Activist calls on S’poreans to protest reserved Presidential Election by spoiling their votes

Social activist Gilbert Goh is calling on Singaporeans to protest the Presidential Election reserved for minorities from the Malay race, by spoiling their votes. Writing in his Facebook, Gilbert assured voters that it as not illegal to spoil their votes and that they will still be eligible to vote in the next General Election.

The activist also advised how voters may spoil their votes, either by returning a blank vote or by ticking on two or more candidates. In another post, he also demonstrated how voters can spoil their votes by inscribing the name of a candidate who is not in the race in their ballot papers.

Gilbert believes that a large number of spoilt votes will send a strong message of defiance and protest to the government.

“Singaporeans should come together and spoil their vote so that we can send a strong message to the government not to meddle in our country’s constitution anyhow thus blatantly trying to side-line a credible candidate who is not the ruling party’s favourite!”

Although he said that voters may vote against the People’s Action Party (PAP)-approved candidate to show their displeasure at the regime which recently changed the rules for the Presidential Elections, he did not elaborate how a large number of spoilt votes might actually tilt the election in the favour of the PAP-approved candidate.

The last Presidential Election saw Dr Tony Tan being elected with a slim margin of 0.3 per cent, and 1.7 per cent of the votes cast in that election were spoilt ones.

Gilbert believes that the PAP-government is using the issue of race to further divide Singaporeans, and said that Singaporeans should unite in this act of defiance to prove a point that the Government has no right to meddle in the country’s constitution just to forward their agenda.