By May Wong | Posted: 29
March 2011 1800 hrs
SINGAPORE: Five of Singapore's main political
parties have taken part in a pre-election television forum,
organised by Channel NewsAsia, in the run up to the General
Election due by February 2012.
The hour long programme, in English, which will be broadcast
unedited, is entitled "A political forum on Singapore's
future".
It brought together representatives from the People's Action Party,
the Singapore People's Party, the Workers' Party, the Singapore
Democratic Alliance and the Singapore Democratic Party.
The programme participants were Finance Minister and PAP Treasurer,
Tharman Shanmugaratnam and MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh Josephine
Teo.
The Singapore People's Party was represented by its Second
Vice-Chairperson, Lina Chiam. The Workers' Party sent Gerald Giam,
an Assistant webmaster and an executive council member.
The Singapore Democratic Alliance had Mohd Nazem Suki, who is the
Assistant Secretary-General of the SDA and also PKMS
Secretary-General. While the Singapore Democratic Party was
represented by its Assistant Treasurer, Dr Vincent
Wijeysingha.
It is the first such programme to be recorded since 1988 and Mr
Tharman said that it was a good opportunity for people to get to
know the different parties.
He said: "I think one good thing about it was that there is a deep
concern about wanting to have a sense of fairness in our society.
Everyone shares that. That's foremost on our minds in the PAP. And
I think the electorate will be able to judge on whether we're
delivering.
"[The forum] went very well. It's a good idea to have this exchange
well before the elections so that people get to know what the
different parties represent and whether they've got real policies
or rhetoric."
The programme adopted a structured format with allotted times for
representatives to present their party's position and perspectives.
Opposition members were given half the air time during the
structured segments, and the ruling PAP given the other half of the
time.
There were also discussion segments, where participants freely
argued and articulated their views to give voters an insight into
their thinking.
Mr Giam said that he was looking forward to more similar forums in
future.
"I would definitely want to see more of this because it gives
people an opportunity to understand us better and to be able to see
whether or not what we say, is really what we'd be able to
implement later on."
Dr Vijeysingha said: "It represents to some extent a sense of
unease on the part of the governing party. It shows itself now to
be a party that has found it important to engage with other parties
precisely because the other parties are now showing themselves to
be so credible.
"[The forum] is important because it gives you snippets of what you
can expect. It's also important because you're then able to engage
with the politicians themselves and to watch the free for all
debate between the opposition parties and the PAP."
For Mrs Chiam, the forum was an opportunity to present herself to
Singaporeans.
She said: "I think the forum is very interesting. It gives me a
platform to view myself to the residents, to the people of
Singapore. Because a lot of people have been saying that they know
Mr Chiam but they don't know who is Lina Chiam. And I hope that
with this forum, on camera, I hope they will know more about me, my
views, our party stand.
"45 minutes, spread out among the six of us, I think it's a bit too
thin. I think we can just manage to say whatever we want to say and
hopefully, the people who are watching are not just looking at the
face but understand what we're talking. But having said that, I
think in the end, we need to go to the ground, to talk to the
people, to shake hands and to explain our policies."
Meanwhile, Mrs Teo thought the forum was a chance to engage a wide
spectrum of Singaporeans.
"I thought that it was an interesting opportunity for the political
parties to come together to have a verbal sparring of the ideas
that we have for Singapore.
"On the plus side, I think it gives us an opportunity to engage a
wide spectrum of Singaporeans for them to hear what we have to
offer. On the not-so-plus side, I think because of the nature of a
forum on television, usually it's going to be the sound bites that
come across more strongly.
"What I think Singaporeans need to pay attention to closely is that
behind the words that were spoken, there's a lot of thought that
needs to go into the thinking of how to bring Singapore
forward."
The forum's executive producer, Lee Siew Hoon, said: "We have
decided on this hybrid approach of a structured deliberation and
discussion which we think works better for our viewers, and they
will find it easier to understand the respective party's position
on how they see Singapore's future.
"This ultimately is a platform to allow voters to hear views of the
respective parties and an opportunity to hear from some candidates
standing in the coming GE who want to represent them in
parliament."
The programme was recorded at MediaCorp's Andrew Road studios and
will be broadcast on Channel NewsAsia on Saturday at 10pm.
Encore telecasts are scheduled for Sunday at 6pm and Monday at 1pm
and 6pm. Channel 5 will also air the programme on Monday at
10pm.
A mandarin programme will also be recorded and is currently
scheduled for broadcast on Channel 8 on Sunday at 9pm.
-CNA/ac
