Pritam Singh says ministers can continue serving Singapore if not re-elected: 'Singaporeans need not feel guilty'

Pritam Singh says ministers can continue serving Singapore if not re-elected: 'Singaporeans need not feel guilty'
Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh speaking at a rally in Anderson Serangoon Junior College on May 1.
PHOTO: AsiaOne/Eriko Lim

In his nearly 30-minute speech to a packed crowd in Hougang on Thursday (May 1), Workers' Party secretary-general Pritam Singh made several counterpoints to what the People's Action Party (PAP) had said throughout the nine days of campaigning this General Election.

Notably among them was Pritam's rebuttal to PAP's warning that losing ministers would weaken Singapore, reiterating his earlier remarks that Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, who made a surprise move from Chua Chu Kang GRC to contest Punggol GRC this GE, was not "indispensable".

"If Gan is not re-elected, Singaporeans need not feel guilty — after all, you did not put him at risk, the PAP did," said the party chief, adding that DPM Gan and other ministers can continue serving Singapore even if they lose in an election.

Further refuting PM Wong's caution that a weakened mandate would make it harder for the PAP to represent Singaporean's interests internationally, Pritam also said that the PAP will still have a "very big" majority in Parliament even if all 26 WP candidates were elected.

"Foreign leaders of democracies would give their right arm and right leg for 73 per cent of the seats in parliament.

"They would say 73 per cent is a fantastic result, but they would also say that politics in Singapore is stable, and more than being an advanced economy, Singapore is finally beginning to look like the participatory democracy promised decades ago."

'We have to speak up for Singaporeans'

Pritam also refuted some PAP candidates' suggestions that opposition party members are just talkers.

"It's in a parliamentary democracy that all of us do not just have to attend Parliament faithfully. We have to speak up for Singaporeans," he said.

Pritam's remarks at the rally in Anderson Serangoon Junior College came after some PAP election candidates, during the nine days of campaigning, questioned the opposition's role in Singapore politics.

In his speech, Pritam hit out at "two former army generals", without naming names, and pointed to an interview where Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong was asked why communication skills are so important.

Pritam said that Lee cited an example of how founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's speeches were effective and had "mobilised the entire country".

"So, it is not possible to say that speeches are unimportant," he said.

"The opposition makes its contribution by checking the government of the day, the same thing Mr Lee Kuan Yew did when he was in opposition after 1955," Pritam said.

"As an opposition MP, he could not be a man of action in terms of executing policies at that point… in parliament he talked and talked and talked.

"So I would ask the PAP candidates [to] have a care for our political system. It is designed to represent all Singaporeans."

In his closing message, Singh stressed that the WP was "a force for good".

"My fellow Singaporeans, I trust that you are savvy, thoughtful and patriotic voters. When you assess the collective potential of these Workers' Party candidates before you today in building a more balanced Parliament, the choice is crystal clear," he said.

"And most importantly, before you cast your vote… remember this phrase: The Workers' Party is a force for good."

chingshijie@asiaone.com

For more original AsiaOne articles, visit here.

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