Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong took aim at the Workers' Party (WP) and its leader Pritam Singh at the Jalan Kayu SMC rally at Fern Green Primary School on Apr. 27 evening.
SM Lee's dig included how the People's Action Party (PAP) did not need a thicker manifesto as its work can be gleaned just by looking around Singapore, how the WP played up its role in parliament regarding the Income-Allianz deal, and how the WP eventually abstained from voting on legislation to block the deal.
Rebutting Pritam Singh's rally speech
The pointed rebuttals drew applause and cheers from the several hundred attendees at various points.
SM Lee's response came a day after WP chief Pritam Singh spoke at the rally at Tampines Meridian Junior College, where he questioned the role of Ng Chee Meng and Desmond Choo, who are running in Jalan Kayu SMC and Tampines Changkat SMC, respectively.
Singh said at the rally that the duo are better off serving workers outside of parliament.
Ng and Choo are representatives of the labour movement and the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC).
SM Lee in response urged voters to "not play games" with their votes, or else, risk voting out more individuals, such as Ng, which would deprive Prime Minister Lawrence Wong of qualified people who can be ministers.
WP only asked one question
SM Lee took issue with the WP's retelling of what happened with the Income-Allianz deal, saying that the WP claimed Singapore needed more opposition because their MPs asked "a lot of questions" and that the PAP MPs did not.
Singh, at his rally, had criticised labour movement MPS for their lack of parliamentary questions on the proposed deal to merge NTUC's insurance business Income with German insurance company Allianz.
SM Lee said:
He says no PAP labour MP ask questions, but Workers' Party asked.
Wow.
But what he didn't tell you is, the labour MPs may not have asked questions, but six PAP MPs asked questions.
Only one Workers' Party member did.
SM Lee continued:
In fact, you don't need the Workers' Party to ask one extra questions.
Six covers everything already.
And when somebody tells you half the story and then leaves one half closed, and doesn't tell you, you wonder what on earth is he hiding?
So, we open the curtain, "Aaah, that's what it's about.
Workers' Party abstained from voting on legislation
SM Lee explained that the labour movement had felt the deal to be "reasonable" and had supported it, but as the deal went on and the government found out more, they decided to change their mind, passing the legislation necessary to block the deal.
SM Lee said there was "no groupthink", that there was an understanding between the government and the labour movement, and all were "accountable to Singapore for doing the right thing".
The labour movement and the government have a "symbiotic relationship", SM Lee added.
"The Workers' Party had nothing to do with this," SM Lee said, adding that its MPs then abstained from the vote in parliament.
If the WP had been the government, the deal would have gone through as they had not opposed it, SM Lee added.
Don't play games with your vote
SM Lee further said this issue showed that the WP was not needed in parliament.
SM Lee said: "Now, you didn't do anything and you want to tell me that, 'Vote more of me in so I can do more for you?'"
He added: "What for?"
SM Lee continued as the crowd reacted with applause:
Zero is zero.
See AlsoS'porean man, 60, who disrupted lion dance competition & poured coffee on costume, fined S$3,000S'porean man finds 12.5cm 'metal bar' in Lotte snack, SFA investigatingWP's Pritam Singh urges Jalan Kayu & Tampines Changkat voters to back WP candidates over NTUC leadersSM Lee asks why opposition parties took so long to disavow foreign interference, race & religion in local politicsTwo times zero is zero.
Ten times zero is also zero.
So, our system works.
Don't vote tactically
SM Lee then changed gears and said the matter was a serious one and should not be seen as a game:
And therefore, in this election, I ask you, in all seriousness, not a tactical, rhetorical argument, in all seriousness, don't try to come, 'Give him a little bit more votes', 'Give him or him', 'Try to get maybe just two or three MPs from the opposition is very nice.'
He said such tactical voting can cause adverse consequences as there is no way of getting it just right.
"You will not get it right and we can mess everything up," SM Lee said.
He admonished the crowd:
Just vote according to your heart.
If you think PAP is good, vote for it.
If you think we are bad, vote against us.
Don't play games, it's very dangerous.
Full transcript
We know what we are doing.
You know that from your own experience.
So, when the WP says, "PAP's manifesto so short, no detail."
"Mine 120 pages."
Wow. 200 pages will be even better lor.
We don't have to write it down. You look around you. You will know what Singapore has done. What PAP has done.
We did it together. You with us, Singaporeans with the PAP, with the government, with the unions.
We could do it because we had a good team who can turn plans into reality.
