Singapore — Commenting on whether political parties should have a more rigorous process in vetting candidates they field, Elvin Ong, Assistant Professor of Political Science from the National University of Singapore, pointed out that both the ruling People’s Action Party as well as the Workers’ Party have had fielded “flawed” candidates in the past.
Prof Ong was commenting on Workers’ Party MP Raeesah Khan’s admission in Parliament of having lied in a speech last August, which had a significant amount of backlash for the WP and Ms Khan herself.
Speaking on Friday morning (Nov 5) on The Breakfast Huddle on MoneyFM 89.3, the professor was asked where he stands on the issue regarding the rigours of the WP’s selection process.
“I think this is a lesson not just for the Workers’ Party but for all political parties in Singapore,” he said.
“The general public reaction tells us that Singaporeans care a lot about the way their Parliamentarians behave, with integrity, honesty and professionalism.
Political parties can put up all sorts of processes and rules and procedures to try to weed out potential candidates with different kinds of flaws.”
He added that while parties may endeavour to tighten the process as much as they can with background checks and the like, those processes “are never going to be 100 per cent foolproof.”
Commenting on Ms Khan, he pointed to her youth and inexperience. “She made an immature, wrong decision to use a falsehood to try to convey her message.”
He also mentioned that during last year’s GE, the PAP also put up a “questionable” candidate, to whom the public reacted so strongly that he was forced to withdraw.
“Till today, we don’t know what happened to that person or what sort of PAP internal processes led to the party” to allow the candidate to contest at all, he added.
And to the point the host of the show earlier made concerning the view that disgraced WP MP Yaw Shin Leong, along with Ms Khan, is also proof of the lack of rigour in the party’s vetting process, Prof Ong pointed out that in the same year of Mr Yaw’s scandal, Speaker of the House Michael Palmer from the PAP was forced to step down due to a similar scandal.
“Political parties can do all sorts of things… but flawed candidates will always be there, and ultimately it’s up to the public to decide how to react to these flawed candidates.”
As to the PAP’s “flawed candidate” in GE 2020, Prof Ong was referring to Ivan Lim, who had been announced as part of the party’s Jurong GRC slate.
However, shortly after his introduction, posts emerged on social media questioning whether Mr Lim was fit to be one of PAP’s candidates due to previous alleged negative attitudes and behaviour in the time when he was in National Service.
The PAP was urged to look into his background.
There was a groundswell of opinion against Mr Lim, as indicated in a petition on change.org to remove him from the General Election. Three days after he had been announced as a candidate, around 22,000 people had already signed the petition.
On June 27, Mr Lim withdrew his name from contesting in a letter to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. /TISG
Read also: Still no news about investigations into Ivan Lim, six months after GE2020
Still no news about investigations into Ivan Lim, six months after GE2020