Politics

I note that certain changes have been proposed to the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA) which would provide for the Singapore Elections Department (SED) to disregard the vote count for a polling station if the votes in a sealed ballot box are lost or destroyed before the ballots are counted. A fresh poll can only be called if the election officials consider the …

The Singapore Democratic Party has issued a statement to express its concern towards the recommendations put forth by the Select Committee on Deliberate Falsehoods. In particular, SDP notes that the call for alternative news sites to adopt the professional journalistic standards of the “mainstream media” to ensure “fairness, accuracy and integrity in reporting”, for example, cannot be taken seriously, as …

Is accepting perks and privileges which you know are related to your position of power (even if legal) be tantamount to an arguable case of state sanctioned corruption? The Singapore government frequently waxes lyrical about its lack of corruption and its zero tolerance to any form of corruption. Unsurprisingly, Education Minister, Ong Ye Kung has repeated this line at an …

De facto president of Malaysia's Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR - People's Justice Party) and Prime Minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim revealed that watching Dr Mahathir Mohamad's inauguration as Prime Minister on television in May made him think that he should have been sworn in instead of his former political rival. Speaking in response to a Raffles Institution student's query as to what he …

Former Prime Minister and Emeritus Senior Minister, Goh Chok Tong has taken to his Facebook page to clarify that he does not receive a ministerial salary even though he has the title of ESM. ESM Goh pointed to the recent post by Factually, the website managed by Ministry of Communication and Information, which sought to debunk online falsehood on the …

Statement by the Singapore Democratic Party on the proposed amendment to the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA)  The proposed amendment to the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA) regarding ballot boxes announced last week raises troubling questions. The amendment provides for the Elections Department (ELD) to disregard the vote count for a polling station if the votes in a sealed ballot box is lost …

A cyber-security centre has opened in Thailand with the objective of  training personnel from countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a bid to combat the threats of cyber attacks in the region. As Singaporeans will no doubt be aware, Singapore was the victim of a huge data breach earlier this year with the personal details of …

In a written reply to Workers' Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament, Leon Perera, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong answered that the average Performance Bonus (PB), and the range of PB received by Political Office Holders of all grades in 2017, was 4.1 months. Sharing a table that showed the range of PB over the past five years : PM Lee wrote: The pay …

Sad to say, I have reached a point in my life that I no longer believe that people in power would tell the truth for altruistic reasons if there are no checks and balances to ensure that they do. It is after all human nature to protect themselves particularly if there is so much to protect. The more one stays …

Foreign dignitaries can be invited to share the joy and pride during our National Day celebrations — but only as observers, said Defence Minister Mr Ng Eng Hen yesterday (6 Sep). Mr Ng also wrote in his Facebook post that "the SAF [Singapore Armed Forces] pledge is to protect Singapore’s independence and sovereignty “with our lives". He also said that …