http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/09/political-openness-for-pap-only/
Tuesday, 2 September 2008, 4:13 pm |
Andrew Loh / Deputy Editor
If
our society is ruled by two different sets of laws – or laws
applied selectively - for different people or political parties, it
cannot but fracture and disintegrate.
Barely two weeks after he announced more space
for political expression, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his
colleagues from the People’s Action Party (PAP) could very well
have just shown what this ‘openness’ mean – for the ruling
party.
On Sunday,
the PAP Community Foundation organised a ‘PAP carnival’ at West
Coast Park. This was reported by the Straits Times on its front
page, with a big picture of PM Lee on a bicycle. The event would be
nothing out of the ordinary if not for one small detail: outdoor
events by political parties are banned – or at least that is what
the PAP Government itself says. This was explained in no uncertain
terms in Parliament last year (2007) by the Senior Minister of
State for Law and Home Affairs, Professor Ho Peng Kee, and carried
in news reports by our mainstream press.
The ban,
said Minister Ho, is a ‘longstanding one’ because
‘outdoor gatherings by parties have the
potential to cause a public disturbance.’ (Straits Times).
Ho explained this in his reply to questions from the
Workers’ Party MPs in Parliament, who asked why the WP’s
application to hold a cycling event at East Coast Park was rejected
by the police. The Minister had said then:
The East Coast
Park is a recreational park for Singaporeans and their families. It
is not meant to be used by a political party to promote its
cause.
Apart from
displacing the usual recreational users…it is an open area where
there is greater potential for breach of the peace, public disorder
and unruly behaviour.
Minister Ho did not care even if the organisers
themselves were ‘well-behaved’:
… even if the
organisers were well behaved, others there might still cause
problems.
And to top it off, Minister Ho defended his
position by saying:
You may be
well-behaving, but there may be other people whom you come across
when you cycle who may stop you, may want to debate with you and
that may attract a crowd, and therefore will result in problems the
police want to avoid.
And the final nail in the coffin:
He said that
police required political events to be held indoors or in stadiums
where problems could be contained, adding that the WP could
consider these venues. The policy applied to all political
parties.
‘The policy applied to all political
parties.’
Well, apparently not.
Having adopted such an unequivocal position on
the issue, one wonders how Minister Ho would explain the police
granting the People’s Action Party a permit to hold an outdoor
event on Sunday – where ‘thousands thronged the park’ and
‘a host of ministers and MPs
[making] their entrance on bicycles’, as
reported by the Straits Times. (One presumes
that a police permit was applied for and, obviously,
given.)
(Read also: A CASE of double standards?)
While we may criticise the Government, the PAP,
Minister Ho or even the police, for this seemingly biased
application of the law, there is a wider and more important issue
which such selective application of the law throws up - and this
is; are we seeing a Government which would, apparently, disregard
the law when it suits its purpose; what impact will this have on
the wider society? On what moral authority would the Government be
able to require everyone else to adhere to and obey the law if it
does not do so itself?
Sadly, such behaviour by the ruling party can
only breed further resentment and cynicism not only among its
dissenters but also increasingly among those who have supported it
as well.
As we said in an earlier article on the way the Government
explained away the Mas Selamat escape fiasco, the Government’s lack
of accountability is bad for the PAP but worse for
Singapore.
For if our society is ruled by two different sets
of laws – or laws applied selectively - for different people or
political parties, it cannot but fracture and
disintegrate. The PAP would do well to remember that
a leader whose moral authority is questionable is one whom no
one respects.
Ironically, the slippery-slope argument which
Minister Ho used to explain and justify his rejection of permits
for other political parties, in the end, could result in his own
PAP sliding down that slippery slope itself.
If it hasn’t already.
