COMMENT: Is Tan Cheng Bock's social media fame enough to make him MP (again)?

When Progress Singapore Party’s Dr Tan Cheng Bock unveiled his party to the press in July last year, he was asked how it would connect with younger voters. Dr Tan, then 79 years old, was flanked by similarly greying comrades as he fielded questions from a group of reporters, including me.

At a walkabout at his old stomping ground in West Coast this January, a reporter asked how he would connect with younger voters. He quipped, “My charm.” He knew what to say to stir excitement and nostalgic sentiment over his return too, feeding reporters: “Tell them: I’m coming home.” Dr Tan earned the adoration of Instagram inhabitants when he shared a video of him slipping his finger through his spectacles to prove that they are lens-less, a fashion decision reminiscent of the decorative frames worn by hypebeasts, or streetwear fanatics. Later clips of him eating a flower just because and typing with one finger drove more to claim him as their favourite Internet grandpa.

But as much as I loved Dr Tan’s posts, this is the election period, and nothing by political parties or candidates feel incidental. Case in point: The way Dr Tan dragged on the suspense of the biggest will-he-won’t-he — Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s candidacy under the PSP banner — up till Nomination Day. Whether it’s an ingenious plan by the party’s media team or Dr Tan himself, the ruse kept PSP in the news cycle for days.

Social media is what most would go by to get a sense of who a candidate is – myself included, with the exception of former parliamentarians whose work I may have come across while reading parliamentary records. And while candidates are furiously working the ground and bumping fists with residents, they are usually fleeting interactions.

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