By George! A Quixote tilting at windmills, or a shrewd '87-0 fear factor' move?

And so it has come to pass...

The Workers' Party is going for broke, with Low Thia Khiang leading WP's A-team into Aljunied GRC, currently held by PAP MPs led by Foreign Minister George Yeo.

In one quickstep move, LTK -- in choosing the road not previously taken, and in tandem if not in coordination with Chiam See Tong's move into a GRC -- has upped the ante in Singapore politics.

The magic figure ahead is the possibility of 87-0.

The PAP is sure to assure voters that if this number comes to pass, there will still be nine "alternative" voices -- the maximum number of NCMPs (which should be the case in a 87-0 result). This ties in with what I call the PAP's assessment of a "lightning conductor" effect if nearly all seats are contested.

Now that Nomination Day (today, 27 April) is over, only the five-member Tanjong Pagar GRC is uncontested, so 82 seats are up for grabs. With all other GRCs and SMCs contested, voters have a "choice". But what if this creates the perception in individual voters' minds that voters in another constituency will vote in an opposition team or candidate -- the NIMBY phenomenon?

The PAP will also, I am sure, be claiming that it cannot afford the loss of a single incumbent minister, or any of its crop of 24 newly picked candidates. And it might invoke a loss of investor confidence should even one minister fall.

So, is LTK tilting at windmills, dreaming the Impossible Dream, in seeking to create a "Position Vacant: Foreign Minister of Singapore"? Already, observers see an uphill fight for the SPP team led by Chiam in Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, which has two heavyweight ministers: Wong Kan Seng and Ng Eng Hen.

Or has LTK shrewdly calculated his odds -- that his going for broke strategy is really a putting into the minds of Aljunied voters the "fear of 87-0 for the next five years" strategy?

And if the "LTK factor" still holds sway in Hougang, his fellow Teochew-speaking WP member and now Hougang candidate Yaw Shing Leong may yet retain the SMC.

Put it another way: is LTK, in raising the stakes so high, fast-forwarding the emergence of a two-party system, ie a still dominant PAP vs a "not just a spare tyre" WP?

So, these are likely numbers at the end of the day come 7 May: 87-0, 82-5, or 81-6.

Any other number means at least one more, and possibly more, opposition party has survived an electoral drubbing.