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BEING a member of the People's Action Party (PAP) does not mean you cannot be critical of the Government, said Mr Sam Tan yesterday.
The MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC urged cadres, including those in the rank and file, to voice their concerns regardless of where the party stood on the issue.
'As party activists, we must have the conviction to speak up honestly, even if our views may not be the same as our leaders',' he said.
One of five MPs who spoke ahead of a dialogue at the PAP's annual convention, he cited past episodes to show that the party does not penalise those with dissenting voices.
Take, for example, last month's debate in Parliament over whether Section 377A of the Penal Code - which criminalises gay sex - should be repealed.
Three PAP MPs - first-termers Hri Kumar and Baey Yam Keng as well as veteran Charles Chong - had expressed reservations about continuing with a law they found to be inconsistent and unfair.
Singling out Mr Chong for special mention, Mr Tan noted that the former had voiced his disapproval at retaining the law right after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said it would not be amended.
Citing more proof of the PAP's tolerance for dissent, he pointed out that Ministers Vivian Balakrishnan and Raymond Lim have risen to the Cabinet despite being government critics in their younger days.
Said Mr Tan, who heads the Chinese Development Assistance Council: 'If we were all President's scholars from RI (Raffles Institution) and Harvard, we would all likely think the same way, and come up with the same cookie-cutter policies.
'We need people who are different, with perhaps round holes for square pegs, to let a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand ideas take root within the party.'
An idea he tossed up is for the party to tweak its election strategy, shifting from rational and logical arguments to include more emotive appeals.
Pointing to Taiwan, he said during the dialogue that the PAP can learn from some of the election strategies of the island's political parties.
He was responding to an Aljunied GRC activist who said that the Workers' Party appealed to the voters' sympathy in the last elections.
Said Mr Tan: 'We should look at how we can repackage our campaign strategies in a new and fresh way, so that we will be able to not just appeal to the heads, but also to the hearts of the people.'
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