Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong confirmed on Friday that he will be standing in Marine Parade GRC for the upcoming election, to safeguard the constituency he has represented for nearly four decades against a team to be fielded by the Workers’ Party and to help with the leadership transition to what might be the PAP’s fourth generation team to govern Singapore.
Goh warned voters of the importance of measuring political parties by the same standards. “They cannot have two standards of integrity, one for the ruling party and the other for the opposition parties. If they do, they will end up with Third World town councils in opposition wards,” he told The Straits Times, adding that Singapore could easily fall back from First World to Third in one generation.
Speaking to his constituents at a National Day dinner held at Swissotel the Stamford, Goh highlighted three strategies to avoid such an occurrence: to open up opportunities for the next generation by growing “fertile programmes” from education to environment, to manage the widening income gap by extending support to the less well-off and to grow Singapore’s “heartware” through community programmes.
