Below is an excerpt of an article published on SDP’s website, the Singapore Democrats on the recent political dialogue organized by National University of Singapore Society (NUSS).
The Singapore Democrats spent an engaging Friday evening at a Political Dialogue organised by the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS), the alumni association of the NUS.
The event brought together the various political parties to discuss the topic “Fresh Challenges & The New Political Playing Field”. The speakers included Dr Chee Soon Juan, Nominated MP Mr Calvin Cheng, PAP’s Mr Christopher De Souza, Reform Party’s Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Mrs Lina Chiam from the Singapore People’s Party and Ms Sylvia Lim of the Workers’ Party (WP).
The closed door forum was attended by more than 400 people. It was open only to NUSS members and invited guests. In attendance from the SDP were Ms Chee Siok Chin, Mr Jufrie Mahmood, Dr Vincent Wijeysingha and Mr Jarrod Luo.
NMP Calvin Cheng talked about the need for parties to pay attention to the young voters at the next elections. He pointed out that youths made up an interesting and significant demographic in the electorate and that they have different needs from the generation of their parents and grandparents. And what about the “New Political Playing Field”? There isn’t any, he pointed out tersely.
Mr Christopher De Souza talked about the various infrastructural projects that the Government had completed such as the Aerospace centre and the KPE highway. He also touched on how the economy had rebounded from the crisis in 2008.
RP’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam described the political system in Singapore as “dysfunctional” and showed how the opposition has a disproportionately low percentage of the seats in Parliament compared to the percentage of votes it garnered.
Dr Chee Soon Juan’s shared the SDP’s vision with the visibly enraptured audience. He presented the party’s alternative economic ideas laid out in our economic manifesto It’s About You. He emphasized that the Singapore Democrats had a realistic economic plan to take Singapore forward. The full transcript of Dr Chee’s speech would be made available soon.
You can read the rest of the article here.
