A tough-talking new political party yesterday vowed to fight what it called the “enslavement” of Singapore after nearly half-a-century of rule by the People’s Action Party (PAP).
“Our people have been enslaved all this while,” J.B. Jeyaretnam, 82, interim secretary general of the Reform Party, told a news conference.
He said Singaporean society has been “castrated” and its people left powerless by an executive that holds “absolute power.”
For Jeyaretnam, who has for decades been a rare voice criticizing the PAP, the party’s formation marks his full return to politics after emerging from bankruptcy and being reinstated as a lawyer.
“We now in the Reform Party are not going to play pussy-foot with the PAP,” he told reporters at the close of an 80-minute address which outlined what he sees as the country’s social, political and economic problems.
“I think it’s time now to ask questions and hold the PAP to account,” he said.
Party officials said they held the news conference a day after filing documents to register their party.
The opposition plays only a marginal role in Singapore but Jeyaretnam made political history in 1981 when he became the first opposition politician elected to parliament. He was then secretary general of the Workers’ Party.
A lawyer, he was disbarred when he was declared bankrupt in 2001 after failing to pay libel damages to members of the PAP, including former prime minister Goh Chok-tong.
Last year Jeyaretnam paid S$233,255 (now US$172,578) to clear his bankruptcy, which had prevented him from running for political office.
The country’s leaders say its tough laws against dissent and other political activity are necessary to ensure the stability which has helped it achieve economic success.
They dismiss criticisms from human rights groups who have said the government uses libel laws to silence critics, saying they have to protect their reputations.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS