PAP team questions SDP candidate’s political agenda

The People's Action Party (PAP) team for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC has called on Singapore Democratic Party's (SDP) Vincent Wijeysingha to be upfront about his political agenda.

In a joint statement released on Monday evening by Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Mr Liang Eng Hwa, Mr Christopher De Souza and Ms Sim Ann, it said that a video which has been posted on the internet showed the 40-year-old SDP candidate participating in a forum which "discussed the promotion of the gay cause in Singapore".

The six-minute video clip was posted on YouTube on April 14. Last Saturday, without referring directly to the video in question, Dr Balakrishnan said the SDP was "trying to suppress" the video and that it "raises awkward questions about the agenda and motivations of the SDP and its candidates."

However, during a Sunday press conference where the SDP unveiled its team for Holland-Bukit Timah group representation constituency (GRC), Dr Wijeysingha shot back and asked Dr Balakrishnan to specify which video he was referring to.

In its statement, the PAP team highlighted that the forum discussion touched on the issue of sex with boys and whether the age of sexual consent should be 14 years of age.

The PAP team called on the SDP candidate to reveal his "political motives".

"We believe that candidates should be upfront about their political agenda and motives, so that voters are able to make an informed choice. The issue is not Wijeysingha's sexual orientation. That is a matter for him.

"The video raises the question on whether Wijeysingha will now pursue this cause in the political arena and what is the SDP's position on the matter," they said.

Human rights lawyer M. Ravi - who was prominently featured in the video - has also entered the fray of the raging war of words between Dr Balakrishnan and Dr Wijeysingha.

Ravi told Yahoo! Singapore that he had organised the forum in November last year - meant to discuss the constitutional challenge of Section 377A - which criminalises sex between men.

He said that Dr Wijeysingha was invited as one of the speakers in a private capacity. It is understood that there were five other speakers at the event.

"The context of the issue was a constitutional challenge of 377A which is discrimination in the first place. He (Vincent) was just invited as one of the speakers in a private capacity and I as a citizen have the right to speak about the issues that I want," said Ravi.

"Just because I raised this issue, why must Wijeysingha be targeted? This issue does not need to be a political agenda only because it was being discussed.

"Just because another panelist raises some issue, does it automatically become a cause promoted by Wijeysingha? In that dialogue, we were just speaking our own mind."

We are not pursuing gay agenda: SDP

In an immediate video response to the statements made by Dr Balakrishnan and his team, SDP secretary-general Chee Soon Juan said that neither the party nor its candidates will pursue a gay agenda.

"Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has asked whether the SDP is pursuing the gay agenda, let me state categorically, we are not pursuing the gay agenda and none of our MPs will."

Dr Chee added that the party's "only agenda" is to provide an alternative voice for Singaporeans in Parliament, adding that the candidates were selected on the basis of their ability to serve and that they "are people of integrity and capability".

Apart from underlining that the party is against any form of discrimination, the SDP chief also expressed his "disappointment" that Dr Balakrishnan has raised this issue — referring to the video — in such a manner.

While both parties might have disagreements over policy issues, Chee called on the Minister not to resort to "personal attacks" and adopting "smear tactics".

"He didn't have the courage to say what he really wanted to say at first. And he was beating around the bush.

"We called on Dr Balakrishnan not to continue in this manner. I can only hope that he will not adopt smear tactics in this campaign and we asked him not to go down this road," said Chee.

At the end of the SDP video, Dr Chee urged the Minister to make public the spending of last year's Youth Olymipic Games (YOG).

"Now I would like to ask Dr Balakrishnan to reciprocate. Will he now make publicly the accounts of the YOG and debate our Holland-Bukit Timah team?"

In the interest of transparency and accountability, we hope that Dr Balakrishnan will not equivocate and accept our invitation," he said.

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