All political parties were given sufficient notice for the constituency political broadcasts and no request was made to record the broadcast at a separate location, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said yesterday.
The authority was responding to the Reform Party (RP), which said the five candidates from its Ang Mo Kio GRC team were not given enough notice to record their constituency political broadcast (CPB), which was screened last Friday.
RP secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam, in a Facebook post on Sunday, said the IMDA had given the RP less than a day's notice about the time slot to record the party's broadcast. He added that the IMDA told him that he could not make his speech from a remote location, even though he could not leave his home as he was on a stay-home notice after returning from overseas recently.
The IMDA said in a statement yesterday: "Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam's assertions that the IMDA had not given due notice to the Reform Party for its community political broadcasts are untrue... It is not true that Mr Jeyaretnam was not allowed to record a CPB because he was serving a stay-home notice. IMDA never received any request to do so."
The authority added that it had briefed all political parties about the format of the broadcasts and the recording schedules on June 26, four days before parties officially nominated their candidates.
It said it had told parties that the recording slots were scheduled for between July 2 and 4, and that the time slots would be confirmed only after Nomination Day on June 30.
RP's representatives did not object to this, said the IMDA. The authority sent the recording schedules to all parties last Wednesday.
"IMDA also contacted RP's representatives via e-mail and phone. RP representatives acknowledged receipt," it said, noting that no queries or concerns were raised at this point.
The IMDA said the RP requested to postpone the recording of the broadcast only half an hour before the allocated time slot last Thursday.
The authority said: "Two RP representatives were already present on location, and they proceeded with their CPB recording. It was not possible to reschedule, as postponement would impact the recording for other parties and candidates."
It added that all other parties were able to record the political broadcasts according to the allocation rules and allocated slots.
For Ang Mo Kio GRC, the RP is fielding Mr Jeyaretnam, 61, party chairman and marketing director Andy Zhu, 37, criminal defence lawyer Charles Yeo, 30, telemarketer Noraini Yunus, 52, and human resources professional Darren Soh, 52.
They will face off against a PAP team led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, with Mr Gan Thiam Poh, 56; Mr Darryl David, 50; and newcomers Ng Ling Ling, 48, an independent consultant at the Ministry of Health's Office for Healthcare Transformation, and Nadia Ahmad Samdin, 30, a lawyer.
Mr Jeyaretnam said one of the other two absent candidates could make it for the recording only from 4pm but the team was asked to report at 10am. In the end, only Mr Yeo and Madam Noraini gave a speech in the recorded broadcast.
Mr Jeyaretnam, who made the allegations in a video, said: "So how can this be a free and fair election? It is so completely one-sided. Let me tell you, we will be going to the United Nations after this and making a complaint."
Toh Ting Wei
