On Sunday (28 June), the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) officially launched its manifesto for the upcoming General Election (GE) online via Zoom.
With the tagline “A Better Tomorrow”, the Party’s manifesto is prefaced and built upon the three guiding principles – “Accountability. Commitment. Empathy.”
“Policies may shift, opinions may change, and different solutions may be required for different times. What will always be consistent are the values that underpin our policies and actions,” said the SPP in its manifesto.
The Party asserted that the manifesto will help the people to understand some of its policy positions and guiding principles.
It also added, “Our policies and positions are designed to tackle not just the short-term issues posed and/or exacerbated by COVID-19, but also take a long-term approach as some things do warrant a fundamental rethink instead of mere cosmetic change.”
The manifesto has been split into ten sections, which the Party noted it should be viewed holistically, as some ideas cut across categories.
The ten sections of manifesto included:
- Empowering our youth by reducing the voting age from 21 to 18, allowing the use of parent’s CPF monies for education, and increasing youth engagement in policy-making.
- Lowering the cost of living by calling no to further increase of GST while introducing increased cash supplement under silver support scheme as well as minimum wage.
- Combating the climate emergency with the divestment from carbon intensive operations and resources, mandatory environmental impact assessments and disclosure as well as holistic extended producer responsibility scheme.
- Strengthening retirement adequacy through CPF by ensuring retirement adequacy, allowing partial withdrawals on compassionate grounds and releasing publication of CPF investment returns.
- Greater democracy through the enactment of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Fixed Terms of Parliament Act (FTPA), and Mandatory Public Declaration of Assets for Elected Officials.
- Protecting our sandwiched generation by allowing parentcare leave, implementing flexi-work arrangements, and introducing lower income tax for new parents and higher tax reliefs for living with parents.
- Improving mental health of Singaporeans by improving accessibility to mental health professionals, providing unpaid mental health leave, offering more appropriate sentencing options for offenders as well as greater subsidies for mental health services.
- Affordable housing such as extending the lease buyback scheme, extending SERS and abolishing ethnic quota.
- Holistic education by introducing environmental education and financial literacy into syllabus as well as smaller teacher-student ratios.
- Strengthening our workforce by providing unemployment insurance and retrenchment rights, reviewing free-trade agreements as well as abolishing the retirement age.
The Party’s full manifesto is now accessible on its website, while the executive summary of manifesto is also available in Chinese, Malay, and Tamil.
The SPP has sent five candidates to participate in the upcoming GE. The Party’s Chairman Jose Raymond will be contesting in Potong Pasir SMC, while the other four candidates – Vice-Chairman Williiamson Lee, Secretary-General Steve Chia, as well as member Khan Osman Sulaiman and Melvyn Chiu – will be contesting at Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC.