Upholding political standards

Since political scandals are not common in Singapore, citizens have responded with understandable shock to news that

Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Tampines GRC MP Cheng Li Hui have resigned

over an extramarital affair. What amplified the development, at the expense of the reputation of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), is that it follows closely on the heels of

the arrest and release on bail of Transport Minister S. Iswaran last week.

It is only right for citizens to wonder whether the high standards of integrity that the PAP has traditionally set for itself – and consequently for the Singapore polity at large, given its electoral dominance – are slipping.

They are being tested, but they are not slipping. Impropriety in any form, whether financial corruption or moral turpitude, turns into a political problem when it ceases to be the exception and becomes the rule. The key challenge is to prevent the normalisation of impropriety – by upholding an instinctive intolerance of transgressive behaviour.