Some Opposition party chiefs expressed unhappiness over a perceived breach of confidentiality following a meeting on Monday (Aug 3) attended by representatives of 11 parties, calling it an attempt to “destroy Opposition unity”.
The aim of the first round of horse-trading talks was to discuss the possibility of avoiding multi-corner fights at the upcoming General Election.
On Wednesday, People’s Power Party (PPP) chief Goh Meng Seng shared a TODAY report on his Facebook page, calling the purported leak a “despicable underhand tactic”.
According to the report, sources who attended the meeting said that there was a “heated” disagreement between the Workers’ Party (WP) and the National Solidarity Party (NSP) over Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Jalan Besar GRC and the MacPherson Single Member Constituency (SMC).
The sources declined to be identified as the parties had agreed on keeping the discussions confidential, according to the TODAY report.
“As a participant of the meeting, I openly condemn such leaks of half-truths (as) a deliberate way of smearing NSP,” said Mr Goh. “This is not helpful for achieving opposition unity at all. This is a despicable underhand tactic that we should not condone.”
Mr Goh is the former Secretary-General of the NSP, having run for elections under the party banner in 2011.
Later on Wednesday, the NSP’s official Facebook page shared a screenshot of Mr Goh’s post and echoed his sentiments.
“The ‘source’ who leaked these ‘half-truths’ is not doing anybody good and aims to split Opposition unity,” said the party, which urged the public to not “jump into conclusions yet, based on hear-say and rumours” until after the second round of discussions on Thursday.
A day earlier, Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam also took to Facebook to slam anonymous sources in a Straits Times article, who raised similar allegations of conflict between the WP and NSP.
“What was the point of us all agreeing to keep the meeting’s discussions confidential when someone has leaked the whole caboodle to the press?” he asked.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
