GE2025: PPP’s Goh Meng Seng says voters need to ‘teach the PAP a good lesson’

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SINGAPORE - The PAP is holding voters hostage with the group representation constituency system, and the loss of “more ministers” in this election may nudge the ruling party to revamp this system, Mr Goh Meng Seng said on May 1.

“Do not be gaslit by their formula: ‘Oh I lose a few ministers, I cannot work’,” said the People’s Power Party (PPP) chief at a rally in Tampines.

“It is their own doing because they use the GRC system.”

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had said during this election campaign that losing ministers would weaken the Government, urging voters to think about Singapore’s future.

Mr Goh said: “When (the GRC system) fails and it threatens their position, they turn around and tell you… ‘You cannot vote against me or else we die, you die’. Is that a responsible government?”

While Mr Goh acknowledged that “PAP is still good in a certain sense”, he said that “we need to teach the PAP a good lesson in politics”, so that the ruling party may adjust the GRC system to “proportional representation”.

He also used PAP’s Tampines GRC candidate David Neo to illustrate the risk of groupthink within the Government, saying that the PAP has a tendency to recruit candidates from the civil service.

Mr Goh referenced the former army chief’s Fullerton rally speech, in which the latter doubted the opposition’s capability of implementing its proposals and said that the opposition claims credit when the PAP makes changes.

Mr Neo said then: “Singapore doesn’t need people who only question or give ideas. We need people who take action.”

In response, Mr Goh said it is “such arrogance that would destroy Singapore one day”, arguing that civil servants may agree with the Government on policies that are wrong to get into its good books.

Mr Goh is leading a five-member team in a four-cornered fight in Tampines GRC, where the PPP is up against the incumbent PAP, the WP and the National Solidarity Party.

He also lamented, again, that the WP had betrayed voters of Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC by not contesting there without informing any of the other opposition parties.

He said: “Whatever the outcome of this election, I will build my party… and I will contest in Marine Parade in the next election.”

Some of his party mates also accused the WP of being in “alliance with the PAP”, chiefly because of the WP’s decision to contest in Tampines.

Mr Martinn Ho, who is contesting in Ang Mo Kio GRC, said the WP “last minute abandoned (Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC) to compete in Tampines to knock (Mr Goh) out in Tampines”.

“If you elect Workers’ Party, I say you have elected PAP in blue.”

Party chairman Derrick Sim had also claimed the WP did not speak up on the Covid-19 vaccines in Parliament. But The Straits Times’ checks showed that WP MPs raised several parliamentary questions on the assessment, efficacy and safety of the vaccines.

Mr Goh said his candidates are “definitely not scholars and elites, they are commoners” such as Ang Mo Kio GRC candidate William Lim, who set up a Facebook page for taxi drivers to connect, and who has been criticising illegal cross-border taxi services.

“Empathy is the most important thing in politicians,” Mr Goh said. “Without empathy, you do not speak up when it is necessary, no matter how inconvenient. I do not aim to be politically correct. I only aim to be policy-correct.”

Ending the rally, Mr Sim called on voters to spend Cooling-off Day considering each party’s candidates and the values they stand for.

“Don’t be blinded by their certificates, their stars on their shoulder,” he said. “You do not need a lot of opposition. What you need is effective opposition.”