Politics
PAP two-thirds majority in Parliament needs to be denied: SDP chairman Paul Tambyah
![](https://theonlinecitizen.s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/10/27041155/paultt.png)
Singaporeans need to elect “independent and diverse voices in Parliament” and deny the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) a two-thirds majority, said Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chairman Paul Tambyah.
Speaking at the SDP pre-election rally at Hong Lim Park on Sat (19 Oct), he said that doing so “will prevent them from changing the constitution at will”.
“For example, they will not be allowed to impose a racial quota for Elected Presidency, but not for the Navy or Air Force just to suit their political aims,” said Dr Tambyah, in reference to Malay Singaporeans allegedly not being allowed to take up “sensitive” vocations in the Navy and Air Force, as reportedly illustrated by the late Lee Kuan Yew in 1999:
“We must not make an error. If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who’s very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine-gun unit, that’s a very tricky business. We’ve got to know his background. I’m saying these things because they are real, and if I don’t think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn’t think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy.”
Dr Tambyah emphasised that SDP does not know when the election will be held, as Singapore does not “have an independent election commission”.
“Many people ask us, ‘When is the election going to be [held]? In reality, we have no idea when the election is going to be … because we do not have an independent election commission,” said Dr Tambyah.
“The decisions on the constituencies are made by the highly qualified members of the election boundaries review committee, who in their day jobs report to the MTI (Ministry of Trade and Industry) minister, the MND (Ministry of National Development) minister, the Prime Minister and the Law Minister,” he pointed out.
Drawing attention to the political affiliation of the authority figures the members of the Election Boundaries Review Committee report to, Dr Tambyah said: “All of them are PAP Central Executive Committee members. Surely, that is not fair.”
Thus, Singaporeans need to elect “independent and diverse voices in Parliament”, as Parliament “is where Ministers are held accountable to us, the people of Singapore”.
While the SDP “has not hesitated to speak up for all Singaporeans” for the last 39 years, including for “the marginalised, the poor, the elderly and the sick”, Dr Tambyah said that the party has long drafted “constructive policy proposals which cover education, housing, healthcare, jobs, immigration, and other issues”.
“What these policies have in common is a set of values” that embody SDP, he said, which are “people before profits, wisdom before wealth, and rights before riches”.
“Unlike the PAP, we do not consider the pledge something aspirational. When we make a pledge, we make a promise, and we stick to these. And I think those who have followed the SDP for the last 39 years will know this for a fact, long before I joined the party,” added Dr Tambyah.
“Unfortunately the SDP will not be able to speak up and make real change for the people of Singapore until we are elected to Parliament,” he said.
“Despite all of the intimidation and gerrymandering, we still have the fundamental right to vote in elections every four to five years. We are not Hong Kong. We have the right to vote for our leaders,” urged Dr Tambyah.
PAP has become “insecure”, “tightening its already tight grip on the media and civil society”: SDP chairman Paul Tambyah
Dr Tambyah also alleged that PAP has become “insecure”, and is “tightening its already tight grip on the media and civil society” as a result.
He cited an excerpt from The New Paper former editor P N Balji’s book “Reluctant Editor”, in which Balji describes a “chilling” conversation between the editor-in-chief of The Straits Times and then-Minister George Yeo “over some mild criticism of a PAP MP”:
“The minister apparently told Leslie Fong, “Our MPs may be wrong, but the government will protect them at all costs”. To which the editor replied, “Yes, Minister, we know. It will be our blood on the floor.”
“We cannot continue with that kind of intimidation and the conformity that results … We need an independent media to cover important events and policies,” he said.
Dr Tambyah, however, predicted that a “nasty mudslinging campaign from the PAP ministers and candidates” can be expected in the next General Election, particularly with the enactment of new laws such as the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
During an election, a senior civil servant appointed by the Minister will have the authority to exercise such powers under Section 52 POFMA in lieu of the respective Minister, as the Parliament is dissolved:
“In the coming elections too, unfortunately we can expect the nasty mudslinging campaign from the PAP ministers and candidates. This time, however, they are going to be protected by new laws which can only be activated by a Minister and not by an opposition candidate,” he alleged.
Alluding to Education Minister Ong Ye Kung’s recent remarks on renowned poet and playwright Alfian Sa’at’s poem “Singapore You Are Not My Country” in Parliament, Dr Tambyah said: “We have already seen the vicious personal attacks by a member of the so-called 4G leadership on a poet invited to lead a class for a group of less than two dozen students.”
“Now this is not someone who is a serious threat to the Minister’s multi-million dollar salary, nor is it someone working to cause him to lose another election. This is actually an award-winning poet and playwright, who is lumped together with neo-Nazis and jihadists,” he said, in reference to the ensuing backlash received by Mr Alfian after being thrust in the spotlight as a result of the Yale-NUS saga.
Veteran diplomat Tommy Koh and others’ defence of Alfian Sa’at signals that “Singaporeans will stand up to this kind of bullying”: SDP chairman Paul Tambyah
Mr Alfian was originally due to become an instructor for the cancelled “Dissent and Resistance in Singapore” programme at Yale-NUS, which was renamed “Dialogue and Dissent in Singapore”.
