Lunch With Sumiko Leadership can be soft but effective

April, 2006. It was 5am in the city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, and Associate Professor Faishal Ibrahim was fast asleep in his hotel room when his mobile phone rang. The number was unfamiliar, so he ignored it. When the phone rang again, he let it buzz. But by the third call, he figured it must be important. A woman said Mr Teo Chee Hean wanted to speak to him.

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When Mr Teo came on the line, he got straight to the point — the PAP was considering fielding him in the upcoming general election. Could he meet the party's central executive committee by the next evening?

This was the second time Prof Faishal had been approached by the party. Four years earlier, in 2002, he was interviewed by the PAP as a possible candidate, but nothing came out of it. Now, here he was in Sharjah finally getting the call, and time was of the essence. By then, three groups of PAP candidates had already been introduced to the media.

Prof Faishal, then a lecturer in real estate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), told Mr Teo he would need to speak to his wife. But when he tried calling her, she was teaching a class at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. It was 9am in Singapore.

He turned to his boss, who was on the same work trip in Sharjah. "This is national service," his boss told him. "You've got to go back."

Still unable to contact his wife, Prof Faishal recalled a conversation they had in 2002. They had agreed that whether or not he entered politics, he would continue serving the community through grassroots work.

With that in mind, he called Mr Teo back and said yes.

The only available flight that day was at 9:20am. By the time he bought a ticket, checked out and found a taxi, it was close to 8am. The driver said it could easily take two hours to get to the airport given the traffic. There was no way he would get there in time.

"I said: 'Never mind, let's try. If I can't make it, I'll come back to the hotel, no problem.' Somehow, they got to the airport in just over an hour. He was allowed to board the plane with 10 minutes to spare.

About three days later, on April 11, he was introduced as part of the seventh batch of the PAP's new faces for the general election, eventually called on May 6. It marked the beginning of a political journey that has now spanned nearly two decades.