Singapore General Election: The Next Popular Politician on Facebook

Just one day after creating his Facebook page, Singapore’s Workers’ Party’s (WP) star catch, Chen Show Mao, received more than 5,800 ‘likes’.

If the pace of ‘likes’ increases with momentum like how Nicole Seah did within a week, Chen’s Facebook page may just hit the high of 10,000 – 20,000 ‘likes’ and he could possibly be Singapore’s next most popular politician on Facebook.

For the benefit of the non-Singaporean readers, Chen is a Beijing-based Singaporean who is a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship. He came to Singapore from Taiwan at the age of 11 in 1972 and became a citizen after serving National Service (NS) as a platoon commander and staff officer.

After serving NS, he went on to study economics at Harvard and did his law doctorate at Stanford.

He is a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell where he was based in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing throughout his career.

He was crowned Deal Maker of the Year after handling unsexy Agriculture Bank of China’s blockbuster US$19.21 billion IPO.

Not many people are observed searching for “Chen Show Mao” as compared to “Nicole Seah”. I can totally understand why. Nicole’s story sells by itself and attracts many youngsters who are tech-savvy while Chen’s fans might be a little less tech-adoptive.

Since the day U.S President Obama won over the crowd with new media like Facebook and Twitter, everyone has been wondering whether this would also happen in Singapore. I never thought this day will come so soon and it seems like the politicians from PAP must learn how to engage citizens via social media more effectively or risk losing to NSP’s and WP’s star catch.

However, the big question in everyone’s mind now is whether these  ‘likes’ will translate into votes. Minister George Yeo thinks it has a bearing on votes and I can’t help but agree with him.