Since his election as the Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party on April 8, 2018, Mr Pritam Singh only gave his first official address to the party yesterday. It was during the annual WP Members’ Forum 2019.
During his speech, on top of his “firm belief and conviction that Singapore must aspire towards a genuinely diverse Parliament with at least 1/3 of the elected seats in in opposition hands”, he added that “the Workers’ Party should aim to contest and win 1/3 of the seats in Parliament”.
Mr Pritam also shared some excerpts from his speech on his Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/pritam.eunos/posts/2154762557879379?__xts__[0]=68.ARD3M0KcD5_YYLLcLecFD8NS3YXOb41k3IdU3BcdPu1v7Det5c-btqUVXQatHfZg–9eTTHwWQxYE9B1FmCl63H1Xvl4SpViYXZsKcNIahrCU70967punPaYuQbv3BMR3LpeFTZVr-pE_t5wc5Hg6N9YVMfrO65-7z0ArI2aX5XxeyEmVi1PAyJ8TxmE_tZjRqachgM20bjOHG0id0P2ZJnA_jHodsiDy5-Hk9NPLFKx1DE4bILYpMexsrtsgVbz35oq59y9pdQlzC1ItoNHh9HFHFdu6NomKRZjh4VDZ30yIOtL5XDljMWMJpKICIQfppSgBfT5-EN4GDF3Ki5-2S4gQw&__tn__=-R
He spoke about how Singaporeans today host many different aspirations and expectations. As a result, he said, “even members and our supporters will differ in their approaches and solutions to policy issues and problems. This reality means that political solutions will seldom be one-size fits all”.
“Politically, we should aim to understand both sides of the picture to propose reasonable and practical solutions that do not just address one aspect of a problem, but offer choices to our people in the context of multi-racial and multi-religious nation where the common space requires a healthy spirit of ‘live and let live’ and an attitude of tolerance”, Mr Pritam said.
Finally, to sum up some of the beliefs of the Workers’ Party, Mr Pritam shared the following: “We believe in the minimum wage as an expression of how Singapore should protect its most vulnerable and as a national commitment to our workforce.
We believe in more educational choices for our children”.
He continued, “We believe in absolute dignity for the elderly and a national commitment to look after the medical needs of our seniors after they retire, particularly the low-income and the destitute.
We insist that more taxpayer dollar are spent on disabled Singaporeans, who have more mountains to overcome than the rest of us through no choice of their own.
We seek more transparency on a whole range of public finance issues, from the cost price of HDB flats to the investment of our reserves”.
His full speech can be found here.
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obbana@theindependent.sg