A police report has been filed against the People’s Action Party (PAP) First Assistant Secretary-General Heng Swee Keat on Sunday (5 July), over his past remarks that the older generation of Singaporeans are not ready to have an individual from a minority race as their Prime Minister.
This came after two police reports were lodged against the Workers’ Party (WP)’s candidate Raeesah Khan, with regards to her comments on social media that allegedly promote “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race”.
The police report against Mr Heng was posted on All Singapore Stuff on Monday (6 July), in which the person – who filed the police report via SingPass – cited TODAY’s article titled “Older generation of S’poreans not ready for non-Chinese PM: Heng Swee Keat” which published on 29 March 2019.
In the article, it was reported that Mr Heng – who is tipped to be the next Prime Minister – had implied that while “a segment of Singapore’s population is happy to have an individual from a minority race as their Prime Minister, the older generation is not ready for that”.
He was responding to a question from the Assistant Professor Walid Jumblatt Abdullah of NTU’s School of Social Sciences’ public policy and global affairs programme, who pointed out the popularity of the PAP’s Tharman Shanmugaratnam among Singaporeans.
Mr Heng replied, “My own experience in walking the ground, in working with different people from all walks of life, is that the views — if you go by age and by life experience — would be very different”.
In reference to that, one Singaporean – who hinted that he is from a minority group – finds Mr Heng’s remarks to be “socially divisive” and makes him “feels unsafe”.
“I believe this comment promotes enmity between different groups on grounds or religion or race and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony,” the person stated in the police report.
He added, “This comment unknowingly or knowingly promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion or race, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious or racial groups.”
Meanwhile, the PAP had called out the WP today to clarify its stance on Ms Raeesah’s social media posts and questioned why she is “worthy of consideration” as a Member of Parliament (MP).
It added that the WP should ask Ms Raeesah to “make public” her other posts and review those as well.
“This will allow voters to make a clear assessment of her views, and her suitability to be elected into Parliament,” the PAP stated. “The WP should not ask voters to write it a blank cheque in Sengkang or anywhere else it contests.”
Now that Mr Heng has also been alleged of promoting “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race” in his past remarks, should he “make public” his private messages to prove that he is not close to being racist at all?