By: Andrew Loh
After the uproar over the personal attacks by the People’s Action Party (PAP) on Dr Chee Soon Juan, the sister of the Prime Minister – Dr Lee Wei Ling – launched another criticism of the SDP leader.
Writing on her Facebook page on Thursday, Dr Lee responded to her name being used as a signatory of an online letter calling on the PAP to stop its “gutter politics”. Dr Lee clarified that she had not signed the letter.
Then she launched her attack on Dr Chee, saying that “his true nature should be fully exposed.”
She added:
“Last week, he allowed his speakers to attack David Ong and then came on stage and pretended to be magnanimous and said we should not attack character. When pressed, he admitted he knew what the fellow speakers were going to say.”
And because of this (and other things), Dr Lee questioned if Dr Chee has “truly reformed”.
She says she does”not think he is fit to be in Parliament.”
There are several things which Dr Lee said which would require some unwinding, but I won’t go into that for now.
What I want to address is her holier-than-thou attitude in slamming Dr Chee for “[playing] the martyr” after it was pointed out [to him] that other SDP members had made personal attacks against the PAP’s former MP for Bukit Batok, David Ong, in their rally speeches.
“Why does he not deal with facts: why did he in the first place agree to his speakers attacking David Ong’s character, while pretending to be above it all?” Dr Lee asks.
Let us, first of all, remember that it was also Dr Lee who labelled her own brother, the prime minister, “a dishonourable son”.
So, one would wonder if Dr Lee feels that someone who is described by her as such is also unfit to be in Parliament.
Second, Dr Lee was silent when the PAP itself went back on its words to adhere to a clean fight in Bukit Batok.
On Nomination Day, the PAP’s CEC member, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, promised that the PAP’s campaign in the SMC would be a clean one.
He made this personal pledge to the SDP’s Paul Tambyah at the Nomination Centre.
“On nomination day, DPM Tharman met me and we both agreed that we would keep the campaign clean and fair, and focus on issues,” Dr Paul said in his statement to the media in response to the PAP attacks on Dr Chee. (See here.)
But what happened?
Mr Tharman’s promise was disregarded by other PAP ministers, and even the Speaker of Parliament, who all gleefully launched into vicious personal attacks on Dr Chee just a day after Nomination Day, led by Dr Lee’s brother himself.
One could ask the same question of Mr Tharman which Dr Lee asked regarding Dr Chee: “What do you say about such a man?”
So, does Dr Lee practise double standards – keeping mum when her own brother and his party renege on a promise, but attacking others who she sees as doing the same?
But if we accept her line of argument about Dr Chee, what then would that say about Mr Tharman and his colleagues, who also reneged on a promise?
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Published with permission from Andrew Loh’s website.
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Editor’s note: Dr Lee has posted another note in her Facebook:
