The Reform Party does not see any objective need for a one-day cooling-off period before the general election as proposed by PM Lee on Monday and reported yesterday.
The first reason given by the PM was that Singaporean voters needed time to reflect on their choice and needed time to calm down after the excitement of the election period. We believe the Singapore voter is adult and rational enough to make his or her own decision and will not be swayed by emotion. Furthermore, though the PM said that there would be a ban on political campaigning with only the eve-of-poll political broadcast allowed during this period, there are at least two reasons why this will favour the ruling party:
• Time allocated to political parties is determined by number of seats contested which massively favours the PAP. You need to field more than six candidates to get any airtime at all
• Given the government’s control of the mainstream media and past experience, it is likely that the media will continue to run news reports putting a highly favourable spin on past government policies and/or announcing new ones, with comments from the ministers concerned. Also on past experience editorials in the mainstream media are overwhelmingly likely to advocate that voters should cast their votes for the government.
The PM cites Australia and Indonesia as examples of countries which have similar ‘quiet’ periods before elections. Both Indonesia and Australia are proper democracies as classified by Freedom House with combined ratings of 2.5 and 1 respectively for civil liberties and political rights.
However Singapore is not even classified as a democracy with a rating of 4.5. Also both countries allow considerably longer campaigning periods than Singapore’s nine days in the first place. Australia allows a minimum of 33 days and Indonesia’s last presidential election allowed 22 days of mass rallies.
The Reform Party therefore strongly opposes the current government’s proposal for a cooling-off period. However this will only be one more of the numerous restrictions which tilt the playing field so far against the opposition and which prevent Singapore being classified as a democracy. The Reform Party repeats its call for the government to:
• Restore Singaporean’s rights to freedom of expression by repealing the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act and allowing an independent media to develop
• Remove the Elections Department from the control of the Prime Minister’s Office. We call upon the government to release the latest electoral boundaries now and in any case well ahead of the next election so that the opposition have a chance to prepare.
• Extend the campaign period to three weeks from the current nine days
• Abolish the GRC system and return to SMCs
• Refrain from threatening voters that if they elect opposition candidates their constituency will be denied the legitimate benefits that are due to them from the taxes they have paid.
• Amend the libel laws to bring us in line with free nations like the USA and Australia
Released by the Reform Party’s CEC:
Kenneth Jeyaretnam
Edmund Ng
James Teo
Tony Tan
Justin Ong
Amy Lui
Mohammed Affendy
Quek Teow Chuan
Tan Tee Seng
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