Kuala Lampur, July 19 -- For the first time in its history, Singapore has an official leader of the Opposition.

That may seem odd as we have had regularelections on the basis of a parliamentary system since independencein 1965, but this is the first year an opposition party has won sufficient seats in parliament for the government to consider naming an official leader of the Opposition.

From 1965 through the 70s, there was no opposition MPs in parliament. In the early 80s, Workers' Party (WP) stalwart JB Jeyaretnam was the only opposition MP in parliament and therefore he was arguably Singapore's first leader of the Opposition - though of course he had only himself to lead at the time.

Through the 90s and early 2000s, we'd see tiny num...