On Thursday (5 December), political activist Brad Bowyer took to his Facebook to share his thoughts on how the People’s Action Party (PAP) is building more “legal walls to defend itself”.
In his post, Mr Bowyer who is currently a Progress Singapore Party member shared an article that was originally published in the Straits Times (ST) 7 years ago when he was still attached to PAP as a volunteer.
The ST article talked about why he got involved into politics and what he hoped to improve. “It gets to a point where you realise the world you live in is what you make of it. If you’ve got the ability to do something, you have a responsibility to do so.”
“I’d like my country to evolve by evolution, not revolution, and I was hoping I could play my part to make it a smoother transition,” he said.
However, in his latest post, Mr Bowyer mentioned that he decided to re-share the ST article for two main points.
The first being that his goals for the country have not changed at all, but he believes that PAP will not help him achieve it as the Party has strayed far from their roots.
“First my goals for Singapore have not changed just that I no longer have any illusion that they can be realised under the PAP flag as they have strayed so far from their roots and are apparently accelerating even faster away from the mass of Singaporeans in their actions regardless of rhetoric claiming otherwise,” he wrote.
Secondly, he also stated that the phrase “change by evolution not revolution” which he said in the ST article is “almost word for word what Dr Tan Cheng Bock said during the launch of Progress Singapore Party earlier this year”.
He also went on to say that the people of Singapore will eventually feel like they have “no democratic means to redress” what the ruling party is doing as they are continuously building more and more “legal walls to defend itself and imposes its will further on the people”.
One of the legal walls that Mr Bowyer mentioned is the latest “assault on the social media space”, which he’s seemingly implying the controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
The political activist was the first person in Singapore who was asked by the government under the Protection against Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) to post a correction on a Facebook post he published on 13 November.
Given all these, Mr Bowyer said that people should use their democratic rights to change the way the ruling party is leading the country, so that the situation in Hong Kong does not happen here.
“We don’t want a Hong Kong situation to ever develop here so please, while there still are alternatives, use your democratic rights as a citizen wisely and change the path we are being driven on before it reaches the tipping point,” he wrote.
He added, “When a government can’t stand on its own record but needs the past, fear, unjust laws and psychological games to hold its ground it no longer has a legitimacy and is only one step away from the final solution, force, to keep its power”.
As such, he asserted that Singaporeans must wise up if the PAP fails to do so.
“If the PAP will not wise up to where we are going then we must or Singapore could once again fall as it has done several times in its 700 year plus recorded history and this time it may not come back because the world is moving on and our luck of geography won’t be enough to save us this time.”
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