Ling & Cheo lost not because of bad management of Town Councils nor poor performance in parliament. The lost because of internal fighting within SDP.
Voters lost faith in SDP after Chiam and the rest of SDP CEC fought openly. That was disastrous.
Ramseth is right that SDP used to be the strongest party in Singapore with a group of graduates and eloquent speakers. WP was unable to attract that kind of candidates as compared to SDP and to some extend, NSP. But the main difference was that NSP could not perfrom in spite of its good slate of relatively well educated candidates while SDP, under Chiam's leadership, was able to make gains in 1991.
The trouble only started when Chiam and the rest broke off. This is partly due to Dr. Chee's entrance into the party and started the hunger strike. For whatever reasons there were, the damage to the party was tremendous after Chiam and other SDP MPs (Ling & Cheo) started bickering even in parliament. The "don't talk cock" remark was made by Ling to Chiam.
There were strange reasons why the PAP's controlled parliament didn't disqualify Chiam from being MP after SDP CEC has practically "sacked" him. This is against the very rules that PAP has set. If court case is the reason, then they were contradicting and fast in dismissing JBJ from parliament even when he was appealing his case in Privy Council. What is worse is that JBJ was not reinstated as MP after he won his case in Privy Council!
There were also strange reasons why Dr. Chee was voted to replace Chiam after he resigned, since, in normal logical political wisdom, he should avoid taking up such post if he didn't want to be seen as the key person that "outsted" Chiam.
For a young person like me back then, all these seemed to be "staged" by someone to look silly. It was like a deliberate effort to allow the bickering to drag on for all Singaporeans to see. Maybe both Chiam, Chee and all others, had unknowingly played into such scheming.
Goh Meng Seng
You really sound like a joker from the opposition insinuating a lot on PAP moes.
Please come clean. A prominent ex-PAP member will be at Hong Lim this Saturday and you are very sore about it.
Also, no point hinting you could do a lot more than the old-timers. Let the results at Tampines speak. It won't be a nice picture.