Progress Singapore Party sees fourth departure in two months, as Ravi Philemon quits
For Mr Ravi Philemon, this is the third time he has left a political party in the last five years.
SINGAPORE — Opposition politician Ravi Philemon has resigned from the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), in the latest departure from the fledgling party led by veteran politician Tan Cheng Bock.
PSP was officially registered in March last year and is the youngest political party in Singapore.
Over the past two months, two members have been expelled while former party vice-chairman Michelle Lee and Mr Philemon have resigned.
In March, ex-member Jan Chan was expelled for writing a religiously "insensitive and offensive post" on Facebook. Earlier this month, PSP sacked Mr Daniel Teo Weilong, after he confessed to making a video in which he anonymously accused the party of being “infiltrated by foreign proxies”.
Mr Philemon was among the 10 PSP members who were accused of working with outsiders. Mr Teo has since made a public apology, in which he “admits and acknowledges that these allegations are false and without basis”.
Mr Philemon and a few others had made police reports over the video but he subsequently said that he would not pursue the matter after Mr Teo apologised.
Speaking to CNA, Mr Philemon confirmed his resignation on Thursday (May 14) but he declined to say why. On whether it was because of the video, he said it was "a series of events" that were linked to that incident, but it was not the direct cause of his decision to quit.
"I can tell you that resigning was not my first course of action, it was perhaps my last course of action," he told CNA.
This is the third time Mr Philemon has left a political party in the last five years.
Before joining PSP in July last year, Mr Philemon had been with the National Solidarity Party (NSP) and the Singapore People’s Party (SPP).
He joined NSP in 2012 but switched to the SPP in March 2015 after a failed attempt to become its secretary-general. He contested in the 2015 General Election held in September that year, garnering 25.2 per cent of the vote against the People’s Action Party’s Amy Khor.
In a statement to CNA, a PSP spokesperson confirmed Mr Philemon’s resignation but said: "For voluntary resignations, we do not disclose reasons out of respect for the privacy of our ex-members.”
