Wisdom on hindsight seems to be what the Parliament Committee of Privileges into the Raeesah Khan saga is vigorously seeking. On hindsight, the government should not have asked couples to stop at two in the 1960s/70s. That policy was clearly criminal but were the criminals hauled to court and questioned?
Asking Workers’ Party secretary-general and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh and two other senior WP leaders why they did not ride roughshod over the immediate welfare of a fellow MP and force her to come clean in Parliament on the spot sounded like asking them to condemn themselves for something they felt at the relevant time was the right thing to do.
Pritam Singh testified that his topmost concern was the welfare of a distraught fellow MP above everything else. That was when Khan revealed she was a victim of sexual assault, which apparently led her to concoct a lie in Parliament about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station, where she allegedly witnessed police officers making inappropriate remarks.
He said he, WP Chairman Sylvia Lim and Vice-Chairman Faisal Manap felt it was important that Khan let her family know before even thinking about taking any other steps. It was also important, according to Singh, that she took responsibility for her action. Without pushing the matter further, Singh left it to Khan to correct the matter (allegation) in Parliament.
Singh: “Of immediate concern to me was the fact that Khan had not previously informed her family members of her sexual assault, which had traumatised her greatly. In my judgment, it was important that she did so before she could fully address the reasons behind her untruthful conduct in Parliament, and to correct the record. In view of her sexual assault and my assessment of her state of mind, I was prepared to give her the space necessary to address the matter with her loved ones.”
That was the right call to make.
Khan finally admitted on Nov 1 in Parliament to her Aug 3 lie.
Then the public focus started, with the sittings of the Committee of Privileges, to switch from the perpetrator of the lie, the one who caused the whole mess, to Pritam Singh, the person who was landed with the mess and was dealing with it the best way he could, together with his two senior leaders who reiterated to the COP their complete confidence in him.
So what do we make of Raeesah Khan’s testimony at the COP hearing that Singh asked her to “take the lie to the grave”. All three WP leaders denied the allegation. Another Sengkang GRC MP Jamus Lim said the fact that the three leaders knew of Khan’s lie from Aug 8 would only be “material information” which had to be disclosed to the party’s top leadership body if they had, as she alleged, instructed her to take her lie to the grave. But Khan had been told subsequently to tell the truth after being given some time.
All this evidence about showing compunction for a fellow MP, albeit untruthful and unreliable (breaking a promise to reveal the truth but, as a frustrated Sylvia Lim said, instead doubling down on the lie), revealed, in fact, that the WP leaders had been a bit too kind perhaps.
Franky, I would give more credence to Singh’s explanation rather than even entertain anything that Raeesah Khan had to say.
He was right to be more concerned about her state of mind when she revealed in tears that she was a victim of sexual assault, that he felt she should talk to her family members before anything else. The other senior party leaders, Lim and Faisal, shared the same concern. Compunction for a fellow MP overrode other considerations.
Singaporeans cannot be faulted if they have been asking themselves: Who or what was being investigated by the COP? It is a fair and important question because the ex-MP has already admitted in Parliament that she lied and she has already resigned. She is no longer around to cause more damage to the local political polity and because her public credibility must be considered zero, one would have to be wary about giving much weight to anything she has to say.
With this column, I wish all TISG readers Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Sense and Nonsense will take a break next week and will resume on Jan 2, 2022.
Tan Bah Bah, consulting editor of TheIndependent.Sg, is a former senior leader writer with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a local magazine publishing company.