People are quite happy when told they have become cadres. Mr Wong believes that most people join the party because they support, and want to contribute to, a party that has served the nation well. Through our dialogue with MPs, we understand things better and get a chance to find out more, that's the only advantage. A cadre is nominated by his MP from among the outstanding activists in his branch. About 100 candidates are put up each year.
Selection is done by three interview panels of four or five ministers and MPs each.
The spread of backgrounds covers age, race, language and religion, ground feel and educational qualification. Aside from the cadre system, the party's other aspects are not so mysterious. The next conference will be at the end of this year or early next year. The chairman is Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan and the vice-chairman, Law and Foreign Affairs Minister S. Jayakumar. Mr Wong says this practice is to make the CEC election manageable, by restricting it to a smaller number of senior party members, out of the more than 10,000 ordinary members.