Category: Politik

Opposition Legend Chiam See Tong Will Not Contest In Upcoming GE

Veteran opposition leader Chiam See Tong will not contest the coming general election.

The Singapore People’s Party (SPP) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) announced their slate of candidates for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC on Sunday (Aug 30) morning.

Mr Chiam, 80, the SPP’s secretary-general, was excluded from the line-up in the constituency he contested in 2011 and will not stand due his age and health, according to his wife Mrs Lina Chiam.

However, Mr Chiam, who was Potong Pasir MP for 27 years, was present to give his backing to the joint team – comprising of DPP secretary-general Benjamin Pwee, 47, DPP chairman Hamim Aliyas, 55, former marketing manager Law Kim Hwee, 55, training company manager Abdillah Zamzuri, 31, and tech entrepreneur Bryan Long, 37 – that will contest under the SPP banner.

Mr Chiam said: “As you’ve seen for yourself we have a strong team here, a very good line-up. They are professionals with good experience.”

Mr Pwee and Mr Hamim, who both contested Bishan-Toa Payoh with Mr Chiam in 2011, both quit their posts in the DPP to join SPP as election rules state that candidates for a GRC team must either come from one party or consist solely of independents.

Mr Pwee will co-lead the team with Mr Long, who is making his GE debut like his fellow SPP teammates, Mr Abdillah and Mr Law.

Despite his exclusion, Mr Chiam nixed suggestions that he was retiring from politics by saying: “I’ve got a long way to go.”

At the last election, Mr Chiam’s SPP team garnered 43.1 per cent of Bishan-Toa Payoh’s votes against the People’s Action Party (PAP) team led by Dr Ng Eng Hen.

Source: www.tnp.sg

August 30, 2015
Joint DPP-SPP Team To Contest Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC Under DPP Banner

The Singapore People’s Party (SPP) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have finally unveiled the final five members of their joint team for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, more than three weeks after the two parties agreed to partner up to contest the constituency.

They are DPP chief Benjamin Pwee, 47, and chairman Hamim Aliyas, 55, who have both resigned from the party and joined the SPP to enable them to be fielded. Their teammates are SPP members Law Kim Hwee, 55, a former marketing manager, training company manager Abdillah Zamzuri, 31, and tech entrepreneur Bryan Long, 37.

Election rules dictate that all candidates in a GRC team must either come from one party or consist of five independents. Both SPP and DPP had earlier agreed that they would contest under the SPP banner.

The confirmed line-up was introduced by SPP chairman and Non-constituency MP Lina Chiam following a walkabout at Toa Payoh Lorong 8 on Sunday (Aug 30) morning.

While the three SPP members are election first-timers, Mr Pwee and Mr Hamim were in 2011 part of an SPP team led by opposition veteran Chiam See Tong that scored 43.1 per cent of the vote against a PAP team led by Dr Ng Eng Hen.

Mr Chiam’s exclusion from the current line-up is a strong signal that he has retired from politics. But the veteran opposition leader, who held Potong Pasir SMC for 27 years, was also present to give the joint team his backing.

Sunday’s introduction came one day after both parties signed an agreement to formalise their joint team, finalising their paperwork just three days before Nomination Day.

The signing of the agreement brings to a close a difficult, month-long negotiation that began at the joint opposition meeting to decide who would contest in which constituency. At several points in recent weeks, there had been rumours that the partnership was on the brink of collapse, especially due to disagreements on the make-up of the team.

Both sides had said on Saturday that they needed to take time to sort out a broad range of issues.

“It is a deliberated decision. We took time to make sure this isn’t something we hastily go in to just for elections. We went into it, we went through every single point. We had to know that logistics work, finance works, we want to know candidates, we want to talk about decision-making – if anything this demonstrates the maturity of the cooperation,” said Mr Long.

Added Mr Pwee on behalf of the DPP: “I think we respected the time and space that they need to make the decision. I think we didn’t want to push it and run the risk of this partnership breaking. At the end of the day, there could be nothing worse than if this partnership broke and we went into a three-cornered fight together.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

August 30, 2015
Workers’ Party’s Daniel Goh Speaks To Lianhe Zaobao

In case you can’t read Chinese, we’ve (amateurishly) translated this interview published today in the Chinese morning daily:

“We do not view them as enemies,” said Dr Goh, revealing his attitude towards going up against the PAP. To him, as a credible party, the Workers’ Party’s goal is to push for constructive politics via debate and innovative ideas. He pointed that politics is not only about winning or losing, and it is not the Workers’ Party’s intention to stand simply in opposition to the ruling PAP.

The night before, an anonymous letter has turned this Workers’ Party candidate into an overnight talking point. But, after spending an entire night answering queries from the media and denying the allegations of an affair, he did not cancel our scheduled interview yesterday, and met with us at a coffeeshop in Bedok North to discuss with us his thoughts on constructive politics.