In delivering his speech on the cancellation of the Yale-NUS programme and guiding principles for educational institutions in Singapore, Mr Ong quoted part of Mr Alfian’s poem “Singapore You Are Not My Country”, which was written over two decades ago in 1998, to give Parliament “a flavour of his thinking”.
Quoting Mr Alfian’s poem, Mr Ong read:
“Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all,
Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your anthem”
Later part of the poem says:
“…how can you call yourself a country,
you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums
ten minutes’ drive from the MRT?”
“This is a poem, and we might concede some artistic licence. But Mr Alfian Sa’at continues this attitude consistently in his activism,” Mr Ong alleged.
Mr Alfian earlier in his explanation of his poem “Singapore You Are Not My Country”, highlighted that Education Minister did not quote the poem in full, in which it originally appears as seen below:
Do not raise your voice against me,
I am not afraid of your anthem
although the lyrics are still bleeding from
the bark of my sapless heart.
He elaborated that the context in which the line “I am not afraid of your anthem” appears “makes clear that I have grown up with the anthem as a Singaporean, that it bleeds from my heart, and that in spite of saying ‘I am not afraid of your anthem’ (bravado) I am actually afraid of hearing it and having it rouse patriotic feelings in me”.
“And I am afraid of this patriotic love because it is so involuntarily, it comes from a primordial and irresistible place from deep inside.
“I am afraid of these volcanic feelings because I want to protect myself from loving something too much,” Mr Alfian said, alluding to his love for Singapore.
“Just stopping on the word ‘anthem’ might suggest that I am somehow rejecting symbols of the state,” he added.
Mr Alfian also revealed that contrary to the allegations made in a Yale report on the cancellation, which he said painted him as “defiant and intransigent”, he was open to removing certain elements from the original programme itinerary and substituting such elements with others, in light of sensitivities arising from current developments.
Citing veteran diplomat Tommy Koh and the arts community who came to Mr Alfian’s defence, however, Dr Tambyah said that such a public defence by notable figures in Singapore society has given him “some encouragement that at least Singaporeans will stand up to this kind of bullying”.
![](https://theonlinecitizen.s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/2023/03/26202010/TOC_newlogo_small.webp)
Politics
PAP adopts SDP policies after criticizing them: Dr Chee urges Singaporeans to see through tactics
In his latest video, Dr Chee Soon Juan highlights People’s Action Party’s pattern of criticizing Singapore Democratic Party’s policies, only to later adopt them, urging Singaporeans to see through these tactics and support SDP’s efforts for meaningful change.
![](https://theonlinecitizen.s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/2024/09/06131128/Chee-Video.png)
Dr Chee Soon Juan, Secretary General of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), in his latest video, highlighted that the People’s Action Party (PAP) often criticizes policies proposed by the SDP, only to later adopt them.
He opened by recalling the 2016 Bukit Batok by-election, where then-Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam accused the SDP of pushing for populist policies such as universal healthcare and unemployment insurance.
Dr Chee pointed out that just nine years later, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced a similar unemployment insurance scheme, the SkillsFuture JobSeeker Support Scheme, during his National Day Rally speech. Dr Chee noted that the PAP’s version closely mirrors the SDP’s 2015 proposal, known as the Restart scheme, which provided re-employment support and temporary assistance to retrenched workers.
He emphasized, however, that the PAP’s implementation falls short of the SDP’s original vision. While the SDP’s Restart scheme proposed paying retrenched workers 50% of their last drawn salary for up to 18 months, capped at the median wage, the PAP’s scheme only offers $1,000 a month for six months.
Dr Chee questioned how such a small sum could be sufficient for families dealing with financial burdens, stressing that if the PAP were serious about helping Singaporeans, it should implement more meaningful assistance instead of offering what he referred to as “cosmetic” proposals.
Dr Chee further illustrated the PAP’s pattern by citing examples from past elections. He recalled how in the 2011 General Election, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan labeled the SDP as the “most middle-class unfriendly opposition party” for advocating higher income taxes on the top 1% of earners. Yet, in 2015, the PAP raised income taxes on the top 5% of earners.
Dr Chee also pointed out that the PAP later echoed SDP’s stance on education reform. In 2014, the SDP called for the abolition of the Gifted Education Programme (GEP), arguing it exacerbates elitism in Singaporean schools. Fast forward to the present, Dr Chee highlighted how the GEP is being phased out under the PAP’s Forward Singapore initiative.
Dr Chee underscored that this trend of criticizing opposition ideas and then adopting them has been ongoing for decades.
He recounted how, in 1994, his book Dare to Change was criticized by the PAP’s leaders, particularly then-Minister for Education Lee Yock Suan, who dismissed his policy suggestions as rehashed Western liberal ideas. Yet, many of the issues Dr Chee raised in the book, such as the regressive nature of GST, CPF policies, and the negative effects of streaming in schools, are now areas the PAP is addressing, albeit belatedly.
While Dr Chee acknowledged that it is ultimately good for Singaporeans if the government implements policies that benefit them, he took issue with the PAP’s repeated attacks on the SDP while subsequently adopting its ideas.
