Dissent and contestation are healthy, generative features of a democracy. No single person, group, or political party has a monopoly on wisdom about how a country should be run.
Far from the stereotype of the politically apathetic Singaporean, it is evident in all kinds of spaces, from social media, coffee shops, taxi rides, to elections and Speakers’ Corner rallies that people of all backgrounds care deeply about how the country is run, and have well-formed opinions on changes they want to see.
With increasingly complex social, economic and geopolitical realities to navigate, it is critical that Singapore has a vibrant democracy that encourages its people to be active citizens without fear of sanction.
Click on each subsection to read more about the key issues and demands highlighted in the manifesto
The people of Singapore have lost many of their civil rights and liberties. In the first few decades after it came to power, the PAP government used detention without trial via the Internal Security Act (ISA) which had the effect of silencing and deterring its critics and political opponents. However, more recently the assault on our democracy is more sophisticated. It is manifest in the introduction of broad and vaguely worded laws that criminalise many forms of expression and assembly.
Our Demands
Restore our Rights to Free Expression, Assembly, and Association
- Abolish POFMA, FICA, the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA), and the Internal Security Act
- Legalise peaceful public assemblies. Peaceful assemblies should not require permission from the police. Protestors should only need to notify the police of assemblies, as is the case in other jurisdictions, including Malaysia.
- Protect our right to freely and responsibly express political views, and join any political or civil society association.
- Stop the practice of blacklisting individuals who are critical of the government and preventing them from gaining and retaining employment in the public sector, social service sector and other sectors via oppressive “security checks”.
- Remove discriminatory policies from IMDA’s legally-enforceable content guidelines.
- Stop using criminal defamation laws against independent journalists, such as in the cases of Roy Ngerng, Terry Xu and Ariffin Sha.
The mainstream media is largely state-owned and controlled, preventing it from being a reliable source of information. Many mainstream media newspaper articles simply reproduce the government’s press releases and do not include responses or views that detract from the government’s line, leading to distorted reports. Without a free media environment, the people are deprived of the ability to form informed opinions on issues such as drug policy, cost-of-living, and race relations based on plural perspectives and diverse sources.
Our Demands
Safeguard the Independence of National Institutions
- Reform The Newspapers and Printing Presses Act and The Broadcasting Act
- Establish an independent media regulatory body
- Separate the Attorney General’s Chambers into two organisations - (1) Government Legal Advisor and (2) Public Prosecutions.
- De-link Town Council management from any political party and keep it as a neutral depoliticised body.
The Elections Department and Elections Boundaries Review Committee currently sit under the Prime Minister’s Office. Electoral boundaries are often seen to be drawn and redrawn to benefit the incumbent party, and many have raised concerns about gerrymandering practices.
The Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system invented in 1988 does not allow citizens to vote for individual members of parliament, instead forcing them to vote for a group of candidates together, which often include an “anchor minister” that holds an important ministerial position - this dilutes voter power and manipulates electoral victories.
Citizens below the age of 21 are not eligible to vote despite many conscious young citizens having an interest in how the country runs. It is notable that citizens under the age of 21 are mandatorily conscripted into the army, where they bear arms, but yet they are not given the power to vote.
In the past, the ruling party has threatened to withdraw public services and funding if they are not elected in a particular constituency, which is a form of voter intimidation.
Our Demands
Implement Free, Fair, and Inclusive Elections
- Abolish the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system.
- Remove the Elections Department and Electoral Boundaries Review Committee from the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office and instead let them serve as independent institutions.
- Lower the voting age to 18 to allow younger Singaporeans to have a political voice.
For citizens to form learned opinions about key issues that affect our lives and country, we need to have the right to information. There are unjust barriers to gaining access to important data and statistics that government bodies collect using public monies, but withholds.
Previous calls for freedom of information legislation and for further declassification of records have met with resistance from the government. Independent reporters struggle to get meaningful responses from government bodies when they ask questions. Even academics have to write in to the relevant authorities to request information, which is not always provided.
Citizens are reduced to lobbying elected representatives to use their parliamentary privilege and limited time to ask Parliamentary Questions in an effort to get answers about important national matters that we are entitled to.
Our Demands
Make Public And Historical Information Accessible and Transparent.
- Declassify historical records that are more than 25 years old and make them freely accessible to all.
- Introduce a Freedom of Information Act.