Dr Goh is an Associate Professor at the NUS Department of Sociology. For an academic sociologist to emerge among the candidates of the Opposition, this has made many curious. During the interview, Dr Goh approached many topics; at times with the perspective of a sociologist, at times offering ideas from the perspective of a legislator. He switched between both hats comfortably.

Dr Goh said he did not view the PAP as enemies. Just that he believes that the PAP is a party that operates on a particular “thinking framework”. He believes that constructive politics is a kind of “game theory of ideas”, and not about “mutual criticism and obfuscation, nor about “finding candidates or putting together a team at the last minute”. He said: “That kind of talk is for the purpose of ‘winning’, to see who wins and who loses. That’s something I’m very much against.”

Social “re-politicisation”? Not allowing Singapore to lose its advantage

In GE2011, Mr Low Thia Khiang’s decision to switch from Hougang to Aljunied won him a GRC. By beating out PAP’s team including the then Foreign Minister George Yeo, the party’s victory was viewed by many as a “watershed” moment. Since then, Singapore politics had entered a “new normal”.

To Dr Goh, this “new normal” or social “re-politicisation” will not cause Singapore to lose its advantage, or cause it to decline. He pointed out that the PAP’s warning that a two-party state would cause the country to stagnate and create friction, in fact, was a sign of its own fears. He said: “This type of thinking sometimes is a result of a kind of distrust towards citizens. To me, that’s very odd.”

Dr Goh joined the Workers’ Party as a volunteer in GE2011. In talking about the elections back then, he said that Mr Low’s decision to contest in Aljunied was to send a strong message to voters for them to consider: did they really believe that Singapore needed an Opposition? At the time, perhaps voters took a long-term view and believed that a party in power for so long would ultimately fail due to corruption. So that’s how they made their decision, Dr Goh suggested.

Dr Goh said that even if the Workers’ Party had failed, it would have allowed voters to imagine the possibility of a different future. To him, this was the greater symbolism that GE2015 held.

In this election, Dr Goh may be fielded in East Coast, or go at it alone in Fengshan. But in all honesty, he said, when he started helping out, or even after he joined the WP as a member in 2003, he had never thought of becoming a candidate. He had joined purely with the desire to help the party become more professional and improve its internal processes.

He described his decision to stand in the election as the result of feeling some kind of “spiritual calling” after GE2011. He also viewed it as a kind of “national service”. He said the biggest difference between a politician and an academic was that a politician, in a way, is more like a “future academic” – someone who has to look at the future and consider different scenarios.

Dr Goh is married and has one son. Yesterday, during the interview, he did not speak much about the poison pen letter. But he had strong criticism for “gutter politics”, and said that on the journey to improving Singapore political culture, the development of the Parliament and media was very important.

Daniel Goh makes police report about poison pen letter

Dr Goh has denied the contents of the letter, calling it “baseless allegations”. Yesterday, he posted on Facebook to say that he had made a police report in his neighbourhood police station. Last evening, he posted yet another note, saying that a Zaobao reporter had been in touch to say that he had a limited amount of time to refute the letter’s allegations, or else the paper would run the story.

He said: “In my communication with the Zaobao journalist last night, I was given till a certain time to refute the poison pen letter or the story will have to go to print. The story went online some time before the time given to me. This forced my hand to respond to the baseless allegations and rumours.

“Once I made the public statement to refute the allegations, the other media outlets reported the statement, and thus the rumours.“

He said in the same post: “Our media system is broken, but I trust we have good journalists in it from my interactions so far. We should debate and discuss how to fix it.”

Zaobao responds

Regarding the letter, Workers’ Party Central Executive Council member Png Eng Huat told Zaobao: “I think, we welcome anyone who wants to scrutinise our candidates. If you have any evidence, come and talk to us. Because over the Internet, over email, social media, these are all anonymous. If you have any evidence, please come and tell us.”

Responding to Dr Goh’s Facebook post, Zaobao editor Goh Sin Teck said: “Regarding Dr Goh’s Facebook post, we wish to clarify, in fact, that night we tried to reach him more than once to get his response to this matter. The first time he responded was that night, August 27, around 10 pm. Our reporter had a deeper conversation with him to try and find out the truth. Our reporter told him, in order to meet the off-stone time, if he had any additional comments, he would need to contact us before 11.20pm.

“But because there was a miscommunication, Zaobao Online, based on his first communication, uploaded the story before 11.20pm. We realised this oversight later, which was why at 11.15pm when we received his last communication, we immediately published his rebuttal. We also published his response on the print version of Zaobao on August 28.

We wish to thank Dr Goh for not cancelling our scheduled interview, and for believing that in this incident, we did not act with any malice or ill feeling.”

