They are relying on a combination of factors, from young disenchanted professionals to consumers complaining about rising costs.

On top of historic unemployment, the country may be facing a leadership change at the end of next year or early 2004.

Last week, the Workers’ Party, Singapore’s oldest opposition party, achieved an important breakthrough, recruiting two new high-calibre leaders, the sort usually associated with the ruling party.

Law lecturer Sylvia Lim, 37, and financial controller Tan Wui-Hua, 36, have joined its 14-member central executive committee.

In the last general election, voters dealt a handful of weak opposition parties a crushing blow by flocking 75 percent to the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP).

Since then a lot has happened. The economy worsened, more jobs were lost and a host of price hikes in public services, including health, mass rail transit, buses and car parking, has raised public ire against the government.

The next general election is due only in 2007, so it’s still early.

The major opposition parties are building up party resources and, of course, walking the ground to win back lost voters.

They are receiving help from several directions. The first is the growing number of unemployed – or underemployed – graduates who are expected to provide a richer source for the opposition.

Some of these jobless graduates, increasingly disenchanted about being left out, are considered ripe for enlistment. Another factor is the possibility of a leadership change around end-2003.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong dropped a hint earlier this month when asked by a foreign journalist if he intended “to be around” a year from now.

Goh replied: “What month is this – October? Let me think ? yes, I’ll be around.”

When he goes, his deputy Lee Hsien Loong will take over. That in turn may herald the stepping down of Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

These changes could encourage a few more young professionals and businessmen to take part in opposition politics. They are, however, unlikely to cause anything more than a dent in the ruling party’s armoury.

The surprising achievement by the Workers’ Party was announced during its 45th anniversary. It was formed in 1957, only three years after the setting up of the PAP.

The news comes only 18 months after the party – started by the late David Marshall – had lost its fiery, impetuous leader J.B. Jeyaretnam.

His strong voice had dominated the party for decades.

Despite his popularity with the foreign press, Jeyaretnam, a white-haired lawyer, had little grassroots skill, preferring to leave the task to others.

Generally left-of-centre, fighting for the poor, which made up the majority of the population in the 50s and 60s, the party found – as the years progressed – that this base had shrunk steadily.

More and more had moved into the middle-class or became businessmen among whom the ruling party had dominated. While the PAP has routinely rejuvenated its top members with younger recruits, the Workers’ Party had carried on for years with more or less the same committee members.

As the ground shifted, Jeyaretnam did not, remaining his old ideological self. He resorted to a thunder-and-lightning brand of politics that often fell foul of the PAP’s legal traps.

He has been sued repeatedly – and fined a total of S$1.5mil (M$3.1mil) for libel and slander – and eventually made a bankrupt, disqualified from politics.

Instead of throwing the party into chaos, Jeyaretnam’s departure gave it the opportunity to attract more capable young people.

His successor and popular grassroots politician Low Thia Khiang (MP for Hougang) took over as secretary-general in May last year.

In Singapore, no political party can win power without taking the middle-class.

Two other high-profile recruits in recent years were Low’s two assistant secretaries-general: training consultant Poh Lee-Guan, 40, and researcher James Gomez, 36.

What made Lim, a former police inspector and lawyer, decide to join the opposition?

It was the last election. Seeing how weak and badly beaten the opposition was, Lim said, had persuaded her it was time to do something “as a matter of conscience.”

She told a reporter that she was resigned to two possibilities: Landing herself in jail one day or she might be declared a bankrupt.

The polytechnic law lecturer said she was prepared for either. Nothing, she told a Streats reporter, would stand between her and her convictions.

“I know what the score is. We only live once and I refuse to live in fear. That’s my philosophy,” she added.

The second recruit, Tan, who works in a real estate investment company, has three post-graduate and graduate degrees in accounting, business administration and mathematics.

He is the party deputy treasurer. Before the last election, he had told the party chief he wanted to join the party. In an e-mail message, he told Low: “Let's put our heads together.”

Another senior opposition figure, Chiam See Tong (MP for Potong Pasir) from the Singapore Democratic Party, is reportedly working to win back votes lost to the PAP.

Supporters say he is making some headway by riding on public unhappiness over recent price hikes in transport and healthcare.

With the departure of Jeyaretnam, Lee Kuan Yew is the sole active politician left of the Merdeka (independence) era. Dr Lee Siew Choh, the former leader of the left-wing Barisan Sosialis, a splinter group from the PAP, died in May this year at age 84.

In remaking Singapore, the government says politics is also involved.

It promises to free up on parliamentary debate. Backbenchers are allowed to criticise policies and even vote against them. But it has shown no sign of removing obstacles placed in the path of opposition parties, including upgrading their housing estates last.

Another is the “team election” of four or five MPs instead of separately, winning or losing as a bloc.

This practice benefits the ruling party with its larger resources; in many places the opposition can’t even get enough candidates to take part.

When election rolls around, these things make for a major difference.

Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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