And we did in the last term during Covid.
We got through lightly.
Not so many deaths, vaccinated everybody, anxiety but no upheavals, relatively speaking, all went well.
Why were we able to do that? We concentrated on fighting Covid and called an election early and got it out of the way.
Now, if I had not done that we would be footling around with politics in the middle of a crisis and people would have died, and lives would have been lost.
But we lost one GRC in that election in 2020: Sengkang and we lost Ng Chee Meng.
Fortunately for us, Ng Chee Meng had the grit, the sense of responsibility and he stood by his post.
He helped us and got the unions to help us with his NTUC labour movement team to see through the crisis, help workers, train them, support them, encourage them, take care of them, and at the end, we came through.
He proved himself, reliable, trustworthy, committed.
Therefore, this election, 2025, I recommended to the PM and the PM agreed, and invited Chee Meng to stand again.
And he is in Jalan Kayu SMC.
I commend him to you wholeheartedly.
I ask you to give him your full support.
He will serve you well.
So, good government is about good people.
Good ministers, MPs, a team
And to do that, to have a good team, you must first vote them in, right?
We have ministers and MPs and potential officer holders all over Singapore in all the GRCs, including the hotly contested ones.
And if you don't vote them in, every seat we lose, every GRC we lose, you lose a minister.
Well okay, I make do.
I lose two minster, harder to make do.
I lose three ministers, I'm in some trouble.
I lose one key minister, I'm already in quite a lot of trouble.
Gan Kim Yong is in Punggol, he went there because Teo Chee Hean is retiring and he is taking care of Punggol.
There's a hot fight there.
What does Gan Kim Yong do? He's the deputy prime minister.
That's just a title.
He's in charge of the economy, he's in charge of MAS, he is in charge of our foreign trade, he has been talking to the USTR trade representative even during this campaign.
And he is in charge of our crisis response, to survive whatever tariffs and upheavals and trade wars are to come.
You lose him, you can replace him with somebody cheaper?
Are you sure you want to save money like that?
It's very expensive to save money like that.
Please understand, so I hope everybody all over Singapore understands and especially in Punggol.
Please understand, support Gan Kim Yong, vote for him.
Make sure that PM Lawrence Wong has a good man in cabinet who can do a lot for Singapore.
The opposition says, "No problem. We need more opposition in MPs in parliament. You see, we ask a lot of questions, PAP don't ask questions."
What's the proof? He says, "Income-Allianz."
He says no PAP labour MP ask questions, but Workers' Party asked.
Wow.
But what he didn't tell you is, the labour MPs may not have asked questions, but six PAP MPs asked questions.
Only one Workers' Party member did.
In fact, you don't need the Workers' Party to ask one extra questions.
Six covers everything already.
And when somebody tells you half the story and then leaves one half closed, and doesn't tell you, you wonder what on Earth is he hiding?
So, we open the curtain, "Aaah, that's what it's about."
Income was a serious matter because the labour movement had made an arrangement to sell Income to Allianz, a share of it.
And they felt it was a reasonable deal and they supported it.
And the government looking at it, says well it meets all our legal requirements, it meets our MAS regulations, I think we can support it too
But after the issue was discussed further, and we went further into the matter, the government found out more things and decided "No, we have to change our mind."
We have to say we oppose this deal, we will block it, but we will have to change legislation.
Change the law so that we can block it.
NTUC cannot do that. The government has to do that.
But it shows we are brothers with them. Symbiotic relationship.
You make a decision, I look at it impartially, objectively, afresh. There's no groupthink.
We understand why you did it.
You have to understand why we did it. And we are accountable to Singapore for doing the right thing.
Workers' Party had nothing to do this.
When we went for the legislation, Workers' Party abstained.
So, if it had been left to the Workers' Party as government, then the deal would have gone through because they didn't oppose it, right?
Now, you didn't do anything and you want to tell me that, "Vote more of me in so I can do more for you?"
What for?
Zero is zero.
Two times zero is zero.
Ten times zero is also zero.
So, our system works.
And therefore, in this election, I ask you, in all seriousness, not a tactical, rhetorical argument, in all seriousness, don't try to come, "Give him a little bit more votes", "Give him or him", "Try to get maybe just two or three MPs from the opposition is very nice."
You will not get it right and we can mess everything up.
Just vote according to your heart.
If you think PAP is good, vote for it.
If you think we are bad, vote against us.
Don't play games, it's very dangerous.
Top image via Mothership
