Reform Party chief on impasse with SDA

The following is a letter the secretary-general of The Reform Party wrote to The Straits Times Forum on 12 May 2010:

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I WISH to correct Monday’s report, ‘SDA-Reform Party alliance: On or off?’. What I said was that our members had given us the go-ahead to enter into an alliance if negotiation reached that stage.

That is not the same as saying a tie-up has been agreed, nor is it asking us to push ahead with negotiation.

It is simply a vote of confidence in the secretary-general and the central executive committee to take that decision should it arise.

It would appear that the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) has thrown out the baby with the bath water in deciding to treat the summary of broad areas of agreement already reached by both parties as a list of demands.

Normally, in a negotiation, it would be seen as a starting point for entering serious and final negotiations.

We have written to the SDA informing it that it may contact us about the possibility of continuing talks only after two conditions have been met:

It needs to settle its internal disputes, and;

It needs to take steps to trace and deal with the source of the leaked documents as all negotiation must begin with a presumption of trust between the parties.

At our next central executive committee meeting, the Reform Party will make a decision on what action to take should the SDA satisfy both those conditions and come back to us. But it will not be high on our list of priorities.My respect and admiration for Mr Chiam See Tong remains unblemished, and I sincerely hope that he is able to bring them to their senses, although we will concentrate on our own candidates now.

Kenneth Andrew Jeyaretnam
Secretary-General
The Reform Party

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Source: ST Forum