Source: http://themiddleground.sg

August 30, 2015
Workers’ Party Manifesto: Empower Your Future!

The Workers’ Party believes the next step for Singapore lies in balanced reforms grounded in a comprehensive vision. The time has come to move beyond short-term fixes for long-standing problems. The future of Singapore lies in active investment in our fellow Singaporeans here and now. The time has come to empower a dynamic and confident people.

Singapore does not need blind economic growth; we need compassionate and equitable growth. We are tired of the myth of Singaporeans needing to bite the bullet in the hope that wealth generated at the top will trickle down eventually. This myth has resulted in severe inequality and discouraged enterprise in the past decade.

In order to tackle the challenges facing Singapore in the next decades, we need to unlock the dynamism and confidence innate in Singaporeans. Our Manifesto 2015 builds upon our vision offocusing on Singaporeans and calls for economic, social, urban, governance and security policies that can create the conditions where the dynamism and confidence of Singaporeans can be unleashed to achieve our aspirations together.

We believe that empowering Singaporeans entails a system of government where there are adequate checks and balances without political gridlock. The legislature must play this crucial role to check a powerful executive and push it to make well-balanced policies and laws that protect and advance the people’s interests.

Singapore is now a mature and diverse society. We are more than ready for a Parliament with different political voices to engage the executive branch led by the Prime Minister and his cabinet ministers. A diverse Parliament is critical in assisting the executive to make sounder judgments about policy trade-offs.

A Parliament monopolised by one party fails the test of rigorous debate and voting in forging sound policies. This grave imbalance gives free rein to the ruling party to take our country in any direction it deems fit. A Parliament that includes MPs from a rational, responsible and respectable opposition party compels the government to listen to the collective wisdom of the people.

A complex and uncertain future lies ahead. We have depended on a small group of talents in a single party to lead us in earlier times. This formula is no longer adequate. We need to build and revive institutions to empower Singaporeans and unleash our talents to move ahead with confidence. This can only be achieved through a balanced Parliament. Your future is in your hands. Empower your future!

Source: www.wp.sg

August 30, 2015
GE2015: Charting The Future of Politics Of The Malay-Muslim Community in Singapore

GE2011 was described as a watershed election for Singapore as the Opposition tsunami threatened to overcome PAP’s hegemony. We witnessed a greater diversity of opinions being amplified and disseminated at unprecedented speeds, facilitated by the Internet. However, there seem to be little change to the political landscape of the Malay-Muslim community (MMC) in Singapore, with only one other MM MP, Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap from the Workers’ Party (WP), making it to Parliament. Muhamad Faisal had little impact in Parliament. For one, he did not take a stand on the hijab issue. Sounding like a PAP MM MP, he urged that the issue not be politicised and opined that a workable consensus was best achieved through public dialogue.

Some would argue that this lack of good leadership in the MMC has been to the detriment of the MMC. Others contend that PAP MM MPs and organisations such as MUIS and Mendaki are doing a good job of not only protecting, but furthering the interest of the MMC. Perhaps, the truth is somewhere in between.

With Singaporeans going to the polls in a forthnight, it is therefore timely to take stock of the political landscape of the MMC and where the MMC is headed – how it has changed, how the roles of the incumbent and the Opposition have been transformed and the impact this wil have on the MMC in this GE and the near future. Can the MMC still play a role in helping to build a better future for Singapore, one that is based on the principles of race-blind, meritocracy? Of course. How and at what cost? That remains to be seen.

Diversity of Voices

The political landscape of the MMC today is starkly different from that pre-GE2011. It could be argued that despite the greater awareness of the MM identity, the MMC has become more fragmented, with more people and organisations representing a greater array of partisan and non-partisan interests.

Among the most prolific of MM commentators are Zulfikar Shariff, the editor of the now defunct Fateha.com and PAP member, Umar A H Marican.

Zulfikar Shariff

Zulfikar is presently a PhD candidate at La Trobe University based in Melbourne. Zulfikar went off the grid after leaving Singapore but the Internet has truly been a game changer in terms of affording him the ability to keep abreast of developments here in a timely manner. This has enabled Zulfikar to make timely comments and initiate thought provoking discourse on issues affecting the local MMC. Perhaps, the distance may have given Zulfikar a sense of security in expressing his views openly. It is thus not uncommon to see Zulfikar criticising the PAP for its policies that he deems discriminatory and oppressive to the MMC.

To be clear, Zulfikar does not only have an axe to grind with the PAP government. He truly believes that the MMC cannot subordinate their faith to the Westphalian notion of the nation-state. To Zulfikar, the state is a mere political construct, hence the rules, norms and mores do not apply. He believes in the idea of establishing a separate, independent leadership for the MMC. He is also of the conviction that the MMC should have an insular, separate existence – no state, no country, no democracy, no political parties. Why bother with those when it has only led to the regression of the MMC?

