Singaporean minister of transport S. Iswaran yesterday resigned after being charged with corruption in the biggest political scandal in almost four decades, which has cast a pall on the city-state known for clean governance.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) accepted Iswaran’s resignation as a Cabinet minister and lawmaker, Lee’s office said in a statement.
Iswaran, who is out on bail, rejected the 27 charges against him, including allegedly obtaining tickets to musicals and soccer matches in the UK.
Photo: AFP
“I am determined to uphold the integrity of the party and the government, and our reputation for honesty and incorruptibility,” Lee said in the statement, referring to the ruling People’s Action Party. “Singaporeans expect no less.”
Iswaran, 61, is the first key minister to get embroiled in a graft probe since 1986 when then-minister for national development Teh Cheang Wan (鄭章遠) was investigated for accepting bribes. Teh denied receiving the money and died before he could be formally charged.
Iswaran and property tycoon Ong Beng Seng (王明星) were arrested in July last year in a case that has challenged Singapore’s reputation for clean governance at a time when Lee is seeking to step aside after almost two decades leading the country.
“I reject the allegations in the charges and will now focus on clearing my name,” Iswaran wrote in his resignation letter to Lee that was made public after the charges were announced.
The former politician was slapped with an array of charges that spanned from 2015 to May last year. They included two counts of corruption, 24 counts of obtaining “valuable things” from someone he had business dealings with as a public servant, and one for obstructing justice. If convicted, he faces fines and a possible jail term.
“This is not just a legal battle for Iswaran and the public prosecutor,” said Eugene Tan, a law professor at Singapore Management University. “There is now a political battle for the government to renew trust and confidence to the voters that they have an upright system.”
Lee, 71, is expected to hand over the reins to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), by November in a long-telegraphed succession.
Wong yesterday said those plans remain on track.
“As far as the impact on succession is concerned, there will be no impact,” Wong told reporters. “Will this incident have an impact on the party and party morale? I have no doubt that it will, but we cannot allow this political hit to compromise our zero-tolerance stance against corruption.”
The charges against Iswaran include favors the former minister allegedly obtained from Ong such as tickets to musicals on the West End from Kinky Boots and The Book of Mormon to Waitress. He also allegedly obtained tickets to UK soccer matches, took a flight on Ong’s private jet, a S$4,738 (US$3,526) stay for one night at the Four Seasons Doha and tickets to the F1 in Singapore.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS