GE2025: No place for racism in Singapore

My sleep schedule, my meal times, my attempts to go to the gym… they’ve all gone out the window and will probably not return until some time after the GE2025. But I’m enjoying myself too much writing these newsletters to worry about any of that right now 😃

April is WTC's birthday month—which means birthday discounts! Click on the preferred button below to get 25% off the first month of a monthly subscription, or 25% off the first year of an annual subscription.

Highlights

We’re almost there!
We’re at the halfway point of Singapore’s fast-and-furious election campaigning period. Polling Day is just about a week away. There have been a bunch of rallies, the first batch of party political broadcasts and a televised “roundtable” featuring five political parties. Candidates and their volunteers have also been pounding pavement trying to meet as many constituents as possible. For the rest of us, there have been far too many articles, videos, podcasts and hot takes to digest everything. It’s been a full-on time for everyone all ‘round. But this is important, so hang in there!

Friendly fire
I thought the Singapore Democratic Party was doing pretty decently until they tripped over their own feet on Saturday night. The self-pwn came during the rally speech delivered by Gigene Wong from the Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC team. Speaking in Hokkien, Wong veered off her (vetted) script and straight into the persona of a gossipy, ignorant, racist auntie. Her blindsided victim? Fellow GRC candidate, Ariffin Sha. Chattering away with a smile, Wong poked fun at his name by mispronouncing it, referred to him with a derogatory racial slur, described him as “our future Pritam Singh” (because both are Indian men? 😒) and joked with rally-goers that the Marsiling-Yew Tee team really needed people to vote for them so they wouldn’t lose their deposit and Ariffin, a young 'un, wouldn’t get yelled at by his mother (???) Wong might have been trying to be chummy and relatable, but the result was racist, crude and infantilising all in one, highlighting just how privilege—in this case, the privilege of being from the majority race in Singapore—can make one disrespectful and obtuse.

What a nightmare for the SDP and a big disappointment for those of us who’ve been attracted to its messages of democracy, equality and justice for all Singaporeans. I’ve seen comments online calling for her removal from the SDP slate, but that’s not possible at this point in time without wrecking the entire SDP Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC team and essentially handing an automatic win to the PAP. Wong posted two apologies on her Facebook page—the first not very good, the second more thoughtful—and the party also addressed the incident very solemnly at their rally on Sunday night (more on that below, since I was there).

PAP responses
The People’s Action Party has naturally come under fire from all sides as every opposition party takes aim at aspects of the party and its policies. The top “ugh, PAP” hits of GE2025 have so far been:

• The PAP raising the GST, twice, to the current rate of 9%
• High ministerial salaries that emphasise the divide between their wealth and the realities of the average Singaporean
• The existence of five highly paid (part-time) mayors, whose role nobody seems to understand
• The PAP being out-of-touch with the lived experiences of Singaporeans, who are stressed and put upon and struggling with the cost of living
• The uselessness of PAP backbenchers when they aren’t willing to disagree with their own party and are unable to vote differently as long as the party whip is in place

(And, as I learnt last night, people in Sembawang GRC are unhappy about horses?)

The PAP has tried to respond to various criticism and barbs; I’ll leave you to decide how effective they’ve been. Here are some of their key rebuttals and messages so far:

• A greater opposition presence in Parliament “will weaken the PAP team”, because that means that some of the candidates that the PAP has fielded with the intention of grooming them for political office might not get in. Tactical voting is dangerous, boys and girls!
• The 9% GST increase was necessary and, with permanent vouchers and rebates, low- to middle-income households aren’t actually paying that full rate anyway. Actually, the GST takes more from the rich to be redistributed to the poor.
• Mayors are very important because they take on a “regional role” to look at “the entire district, so that CDCs and the mayors are able to aggregate the needs of the district”
• MPs from NTUC fight for the workers by working behind the scenes and raising questions, and the NTUC isn’t a “guaranteed trampoline” for losing PAP candidates like Pritam Singh of the Workers’ Party said

Rally reflections: SDP outside Sun Plaza

It began to drizzle just as we stepped on to the rally ground outside Sun Plaza in Sembawang, then a downpour began in earnest. The crowd thinned out a little as those caught without ponchos or umbrellas. But once the weather cleared up, the space began to fill.

There was an adjustment to the usual rally programming. Before the candidates took to the stage with their fiery speeches, Chee Soon Juan stepped up to the podium first. He led with an apology for Gigene Wong’s impromptu racist outburst the night before (see above), acknowledging that, as the SDP’s leader, “the buck stops with me” and he had to take responsibility for his party member’s unacceptable behaviour. He was followed by Wong herself, who apologised for the third time. She said she hadn’t realised that the term was a slur, but "this does not change the fact that using it was extremely disrespectful and harmful”. (The Straits Times didn't seem to get it, either, as they referred to Wong's racist words as "terms of endearment" in their report on the rally. 🫤) With Chee standing next to her, she sought forgiveness and “another chance to make amends”.

The assembled crowd seemed generally supportive, but not everyone was convinced. As Wong stepped down from the podium, I saw an older Indian man leave, shaking his head and muttering, “What a racist party.”

Ariffin Sha was up next, speaking clearly and directly about what had happened. “It is not casual racism because there’s nothing casual about racism,” he said. “I can accept that there was no malice but intention is irrelevant when it comes to such matters.” He went on to describe some of the discrimination and racism that minorities have faced in Singapore and declared that “there is no room for racism in Singapore, intentional or otherwise”.

That said, he noted that Wong had apologised both publicly and also directly to him in private, that she was remorseful and that this was an example of the sort of tough conversations that we need to have in Singapore to “come out of this stronger”.

I thought this was an important speech to make about privilege and racism, but not everyone was of that view. In the middle of Ariffin’s speech, a man near the front yelled, “Let’s move on! Let’s move on! Shut up, let’s move on!”—further demonstrating the importance of taking a firm stand against racism in a society where some would prefer to sweep things under the carpet.

Paul Tambyah was next: "The bottomline is: Gigene made a mistake, she has acknowledged her mistake, she has owned it. But she is one of us, so the responsibility lies with all of us, and these are the values of the SDP. We do not throw anyone under the bus. When we make a mistake, we admit it. We admit that we are wrong, we take the consequences." All 11 of SDP’s candidates lined up on stage to bow in apology before transitioning into the rally proper. The party has also since published a written statement on social media.

As Surayah Akbar, the first speaker of the night, moved to take her place before the podium, an uncle standing behind me calmly observed, “Not like PAP. [With them,] no apology.”

The SDP's response might not be enough for some who were, rightfully, disgusted and enraged by Wong’s words. Not everyone is persuaded that Wong didn't know the meaning of her words at the time that she uttered them. As mentioned above, there have been comments online saying she should step down. Others see it as the most that the party can do at this point in time and think that, now the party has addressed it, focus can go back to pressing on with the campaign.

Although there were still plenty of supporters for the SDP present last night, this episode has undermined much of the hard work that the candidates—the Marsiling-Yew Tee team in particular—have done over the past few days. And Ariffin Sha and Gigene Wong are still tied together as teammates; much as we’d love to do so, it’s not possible to vote for one without also voting for the other.

Thank you for reading this special issue! Please help me get the word out about WTC by sharing this newsletter.