The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) announced five more of its candidates who will be participating in the upcoming General Election (GE) via an online press conference held on Thursday (25 June).
Introducing this third slate of candidates to the press, PSP Secretary-General Dr Tan Cheng Bock noted that these candidates, like the ones introduced before, are “very ordinary people” who have stepped forward to help the country and who represent a spread of talent from all walks of life.
First up was Michael Chua, a military man and current organising secretary of the PSP. The 55-year old left active service with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in 2002 but continued to perform National Service as an NSMen as a Deputy Bridge Commander until 2016. Following that, Mr Chua had various stints in the private sector including with Temasek linked companies and SMEs. He currently runs his own business.
Dr Tan noted that Mr Chua was among the first 12 people to step forward to form PSP, adding that he plays a key role in managing the growth of the party.
Next was Mr Kumaran Pillai, 49-year-old technoprenuer. Mr Pillai has had a varied career in venture acceleration, IT, publishing, and journalism. Before joining politics, he was a founder of The Independent News Singapore. Mr Pillai currently advises startups in South East Asia and manages a portfolio of startup companies. He is the current CEO of Apple Seed, a Singapore-based venture accelerator.
One of the policy areas Mr Pillai is focused on is relation to the hyper-competitive economic environment in Singapore which he says has left many Singaporeans behind, as well as the current model of wealth generation over income generation which makes upward mobility difficult for future generations.
Another candidate that PSP will be fielding is 43-year old litigator Wendy Low. Ms Low has been profiled as one of the “50 IP Litigators You Should Know” in the Asia Pacific Region. She currently heads the IP advisory and dispute practice Eldan Law LLP and was previously a partner at Rajah & Tann, one of the largest law firms in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Ms Low is also an active advocate for women’s issues with various non-governmental organisations in both Hong Kong and Singapore including AWARE. Most recently, she volunteered with Justice Without Borders providing pro bono legal assistance to domestic workers who had been abused or treated unfairly in their workplace in Singapore. She also volunteers with youth-related NGOs.
Ms Low says she hopes leverage technology to empower women, freelancers, and the local community to gain meaningful home-based employment.
Next to be introduced was 57-year-old Nadarajah Loganathan, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Singapore Armed Forces, having served for 25 years. After his military career, Mr Loganathan got into education, teaching and training adults.
As such, his concerns for the nation are deeply rooted in the way education policies are crafted and implemented, which he says can be improved. He also emphasised his steadfastness in pushing for Singaporeans to be prioritised in job opportunities.
Mr Loganathan is not new to the political scene either, having assisted Dr Tan in his bid for the presidential election back in 2011. He also noted attending every rally by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, saying that the first generation leaders were “absolutely fantastic”.
However, Mr Logan noted that he feels the current government’s policies are not people-centred, focused mostly on growing GDP instead. This, he said, was one of the reasons why he decided take a more active role in politics and join the PSP.
Last but not least was Damien Tay Chye Seng, 51, who has had 30 years of commercial operations experience in MNCs in various sectors from electronics, retail and medical. The current customer service manager said he was politically awakened to the situation in Singapore after the 2011 general election, feeling that change of policies can only happy via the ballot box.
The three areas which Mr Tay is championing for Singapore are better job opportunities for Singaporean in the light of globalisation, bridging the inequality gap and distribution of wealth, and climate change in the light of continued investment in the physical structure of the nation’s economy.