In one of his latest posts, Zulfikar highlighted Goh Chok Tong’s refusal to accede to the proposal to set up a Collective Leadership system which he claimed would have improved the lives of the MMC. Zulfikar asserted that the PAP’s disagreement was self-serving, meant to protct its MM MPs.

His agitations have not won him admirers from among the supporters of the incumbent. That is not to say that he has not attracted a following at all. Zulfikar’s discourse have often initiated discussions from his small but vocal group of followers, who are disenchanted and disillusioned with their current predicament. It helps that Zulfikar is blessed with a huge dose of wit.

But the more important question is, to what extent can Zulfikar achieve his objective of establishing a separate existence for the MMC? What would it take for that to happen? Realistically, it would take a total breakdown of the current nation-state system for that to happen. How does Zulfikar intend to overcome the nation-state? The UN will be made redundant. No ASEAN community to speak of. No SEA Games even. It is radical and there does not appear to be any way of doing so without burning bridges with people of other faiths and cultural backgrounds. Even providing more compelling, up-to-date, statistics which are grounded in context, may not faciltate Zulfikar’s course because it is that radical.

For Singapore to prosper, Zulfikar’s assertions have to be addressed and rebutted . There have not been a dearth of people who have done so, including Umar A H Marican.

Umar A H Marican

Umar is a PAP apologist and has come to the fore to defend PAP’s policies, especially those from MM critics like Zulfikar. In a riposte to Zulfikar, Umar questioned Zulfikar’s motivations and cautioned that Zulfikar’s arguments were “politically inclined but disguised with religious intonation”.

For Umar, Zulfikar’s posting is toxic and has the ability to encourage disunity and suspicions among Singaporeans. The caution is not without merit. Any race-based discourse permeating through the community has the ability to shape mindsets and further alienate the MMC from the Singapore community at large.

That said, it will also be in PAP’s best interest to rebut Zulfikar with statistics instead of mere rhetoric. This will serve to convince the MMC of the fallacies in Zulfikar’s arguments and preserve racial and religious harmony in Singapore.

That is not to say that dissenting voices like Zulfikar’s should be silenced. Umar’s response betrays the PAP’s marked disdain for freedom of speech. There is nothing stopping a Singaporean based overseas to comment on developments in Singapore. There are those who support and praise the government. Why not accept those who criticise and engage? Surely that is the best way to convince Singaporeans, especially the MMC of the PAP’s plans.

PAP MM Candidates

This brings us to the question of the capability of the new PAP candidates. As we have come to expect of PAP candidates (although admittedly, PAP does not have a monopoly over good candidates in Singapore), they have come with the requisite credentials. All are professionals with years of experience in the grassroots. But therein lies the danger of them having been brought up in the system for a long time. You cannot definitively exclude the possibility of groupthink.

What will they bring to the table? What kind of insights can they provide? Will they be afraid to speak up on MM issues? Will the fear of having to toe the party line overcome them? Will they be silenced by the Party whip?

Having the heart and appreciation for the MMC is not everything. You must have the gumption and conviction, almost like Zulfikar, to really protect the interests of the community. They cannot be “yes” men and be quick to subordinate the interest of the community to the (arguably at times) selfish interest of others.

The Opposition Slate

Over the past week, Opposition parties have also been busy introducing their MM candidates for this GE. It is heartening to see more capable MM leaders standing up, wanting to contribute to the betterment of the MMC and the Singapore community at large.

The aberration seems to be SDP candidate, Sidek Mallek. An auditor by profession, he was stumped by a simple question asked in Malay, by a reporter, at a press conference meant to showcase his credentials. Most excused his lack of fluency in the Malay language but many were appalled at the lack of direction by the party, in terms of the interests of the MMC that it wants to champion.

Maybe Sidek was too preoccupied with his hobby of playing online mahjong that he could not think clearly? He is a good example of the kind of “leadership” that the MMC can do without. Surely there are better candidates out there?

Conclusion

The MMC has become more diverse and we have also witnessed a greater diversity in the views that have been espoused by people with partisan or non-partisan interests. This though does not neccessarily translate into good leadership for the MMC. In determining its future and negotiating the changing global terrain, the community has a responsibility to choose the best to lead them. What the community needs are leaders who understand Singapore’s place in the world and the realities that it contends with, to ensure its relevance and prosperity. It needs leaders who have a vision for the MMC within the multi-racial Singapore community because the future of the community is inextricably intertwined with the future of Singapore. History will judge if the Singapore MMC made the right decisions in GE2015.

Anak Melayu Singapura

[Reader Contribution]

August 30, 2015