Economics professor Jamus Lim, one of the Workers’ Party (WP)’s candidates announced on Friday (26 June) for the coming general election distributed Party flyers to residents from door to door last night.
While flanked by four WP volunteers, Dr Lim highlighted that the flyer distribution was made in line with social distancing rules.
The ‘rule of five’ for gatherings in Phase Two following the circuit breaker also applies to walkabouts leading up to the next GE, which will be held on 10 July.
“Socially-distanced flyer distribution with a 5-person team as the Workers’ Party ramps up for election #makeyourvotecount,” Dr Lim wrote in a Facebook post last night.
The flyer distribution exercise, he said in another Facebook post, serves as a “reminder that as a party, we represent all voices, regardless of race, language, or religion”.
Sharing a photograph of Dr Lim “leading a team of volunteers” in distributing Party flyers from Friday night, WP central executive committee member Lee Li Lian said that she is highly “impressed by his humility despite his impressive background”.
“I call him the Ang mo Beng 🙂
“By the way, he uses Singlish and Hokkien to converse as well !” She wrote.
An alumnus of elite schools in Singapore such as Catholic High Primary, Raffles Institution, and Raffles Junior College, Dr Lim in his professional life engaged in policy issues at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, international development at the World Bank, and portfolio management at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority before entering academia.
He currently teaches at ESSEC Business School.
In the introductory press conference on Friday, Dr Lim expressed concern on how children in Singapore today juggle academic life with jam-packed extracurricular activities and tuition schedules, only to be met with a world that their education has not prepared them for.
He cited several challenges faced by Singaporeans in today’s world — from young graduates working as private-hire drivers and delivery persons to professionals in their 50s facing retrenchment, to “old aunties and uncles” who have to clean tables to sustain a living due to inadequate CPF savings for retirement.
Consequently, Dr Lim aims to advocate for the creation of jobs “that Singaporeans actually want”, to “raise innovation capacities of homegrown companies”, and to suggest “alternative sources of income rather than relying so much on raising taxes”.
The drop in international trade, as well as a rising trend in deglobalisation and deceleration among global economies, have been taking place even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thus, Singapore as a trade-dependent nation, should reassess its current economic model and begin tapping on “indigenous” economic and innovative capacity while reducing overreliance on “foreign capital”, said Dr Lim.
WP’s presence in Parliament as an alternative voice, he added, intends to push “the margins of what has not been asked or even imagined by the incumbent”.