There is no agreement between the Reform Party (RP) and the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) regarding contesting in Yio Chu Kang SMC, said PSP assistant secretary-general Leong Mun Wai on Friday (26 June) during a virtual press conference.
Mr Leong was responding to a question for comment over the RP’s allegation late on Thursday night (25 June) that the PSP did not honour an agreement between the two parties to avoid three-corner fights in the next general election, specifically referring to Yio Chu Kang SMC.
Mr Leong said that while he has been in direct contact with RP’s secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam, the two parties “didn’t actually arrive to a formal agreement”.
He said, “I have been in direct contact with Ken Jeyaretnam right from the beginning and we have engaged in very fruitful and frank discussion throughout. He is a very honourable man and we have exchanged a lot of ideas… but all the ideas need to get our individual party’s [central executive committee] to agree to. So there are certain ideas that were discussed, many ideas, but unfortunately, we didn’t actually arrive to a formal agreement. There’s no agreement between the two parties.”
Mr Leong went on to say that PSP was “surprised” when RP came out with a Facebook post last night accusing the party of breaking an agreement.
The PSP assistant secretary-general went on to offer an apology to Mr Jeyaretnam and RP over the “misunderstanding”, before requesting that the party stop any direct attack on PSP’s Dr Tan.
“If there’s a misunderstanding, then I would like to apologise to Ken and RP for the misunderstanding,” he said.
“But nevertheless, PSP hopes that they will not take issue and attack Dr Tan directly, especially the honesty of Dr Tan which is in no doubt in anybody’s heart,” added Mr Leong, describing Dr Tan as a man of integrity and character.
“So we take a serious view if they continue to attack Dr Tan and we hope that they will stop giving out further accusations and let us all concentrate on the GE,” Mr Leong asserted.
RP accused PSP of not honouring a previous agreement
On Wednesday (24 June), the secretary-general of the Reform Party, Mr Jeyaretnam, announced in a statement that the party will cede West Coast GRC to Progress Singapore Party (PSP) after discussions, therefore avoiding a three-corner fight with the People’s Action Party (PAP) in the upcoming election.
Instead, RP said it would be fielding candidates in Ang Mo Kio GRC, Yio Chu Kang SMC, and Radin Mas SMC—all wards the party has contested in before.
Yesterday night, however, the RP said in a Facebook post that it was “shocked” to find out that Dr Tan “is not going to honour his side of the deal and uphold opposition unity”, referring specifically to the PSP’s intention to contest in Yio Chu Kang SMC.
The post continued, “We can only say that because they have not honoured their side of the deal and acted so dishonestly any deal we had must be presumed dead in the water.”
