Despite the recent high-profile departures of two defeated People’s Action Party (PAP) candidates to the private sector – Mr Ong Ye Kung, 43, and Mr Desmond Choo, 35 – the labour movement remains a fertile and effective training ground for potential candidates for the ruling party, political analysts and labour Members of Parliament (MPs) said. However, for some analysts, the latest departures of two defeated People’s Action Party (PAP) candidates Mr Ong Ye Kung and Mr Desmond Choo to the private sector have revived the perennial question of whether the PAP needs to relook its strategy of parachuting potential political candidates into the labour movement. SMU Assistant Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan argued that “parachuting” potential candidates into the labour movement would have “decreasing efficacy”. Assistant Prof Tan said: “It will sit uncomfortably and perhaps at odds with the growing need for labour MPs to have authority and authenticity which can come about only through being an organic part of the labour movement.” Assistant Prof Tan added: “The PAP needs to have rank-and-file, from the ground-up unionists as well as high-flier MPs deployed as unionists. In recent years, the balance has been tilted more towards the latter group. The challenge for the PAP is to get the balance right so that its pro-worker credentials and identity do not become hollow.”