This whole Raeesah Khan episode is messy. It has so many repercussions. Right now, any number of people are dealing with the ripples which will continue to unravel for some time – for good as well as to the disadvantage of other non-government activists.
Parliament’s Committee of Privileges will be looking into Leader of the House Indranee Rajah’s complaint following the Sengkang GRC MP’s admission that she lied about details of a sexual assault case she alleged was mishandled by the police. She said she did not accompany a victim to a police station as she had claimed. The Workers’ Party has set up its own disciplinary panel to “look into the admissions”.
The Committee of Privileges can be expected to uphold the sanctity of always speaking the truth, even as Parliament confers on its members a big amount of freedom to debate issues. A breach will have consequences. There may even be consequences beyond that of breaching privileges. Civil proceedings – by the police, for example – may well take place once the parliamentary privilege has been nullified.
The knives are out. In one fell swoop, Raeesah Khan’s political career and personal life look like being thrown to the wind. Not a fate we would wish on anyone surely, especially as the youngest ever elected MP (she was 27 in 2020) has brought so much energy and determination to sometimes push the envelope on the problems of the minority and the disaffected. She has been a social activist since she was 17, mainly focusing on underprivileged families, survivors of sexual abuse, youth activists, migrant workers and refugee issues, according to Wikipedia.
What do I think?
There may be a larger issue at stake here.
It would be a great pity to lose such an important and committed voice as Raeesah’s. We want our youths to step forward and make a genuine difference in the real national conversation, and not to be a too unquestioning part of an establishment-sanctified group thinkers’ universe where everything is la di da. She is one such young MP not keen to wayang away the problems of the disadvantaged and abused. Raeesah represented this new generation of younger Singaporeans who are fighting for authentic and not cosmetic change.
She was wrong to have lied in Parliament and should rightly be prepared to accept the punishment.
Resign? Expel her? Sue her? We await what’s coming next – which some say should even see WP leader Pritam Singh accepting responsibility for not properly guiding his young MP, the way that Low Thia Khiang mentored him when Pritam was a fresh face and rookie.
Raeesah should now come clean, once and for all. Quite relevant, perhaps not legally speaking, but more to understand her thinking or state of mind was her statement that she herself was a victim of sexual abuse when she was studying abroad. Was it just her roommate then or was she trying to use the roommate as a proxy to disguise her own experience, an entirely different case altogether? There is also the matter of the Committee of Privileges or the police wanting to get to the bottom of the story of the sexual assault case she said she learnt from having participated in the local support group which triggered her complaint. Did the alleged inappropriate police conduct – that the victim suffered unsympathetic comments by an officer or officers – take place? Will the woman be summoned to testify, notwithstanding the confidentiality of what was said in such groups?
Whether Parliament will be a better place without Raeesah Khan – if she resigns or is pressured by her party to quit or is sacked by Parliament – we shall have to see. The voters of Sengkang will pass their own judgement in the next GE too, if the WP team’s integrity is perceived as having been affected by her actions.
Raeesah made a stupid, stupid mistake. But the mistake is, for lack of a better phrase, understandable in retrospect. No one is perfect. We are all human.
Tan Bah Bah, consulting editor of TheIndependent.Sg, is a former senior leader with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a local magazine publishing company.