Dirty Politics in Singapore

The People's Action Party (PAP) is engaging in smear campaigns, the kind of dirty politics which have become an infamous part of American elections. The character assassination of James Gomez from the Workers' Party is an example of the tactics of the ruling party's desperate reelection campaign. The difference between the US and Singapore, however, is that the ruling party in Singapore is not fighting for reelection but for hegemony, which also entails a larger election victory than at the last election, when the PAP was able to garner 75.3% of the vote.

James Gomez' failure to hand in a form for application as a minority candidate might be seen as frivolous in most countries but not in Singapore, where something like this becomes a scandal. The issue of improprieties at the National Kindey Foundation (NKF) only recently becomes a 'saga' and does of course not refect on the ruling party. No matter that the NKF's CEO T.T Durai was an important member of the PAP or the wife of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Tan Choo Leng, was its patron.

Singapore is a strange country: A small mistake becomes a scandal because it could reflect on how someone serves in office, while big scandals (one may remember Lee Hsien Loong's involvement in the sales of condos) just become side issues. Of course much is to blame on a media that cannot separate propaganda from news.

This leaves me to wonder how dirty tactics such as the character assassination of James Gomez reflect on the leaders. That's something worth thinking about.