Singapore — Workers’ Party politician Yee Jenn Jong took exception to a recent comment from Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who had said that “nobody would be more pleased” than the leadership of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) if the Group Representation Constituency system were no longer necessary.
Mr Wong touched on the issue of race and the GRC system in a Jun 25 speech at a forum hosted by the Institute of Policy Studies and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
The Minister called for more understanding on the preservation of cultures and traditions and the possibility of an ideal society without the need for a GRC system.
At one point in his speech, he said, “Believe me, nobody would be more pleased than the PAP leadership – past and present, from Lee Kuan Yew and S Rajaratnam onwards – if one day we no longer needed the GRC system to ensure sufficient minority representation in Singapore.”
Mr Yee, who had served from 2011 to 2015 as a Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP), responded to this in a tersely-worded Facebook post.
“Nobody more pleased than the PAP if the GRC is not needed?
For starters, you can look at the WP slate in the last GE to see who took action first and fielded more minorities than required.
Next, you can also let the EBRC report to a more neutral body and reform the electoral system to have fairer elections,” he wrote.
After a number of netizens left comments on his post, he added a bit of Singapore’s political history, narrating how in 1982, the PAP’s Chinese candidate lost to a minority candidate, the late J B Jeyaretnam, the former head of the WP.
It was after this that then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew “first mooted the idea of twin constituencies to bring minority candidates in with other candidates” and “instead 3-man GRCs were formed and implemented in the 1988 GE.”
The late Prime Minister had been concerned, Mr Yee wrote, “that minority candidates would lose in future elections to stronger opposition candidates.”
Therefore, he added, the idea of race representation in Parliament followed PAP’s losses, and the ruling party, he noted, “does not like to lose, not even a single seat.”
The former NCMP also underlined that “The opposition, however, took their first-ever seat with a minority candidate.”
He added that he believes GRCs grew bigger after “powerful GRCs had been formed to fend off the opposition.”
And in 1991, the PAP lost four single member constituencies, as the opposition focused on SMCs and fielded stronger candidates.
“In my opinion, what started as something for racial representation, became a convenient tool for political dominance. The push for racial representation only started when the PAP lost its first seat post-independence,” he added.
Like WP head Mr Pritam Singh, Mr Yee acknowledged that while Mr Wong gave a “fair speech” overall, but also wrote “We need an honest conversation about what the electoral system should be….Yes, race issues are real but let’s not hide behind race issues and hijack the electoral system.”
/TISG
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