very, very, very shy. I am. I am very shy. So do you feel that this experience, it has forced you to come out of your shell and actually open up?

It does, it does, actually. I usually don't go up to people or even do door knockings in the past. But this time around, I really went out, just talked to everyone sitting down at the hawker centre, coffee shop, just one-to-one, really just go out there and talk to them. So it's really different. Jeremy, what about you? Well, I used to actually sell skincare products physically in my own store, manning my booth. And I also used to sell mechanical keyboards, high-value items.

So getting scolded for no reason at all is something I'm very used to. So you were saying you got scolded quite a fair bit when you were... Yeah, I actually attended some of these meetups with the residents along Dakota and like 20 of them would come down specifically in an arranged manner to tell me that, you know, they care only about town council issues and not about any parliamentary things. They don't care. They spend a whole bunch of money on expensive Dakota houses. They only want to see municipality issues taken care of.

and I'm not even their MP, I was just a guy running. So they were renting, they were sort of like, you know, they want these problems sorted. And what was the worst, I mean, encounter with a resident? I guess because of the old airport food centre, there will always be complaints and different levels of standards of how the pigeons, you know, what do we do with the pigeons, you know, the droppings, what do we do with the droppings, and whether or not they're clean, many people have disagreements about it.

And because Mountbatten has 73% of people living in private property, they couldn't care less. It's the louder 27% that's making a lot more noise.

When you started this journey, you said you wanted the freedom to campaign on issues that matter to you. I mean, and you raised some of these issues and now, well, you haven't got a spot, but are you going to continue to try and champion some of these issues? What do you plan to do? So this is what I've openly said and what I've told the men in white. I've said that you're dealing with a housing crisis where people think of housing as a retirement asset.

You're dealing with counterbalancing the US interest and making sure we're not too reliant on the US dollar. You're dealing with China, money flows coming out of China wanting to be parked in safe places.

I told them and specifically outward in media, Bitcoin is the answer whether or not you like it. I am early, but I know I'm right. So this is what I can be campaigning on. That's a very strong statement. I know I'm right. Can you elaborate a bit more? I mean, why are you so sure of yourself in that regard? It is because that we have this issue even within Eastern Asian culture that we must find land to buy so that we can park our safe assets to store our wealth, pass it on to our next generation.

And Singapore has become increasingly a hotbed for all these things when China and US relationships are in jeopardy.

In addition to our HDB policy, where many people still see HDB as a retirement asset here, the contributions of this geopolitical tension will only increase the amount of pressure in the property market. It will push up prices. And more importantly, it is always about the store of wealth that we are concerned with. Singaporeans, if we have enough retirement adequacy,

I think it's very natural we don't look at housing. But you see, right, Jeremy, I mean, what you're proposing is to a lot of people, it's a risky investment, for instance, right? So do you feel that the people who are not aligned with your idea, because you are a self-styled Bitcoin specialist, that you might have lost some of the votes there because they're more conservative, for instance. Yeah.

So I definitely am okay with losing votes. I think in the earlier parts of the campaign trail, I was actually very vocal about saying it's okay if I lose. And if I lose, I'll likely lose around the high 30%. But losing votes is not as important as getting the message across that we are sitting on a time bomb of inflation. Right. And what is your proposed solution to this? My proposed solution is obviously to remove the land cost and to turn HDB back to where it was

only registration for flat sales and no longer using the CPF to pay for the HDB. Very much what we used to do in the old days. So Daryl, let's bring you in here now. Is that something similar of you that you share with Jeremy or you've got a totally different messaging, right? Yeah, I think we run different campaigns even though we are friends. But the thing is, I think he's focused a lot on Bitcoin and housing, right? But for me, I'm just targeting really small issues that I feel like the government doesn't have any

defensible solutions to them. So for instance, like increasing the penalties for drink driving. So I think that is something that is on the rise, but there has not been any actions taken down, taken to reduce it. So I think that's something that I brought up in my campaign as well. I would like to know, because when you first had the idea that, you know, I want to be a candidate, what was the first reaction from your parents, from your grandparents? What did they say?

Yeah, so my parents are actually very supportive. My dad is in the civil service, so he doesn't openly support me, but it's all, it's all, like, he's very supportive. But my mom, like, she cuts out the newspaper cuttings of me and reports and, like, put them in folders. Who had to foot the $13,500 on your own?

from your own pocket. And you interestingly, I mean, I'm not so much about you, Jeremy, but Daryl said that you had donors who wanted to actually fund your campaign because you spent about $12,000 on flyers and all that. And you said, no, you don't want to. Yeah, I think there's a lot of DMs coming in like, oh, can I donate to your campaign? Or even people meeting up on walkabouts, they ask like, oh, can I...

give you some money, you know, like so that you can fund your campaign and then you can do better. But I just rejected all of them because I think first of all, living is rising. I don't want to get money from others to actually fund my own campaign. And Jeremy, you had also people like trying to throw money at you. Yeah, it's quite literally somebody throwing a $100 bill at one of my volunteers and driving off.

