Speaking to the media after a walkabout at Fernvale hawker centre in Jalan Kayu SMC, Workers’ Party’s chief Pritam Singh said he believes that there are “good people in various political systems.”
“Even if you have a parliament with one-third of it comprising opposition MPs, you will have a government that is free to address the problems of the day and problems of tomorrow,” added Singh.
“Even if you have a parliament with one-third of it comprising opposition MPs, you will have a government that is free to address the problems of the day and problems of tomorrow,” added Singh.
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00:00On that note, though, you know, SMB also said that voting in more opposition and peace could
00:08mean losing key ministers, which he said would affect Singapore's ability to handle crisis
00:13managed economy.
00:14One example is, of course, DPM Gun that he says is valuable to you.
00:18You've positioned it as workers' party backbenchers versus PAP's backbenchers.
00:23Why is your response to this argument that a stronger opposition comes at the cost of
00:27effective governance of Singapore and the positioning that Mr Lee has put forth in particular?
00:31I think it's a weak argument.
00:33It's a weak argument because precedent informs us otherwise.
00:37Let's look at Georgiou.
00:39I remember in 2011, I think it was senior minister, sorry, ESM Goh who said, you know, he's a core
00:47member of the cabinet, not just a cabinet member, but within cabinet, there's a group of core
00:53members and he was in the core membership.
00:57So, and I remember at that point also, a reporter asked him, is Mr. Tharman in the core membership?
01:04And he said, no, Mr. Tharman is not in the core membership yet.
01:07So we know within cabinet, there's a smaller group of people.
01:10And so I think that argument one step further, actually, Giorgio did not succeed in the 2011
01:17elections.
01:18Did suddenly our foreign ministry lose its bearings?
01:21It did not.
01:22It did not.
01:23Because there's so much debt in parliament, even though you may have one third of parliament
01:28in opposition hands.
01:29So I'm very surprised to hear these arguments.
01:32In fact, if you think a little bit harder about it, it just reflects on the PAP.
01:36With respect, I think Mr. Giorgio held a significant number of portfolios and issues under his belt.
01:44Look, his influence is even felt till today.
01:47He's got incredible links all over the world.
01:49And I'm sure Mr. Gan Kim Yong will retain these links all over the world.
01:53And I'm sure there's no difficulty in the PAP government, including Mr. Gan Kim Yong, even
01:58if he is not elected, in some of these discussions, if they deem him to be so critical and important.