Politics: Campur tangan? Say people say yourself

Observers of Singapore’s mainstream media and educational institutions are familiar with an obvious disjoint. While they promote feisty discourse about our neighbours—say on 1MDB, race-relations or coups in Thailand—they’re terribly meek when it comes to local affairs. A separate disjoint concerns the right of Singaporean politicians to speak on the international stage. While grandees of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) are free to say whatever they want wherever they want—Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s memorable sparring with the BBC’s Stephen Sackur in Saint Gallen in 2015 just one instance—opposition politicians must tread carefully. Last month, the PAP criticised Pritam Singh, Workers’ Party chief, for appearing on “Keluar Sekejap”, a popular podcast hosted by Khairy Jamaluddin, former Malaysian health minister, and Shahril Hamdan, former UMNO information chief. Singh’s appearance on a foreign podcast “raises serious questions about why the secretary-general of the Workers’ Party would choose to speak about Singapore’s politics on foreign soil, to a foreign audience”, the PAP said.

The two contradictions were this week jointly skewered by Khairy, currently a visiting fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). He called the PAP “juvenile” and said it “needs to grow up”. After Pritam’s appearance, ISEAS held an event where Khairy and Tricia Yeoh, another Malaysian, were asked to comment about UMNO, the Malay party in power for most of its post-independence history. “When they want to talk about other people’s politics, it’s ok,” he said. “ISEAS’s regional outlook forum talks about the politics of every other country. But when it happens to you, when Pritam came here to talk about the Singapore election, suddenly you say it’s ‘foreign interference’.”

This past week, Pritam finally did appear on a local talkshow, “The Big Show” on Kiss92 FM. He explained the party’s decision not to contest in Marine Parade, said he’d hoped to win one or two more constituencies, and fielded questions from kids. The kicker? He’d actually accepted Kiss92’s invite before he appeared on “Keluar Sekejap”. The PAP has not responded to media inquiries about Khairy’s comments, and with so much egg on its face, may not. One can trace the original accusation not to any senior member, but to Petir. The party’s official newspaper is more like a ragtag outfit run by bros schooled in trolling, not thought. The PAP should fire them before they do more damage.