During the Peoples Voice (PV) Facebook Live broadcast hosted by Lim Tean on Friday (3 July), he criticised that there had not been enough time to campaign for the upcoming General Election (GE) since this would be the final weekend.
The chief explained that Singaporeans deserve more time to get involved with the elections as well as understanding the issues that are “critical” to the future of the country. Despite Singaporeans are somewhat being forced into an election now, he decided to “make the best” of this situation.
“I am very excited about the contest in Jalan Besar. I think we have a great chance to kick out Josephine Teo and her PAP colleagues there.”
He had also commented on the GE2020 Debate that occurred on 1 July, that it was a “rather tame event”. Adding that if he was there, he believed that it would have been “a lot more explosive and fiery”.
Recalling how People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Vivian Balakrishnan was accusing Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) Chee Soon Juan for “perpetuating a falsehood” in regards to the PAP’s claim of achieving a 10 million population, the PV chief believed that it was obvious that the PAP was heading towards the direction of ramping up Singapore’s population.
He proceeded to question why PAP only responded now when the GE is ongoing, and not voice up back then when Mr Lim criticised about the plan.
“It is also one of the plans in PV that we are against a 10 million population. And we had made that clear, not only this year but last year. It was clear to everyone who was following the news, that was the direction the PAP was heading towards.”
Conflicts of interests in the Government
Moving on, Mr Lim talked about the conflicts of interests in the Singaporean government. He pointed out that ministers had been denying that there were possible conflicts of interests in the Government, while the spouses of ministers were appointed to high positions like the auditor-general and the CEO of a sovereign wealth fund.
Noting that the auditor-general is involved in auditing government departments and ministries, the lawyer questioned the denial of conflicts of interests.
He further assured the people that if PV is voted into the Parliament, they would speak up on this particular matter and push to eliminate the possibility of conflicts of interests in the Government.
“We would be pushing for codes of conduct which will eliminate the possibility of spouses of ministers or ministers of state from taking up, or be engaged in important positions or responsibilities in the Government, such as the auditor-general and the CEO of a sovereign wealth fund.”
He also thinks that this issue must be resolved that it is “undermining the confidence of Singaporeans” and conflicts of interests are a “huge deterrent” of that confidence.
COVID-19 in Singapore
On the topic revolving COVID-19’s explosion in Singapore, the PV chief claimed that his party was the only the party that called out the Government since February and he claimed that no other parties did so.
“We knew what the Government was doing was dead wrong. And we were proven right on 3 April when Lee Hsien Loong made a dramatic u-turn.”
He stressed this GE should not be called now because the COVID-19 situation in Singapore is “not stable”.
“This election should not be called. The COVID-19 situation is not stable.”
Suggesting that if he was the Prime Minister, he would have never called for the elections at this time.
“There are still a good nine months before the elections have to be called. Not until April 2021, the elections would have to be called. I would spend this period, the next nine months, controlling the situation, and making sure that COVID-19 comes down to almost zero cases in our community before elections are called.”
Mr Lim reminded his viewers that the coronavirus is still spreading in the community, and he slammed the Government for allowing elections to be carried out.
Expressing that holding the GE amid the pandemic is “defeating all the logic and rules of social distancing”, the PV chief urged the people to vote on 10 July to “punish the PAP” for “endangering their safety”.
The importance of alternative parties
Bringing up the incidents where a few experts had opined that the alternative parties are “going to be wiped out” during the GE, Mr Lim invited Singaporeans to think about the consequences of wiping out the alternative parties.
Mr Lim pointed out that after 2011 GE, the PAP began to implement policies that were “more favourable” for the people due to the best opposition Parliamentary result since independence.
He stressed that with alternative parties, it will file the ruling party to roll out policies that will benefit the people.
“You know what happened after 2011 when the opposition achieved its best showing ever since independence. The PAP started implementing policies which were more favourable for the people.
“They started to have things like the Silver Generation scheme, and the Pioneer Generation scheme in the lead up to the 2015 GE. It started to move left when it sensed the unhappiness of the people, they knew that they had to do a lot more as far as services and supporting the people were concerned.”
Lastly, he urged the people to not “give in to the fear-mongering” of the PAP and that their votes on Polling Day remain as a confidential.
The PV chief believed that there is gerrymandering by the PAP in every election. He explained that gerrymandering was allowed when there were not enough observers from the alternative parties at the counting centre on Polling Night.
Since each party would be allowed four people to observe, PAP would always have all four present, while he thought it was “lucky” for alternative parties to even have one at the counting table.
“The opposition would be lucky if we even have one at each table. That is how short we are of manpower on Polling Night.”
As such, he urged people to volunteer as counting agents and polling agents.