Singapore—Sex, lies, and if not exactly a videotape, there were some photographs, albeit already digitally trashed.
We’re talking about politics in Singapore, which, while less tumultuous in many neighbouring countries, has had its share of scandals.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest scandals that have rocked Singapore.
Affairs have a way of getting in the way…
It hasn’t been a decade since the biggest scandal to hit Parliament hit the headlines and forced the then Speaker of the House Michael Palmer to step down after he had served in that post for just over a year..
He also resigned his seat and quit the People’s Action Party. An MP from 2006 until 2012, first for Pasir Ris–Punggol GRC and then for the single-member seat of Punggol East.
It all unravelled in 2012. In the full glare of national TV, he stepped down in December 2012 after admitting an affair with a woman who was then a constituency director with the People’s Association. She also resigned her post.
Palmer was married and a father, and his lover, then 33, was also married but separated from her husband. Their dalliance was leaked to The New Paper by an anonymous source. who had access to her mobile phone.
But the ruling party is not the only one with such problems.
In May 2011, Yaw Shin Leong’s star had been on the rise. He had just won the single seat of Hougang for the Workers Party with 64.81 per cent of the vote.
This was the party’s highest margin of victory over the PAP since it first wrested the constituency from the ruling party in 1991. Mr Yaw was appointed treasurer in the party’s Central Executive Council.
A WP member since 2001, and a longtime member of its Central Executive Committee, Mr Yaw first stood for election in 2006, contesting in Ang Mo Kio GRC, which included the seat of the Prime Minister.
Then in January 2012, it emerged that the twice-married MP was having an affair with another party member, who was also married, and another report that he was also romantically involved with a teacher from China.
He refused to respond to the allegations. The party’s leadership asked him several times to meet with the CEC to explain himself. But he was a no-show. The party admonished him for breaking the “faith, trust and expectations” of the Party and People”.
As late as Feb 11, he is reported to have celebrated Chinese New Year with 1,000 Hougang constituents at a dinner organised by a team headed by his wife.
On Feb 15, 2012, the party expelled him.
He then left Singapore and is said to have lived in Myanmar in 2016, apparently using a different name.
Pictures don’t lie
Another former MP whose career was tainted by scandal is Steve Chia. Then secretary-general of the National Solidarity Party, he served as a Non-Constituency Member (NCMP) of the 10th Parliament of Singapore from 2001 to 2006.
Halfway into his term as NCMP, his then wife found topless photographs of their domestic helper in the Trash or Recycle Bin of his personal computer.
The wife, who was then pregnant with their first child, then filed a police report.
Mr Chia was able to prove that the woman had posed willingly for the photos, and was able to finish his term.
In 2015, he was to have stood for election in MacPherson under the National Solidarity Party banner, but withdrew before he was officially nominated as a candidate.
He and his wife divorced in 2017.
Now 51, he has been secretary-general of the Singapore People’s Party since November 2019.
Coming down hard
And then there’s the matter of what happens when, say, a an opposition figure alleges that a leader has lied.
“Defaming Singapore’s leaders can be costly,” reads a 1997 article in The Economist, and this has been proven time and again.
Accusing those in authority in Singapore is not only scandalous, but it also comes at a hefty price, as has been the experience of JB Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan, and others.
Perhaps the biggest of all, at least thus far, has been the case of former WP candidate Tang Liang Hong, the subject of then party chief Low Thia Khiang’s now-famous statement: “Political opponents and critics, sue until your pants drop.”
After the WP slate lost its 1997 bid for Cheng San GRC, Tang was sued for defamation by no fewer than 11 PAP politicians, including the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong over statements Tang had made during the campaign.
Tang was said not only to have called the authorities liars, but also accused them of “criminal defamation, conspiracy, corruption, deceit and dishonorable conduct”.
He was told to pay damages of more S$8 million. He has not been in Singapore since 1997 and lives in Australia./TISG
Read also: High Court orders Terry Xu to pay PM Lee $88K in legal costs for defamation suit
High Court orders Terry Xu to pay PM Lee $88K in legal costs for defamation suit