Oh, wow. I think he threw like a bunch of things. Including a $100 bill. Yeah, like a $100 bill. Like, you know, some food and all that. And like, there was a crumpled $100 bill. So I actually just used that to buy some food for the volunteers. Oh, that's funny. On a more serious note, there are millionaires and billionaires in Mountbatten that are serious about me coming back. So they are saying that, you know, if you do mount a more...

conservative pro-business party approach in the future, be it with any party or new party, they will be willing to, you know, have conversations with me. Okay, which we need to ask. We need to ask, are there other parties wooing you guys? Have you been talking to them? You want to go first, Dara? Just smaller parties for now. Yeah, because I think...

Insofar as my campaign, it probably didn't hit the mark whereby bigger parties are interested in my candidacy. So, yeah. Okay. Jeremy? Well, for myself, we're just having conversations with just generally everybody. I don't think other than the PAP, everybody is very satisfied with their performance in general. I think they are mostly quite disappointed in the performance. Right.

So even, you know, if it was an ideal situation, we wanted to see Workers' Party increase its vote share. We wanted to see, you know, PSP, SDP maybe get a seat or two and then some NCMPs for people like us. But that totally did not happen. We kind of went back to status quo. So,

But how do you read that? Because, I mean, the results, we got to admit, were surprising for many. But it basically is a clear sign that the population is choosing to go in this direction. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I read that in terms of how in places where Workers' Party contested, the absolute votes increased and it's higher than the PAP. But yet the PAP still has more seats and the Workers' Party didn't gain any additional things. So going forward, I will do some political advocacy on the boundaries because I think

We want to be able to speak directly to our residents, walk the grounds, but we don't know which wilderness we are walking to, honestly. So you're worried about 2030. Is it going to your decision whether you're going to stand in the next election hinges on the electoral boundary? Yes, because I'm a resident of Marine Parade and

And that is where I experienced a walkover. So now I must consider, honestly, how to tackle Marine Parade and also Mountbatten at the same time. Because I don't know if Mountbatten will be part of Marine Parade. Anything could happen. Macpherson has been in and out of Marine Parade multiple times. And you have a similar view on that, right, Daryl? Yeah, because I've been living in Radin Mas for most of my life. And I think in this electoral boundary, for instance, part of West Coast was also included in Radin Mas.

So we wouldn't know how the boundaries are going to shift in 2030. And I think a lot of people are asking, oh, why don't you walk the ground earlier, right? Why don't you do walkabouts earlier? But you wouldn't know which ground you're walking. The next time, Radin Mas might be inside Tanjong Pagar. We wouldn't know as well.

So it sounds like both of you have plans to give it another go. Would you come back in 2030 and give this another run as an independent again? Right, I think insofar as this campaign has gone, right, I haven't hit the mark yet, right? I haven't made them change some of the policies that I've raised. So likely I will run again, yes. There are many people that are encouraging me to run again. I have actually residents that just came back and said, yeah, I couldn't vote. What happened in the last seven days? Because they were busy at work. Hmm.

Because Mountbatten had the highest absenteeism in the whole of Singapore. What was it? 92% was the national average, right? We had 12.2% absenteeism rate. And was it because people were travelling? Yeah, because it's smack between May Day and the Visak Day, right? So, and the people of Mountbatten, they generally have money and they have businesses, they have work overseas, families overseas. So, why they ponteng, I don't know. But, you know, there are many reasons why, right? I just wish more people turned up.

Now that we had a chance to walk the ground, to speak to residents, you understand some of the needs and concerns out there. I mean, how strongly do you feel that it is important for us to have independent voices in Parliament? Actually, very important because I felt with this election campaign trail, there were many opposition parties screaming impossible things, spend this, spend that. And I think that in general, it just casts a whole shadow on just opposition quality.

And I was actually quite upset and disappointed that there were so many propositions out there that ask, you know, say if I'm elected, I'll spend this way better than the PAP, which I've been very vocal about it. Nobody spends money better than the PAP because they have so much information on how to spend money better. Right. So overall, there were many people that just, you know, cast us off as like, you know, independent candidates again.

And why is because they've watched all these rallies at the start of it, right? I think the first eight days, there were so many rallies that were fiery, you know, full of accusations at each other, mudslinging. It didn't serve us well. And that's why I found the need to actually hold my own independent rally because then I'll be able to like, okay, let me separate myself from everybody else. And yeah, you're 36%. I mean, that's the highest of any independent candidate in 53 years. Does that make you feel like, okay, you know, I kind of did something good here and

that is going to reinforce your values, your belief and therefore the chances of you standing in 2030 is going to be much higher. Yeah, I set out to set a very high benchmark for how independents want to run their campaign. So going from the groundwork to social media, be

people being able to book my time as a house visit book a call email me IG do you exchange notes in between like hey you know we need to remind each other to fill up the forms and logistic stuff yeah and then we're like your logo what's it gonna be then it's gonna be a duck mine's gonna be a dog yeah

But you actually really thought through it? Or you just wanted something that's easily relatable? No, for DAP, they are just multi-dynamic. They can fly in the air, swim in the water and walk on ground. And then they look like they are paddling hard under the water. But nobody can see the paddling? Yeah, so it just sounds like the independents are struggling to keep a flow. But we are multi-dynamic. We bring diverse voices to Parliament if we do get elected. So yeah, that's why I chose the DAP vote.

