Fed up and flabbergasted, but Jeyaretnam junior isn’t throwing in the towel yet.
In a message to supporters, the Reform Party chief says he’ll be back to give the PAP a headache come the next General Election.
Said Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam:
“To all our dear friends and supporters and to my colleagues and fellow candidates. Thank you all for a fantastic effort. You all worked so hard. I am almost weeping now with gratitude at the sacrifice you all made. A big thank you from me and from our teams can’t even begin to express the debt we owe you. Thank You
We clearly had the better manifesto and great talent on our teams and were braver. Don’t be disheartened. The truth will prevail.
Remember our founder J B Jeyaretnam. He lost 7 times before changing the course of history. Mr Chiam always said that it took three cycles to win.
RP is JBJ’s Party. He set it up because he couldn’t tolerate the status quo. We just need to convince more people of the need for change.
Tomorrow we will all meet at the office for lunch. All volunteers welcome. Please do make a concrete step for change now and download a membership form off the website. Do join us because you have surely seen the size of the battle ahead and that commenting from the sidelines is not enough.
The return contest starts here and it starts tomorrow!”
Mr Jeyaretnam probably gave the most quotable quote of General Election 2015, when he said after sample counts bode unfavourably for the Reform Party:
The Reform Party dropped some 8 percentage points in both Ang Mo Kio and West Coast GRC, scoring just above 20 percent compared to about 30 percent in GE2011.
But that hasn’t fazed Mr Jeyaretnam:
“Of course we dropped about 8% and some of the other Parties dropped 20%. Ours were two of the most hostile territories and we are still a new Party. Really new, not just people,and leaders of other Parties re-arranging. Some of these Parties losing 20% of their previous result have been around for decades.”
Online, messages of support have streamed in.
Said Mohd Ali:
“I personally think RP made an improvement in this 2015 election. KJ you had been good and i am sure you certainly will be much better. Although i am not a resident in the constituency where RP contested I chose to cast my vote to the opposition. The intent even if they failed to win, hopefully they will not lose the deposit and off course to make the numbers of votes higher and thereby motivating the candidates and hopefully have some positive changes among those who are still fearing of voting for the opposition.
My dad was an active supporter of Mr JBJ and we in our family will continously support the party Mr JBJ set up. Let’s continue the fight the war is not over this is just one of the many battles.”
Others however, were cynical about the efforts of the opposition bloc.
Said Ahmad Mian:
“It takes how many elections also Opposition can’t win and can’t change their Singaporean mentality so I hope you don’t waste your time & money and effort to this people just carry doing something useful for you instead of wasting time with this people.”
