Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam said in a Facebook post yesterday that he was disappointed by a personal attack made by a Workers' Party (WP) supporter at a rally on Friday night.

The supporter, Mr Lim Ee Ping, called the late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew "a liar who had hung on to power until he died" and referred to Mr Shanmugam as a "barking dog".

The insults were "very regrettable", said the minister, adding that they were made because he had pointed out three things: first, that the High Court had said the WP was dishonest; second, that if the Aljunied-Hougang- Punggol East Town Council had been a company, the WP might have faced criminal sanctions; and third, that the WP had not answered any of his questions on what it did.

"Disappointing that the WP officially sanctions these vile personal attacks," wrote Mr Shanmugam, who is leading the People's Action Party team in Nee Soon GRC.

He noted that during the same Friday rally in Yishun stadium, the WP's East Coast GRC team leader Gerald Giam said that the party did not engage in personal attacks.

Charissa Yong