Why did you choose a dog? Because I know the dog logo will be under the PAP so it will be the underdog. That's your level of joke. That's your level of joke. Hey, come on. No, but I mean because I have three beagles. I was campaigning for pet causes.

love my beagles and they're loyal they work hard you know for food and I thought that would be very cute and then since he picked a duck I'm like I'm going with a dog man so who was the first person you told about your this big idea to stand I told my wife in August 2023 that

And I was actually very sure last year that it's going to be Mountbatten. I just kept quiet. That's all. What did she say? She was like, huh? Election need to do what? That's about it, actually. Yeah. And how was she doing the whole campaign? She managed my volunteers. So it was pretty much a two-person show with...

I think my election expenses, including the rally, which was $9,000, including rally, it was $17,000. So that was my total spend. You know, everyone talks about, I mean, the story of like humble beginning, rags to riches, being, you know, retired at 34. Is it true that you grew up in a quite poor, like a... Yeah, yeah. I mean, so both my... You self-made, right? So I grew up in Jurong West, then I moved to rental housing for a while. Then I moved to Samantan, Rupaga, around where Darryl, near Darryl stays.

Both my parents were former bankrupts. At some point in time, I actually had to walk over to my cousin's house to shower because there was no water and electricity at home. My Singtel bill was under my uncle's name because back then, if you're an undischarged bankrupt, you can't register for a phone line.

Yeah, so I've also had the official assignee go over to our house and stick the, you know, temper-proof stickers before. Yeah, and for a long time, we actually self-sustained on like, like if it's my brother and my father, we eat like three packets of $2. Did any of that in a way make you also want to try and run, you know? Yeah, I think growing up, you have this feeling like, oh, why can't more be done for me? The PAB must do more. And then you get older, you're like, oh wait, I need to do more. Mm-hmm.

And then I come to this stage of life and I'm like, actually, we all need to do more together. So I guess now because you are retired, but for Daryl, you have to find a job, right? Yeah, I'm going back to work. You're going back to work. Yeah, so can you share like what will you be doing next? Likely doing something related to tech policy. So maybe in a big tech firm. You just want to get a regular job in that sense? Yeah, a nine to five. A nine to five? Hopefully. For a while at least. For a while, yeah.

Has this journey changed your perspective on anything? On life here? On the way Singapore runs? Yeah, I've been invited to a lot of different chat groups now. So I get to see the insight of how political parties work. So I think...

A lot of youths, they are also like me, we don't know anything about politics for the longest time. So now I think as we stand for elections, being independent candidates, I think now we inspire more youths to actually read up on... Yeah, I was going to ask actually, what is your number one advice for somebody your age and thinking like, hey, actually, I'm inspired now, I want to run in maybe 2030. Share with us. Yeah, I think one of the things they can do is really to volunteer, but I think that takes too much time.

time oh especially like two hours with like a political party and stuff like that it's too much time but at least start with like writing an email to your MP it could be like municipal issues or if there's like a lot of trash and the rubbish downstairs that no one's gonna clear it right just write it to them can't you just use the one service yeah you can do that as well but if it's a recurring issue then maybe you can write it to them and then they can solve the issue for

So get a voice out there, get involved, be interested in the things that are around you in your own sort of area where you live. Yeah, I think firstly run a clean campaign. No mudslinging whatsoever. Put your ideas early and out there. And also like what Daryl said, go volunteer. I volunteered for a while in an underprivileged tuition program that was run by uni students. And then I also helped out with the care corner for food.

So, and having grown up in my environment, I didn't need to understand how poor people live because I lived that life. But going about all these things and making sure you're open to criticism is very important because if you don't do that, sooner or later, somebody will say, why is this candidate capable of being an MP if he cannot take criticism?

What is the biggest criticism you received? I mean, of course, I have people that say, you know, hey, why are you proposing for national reserves to have samba with Bitcoin? Is it very risky? And I encourage them to use AI to, you know, go and speak to people, go to YouTube to learn more. I say, don't trust me. Just go and learn by yourself and then we'll have an honest discussion about these things. Yeah. But it's Bitcoin, so you need to do it bit by bit. Yeah.

Exactly. On that note. Yeah. Okay, gentlemen. So we hope to see you again maybe in five years from now. I don't know, maybe even sooner. Or is there a by-election? Is it maybe? Who knows? Anything can happen along the way. If there's a by-election, will you step up?

Yeah, for sure. But I think more people than ourselves will step up. Yeah. Well, thank you so very much, gentlemen. All the very best in your journey. We look forward to seeing you again in 2030. Yeah, we've been speaking to Jeremy and Daryl, both independent candidates for the recent general election here in Singapore. And on that note, this is Deep Dive. A shout out to our team, Tiffany Ang, Junaidin Johari, Joanne Chan, Sayawin, Crispina Robert and Alison Jenner. Video by Hanida Amin. We'll see you next week. Bye. See you then.

We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!

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