He argued that the PAP constantly presents itself as the “A-Team” with exceptional leadership, while dismissing the opposition as “bumbling idiots,” as former PAP MP Lim Hwee Hua once said. This, he noted, is done with the support of state-controlled media outlets, which continue to downplay the contributions of the opposition while glorifying the ruling party.
Dr Chee urged Singaporeans to see through these tactics, particularly during the brief nine-day election campaign period, when the PAP’s attacks on the opposition typically intensify.
He reminded voters that after the elections, the PAP often ends up quietly adopting the very ideas it had criticized. He called on Singaporeans, especially the younger generation, to help spread the SDP’s message through social media, highlighting that in the past, before the rise of platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the opposition was at the mercy of state-controlled media, which offered no recourse for rebutting the PAP’s personal attacks and character assassination.
Dr Chee concluded by encouraging Singaporeans to engage with the SDP and support its efforts.
He announced an upcoming book sale at Ang Mo Kio Hub as an opportunity to meet with supporters, listen to their concerns, and continue the conversation about Singapore’s future.
He ended the video with a call to action, urging citizens to help spread the truth and counter the PAP’s narrative by sharing SDP videos and content on social media.
Parliament
Workers’ Party to question Govt on Mobile Guardian breach and entry of extremist preacher in upcoming parliamentary sitting
In the 9 September 2024 parliamentary sitting, the Workers’ Party will raise questions on the Mobile Guardian breach, which affected 13,000 students, and the entry of extremist preacher Amir Hamza. Other key topics include housing affordability and the costs of the Founders’ Memorial.
![](https://theonlinecitizen.s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/2024/09/04173551/WP-MP.png)
In the upcoming parliamentary sitting on 9 September 2024, the Workers’ Party (WP) Members of Parliament will focus on key issues such as housing affordability, cybersecurity, national security, and public expenditure.
The topics raised reflect the party’s attention to areas affecting Singaporeans’ daily lives, public safety, and the management of government resources. (read PQs here)
Housing Affordability and Policies
Housing remains a priority, with multiple WP MPs addressing questions on the topic. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis is seeking details from the Minister for National Development regarding HDB loan-to-value ratios and HDB resale price trends over the past five years. This aims to provide insights into the challenges faced by first-time homebuyers.
Additionally, Ms Sylvia Lim will question why some Build-To-Order and Sale of Balance flat applicants are restricted from selecting flats in projects with later booking dates, seeking clarification on policies that may limit buyers’ choices.
Cybersecurity in the Education System
The recent breach of the Mobile Guardian app, which impacted 13,000 students, is another key focus. Mr Gerald Giam will question the Ministry of Education on how many students were affected, the extent of data loss, and recovery measures.
This follows a Reddit user’s claim that the vulnerability had been highlighted months before the breach. The Ministry confirmed receiving the tip-off but stated that the reported breach had been patched, although the informant refutes this in a subsequent Reddit post.
Ms He Ting Ru will also address the Ministry of Education, asking how it plans to involve parents more actively in managing their children’s devices following the security breach and the removal of the Mobile Guardian Device Management Application.
National Security and Extremism
Mr Pritam Singh is questioning the Minister for Home Affairs about the entry of Bangladeshi preacher Amir Hamza, who delivered a sermon in Singapore on 9 August 2024, asking if he is on any watchlist in the possession of Home Team security agencies.
Hamza was able to enter the country under a different name, raising concerns about the effectiveness of Singapore’s security measures.
He had publicly announced his intention to enter Singapore on his Facebook page with the date and location specified.
Transparency in Public Events
In another area, Mr Gerald Giam will question the Ministry for Culture, Community and Youth on the People’s Association’s criteria for inviting elected MPs to Resident Network-organized events, asking for details on how equal access is ensured for MPs from all parties
Costs of the Founders’ Memorial
Public expenditure will also be under scrutiny, as Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asks for information on the development and annual operating costs of the Founders’ Memorial. The S$235.6 million project has sparked public debate over the use of taxpayer funds, with critics questioning whether such a large sum is justified for a national monument.
-
Opinion4 days ago
Singaporean voters and the ‘Battered Wife Syndrome’
-
Diplomacy3 days ago
India PM Narendra Modi meets with PM Lawrence Wong; Four MoUs signed
-
Food3 days ago
NTU stall food prices questioned after parent pays S$6.30 for meal
-
Politics2 days ago
PAP adopts SDP policies after criticizing them: Dr Chee urges Singaporeans to see through tactics
-
Civil Society5 days ago
CIVICUS Monitor labels Singapore as ‘repressed’ for crackdown on civic freedoms
-
Opinion6 days ago
Is the shuttle bus service at Marine Parade town cluster just a S$1 million political ad campaign?
-
Economy4 days ago
IRAS reports S$80.3 billion in tax revenue for FY2023/24, a 17% increase from the previous year
-
Parliament4 days ago
Workers’ Party to question Govt on Mobile Guardian breach and entry of extremist preacher in upcoming parliamentary sitting