Tan Cheng Bock’s party distances itself from CEC member’s comments on proposed alliance between opposition parties

SINGAPORE — The Progress Singapore Party (PSP), headed by Dr Tan Cheng Bock, is distancing itself from scathing comments made by one of its central executive committee (CEC) members about a proposed alliance between four smaller opposition parties here.

An article published by sociopolitical site The Online Citizen on Monday (Jan 13) quoted Dr Tan’s personal assistant,  Mr Alex Tan Tiong Hee, describing the parties’ leaders as  “captains from their respective sinking boats — not even a ship! — clasping one another’s hands to save themselves from drowning”.

He was referring to Mr Tan Jee Say of Singaporeans First, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam of the Reform Party, Mr Goh Meng Seng of the People’s Power Party and Mr Hamim Aliyas of the Democratic Progressive Party, all of whom are secretary-generals of their respective parties.

These parties have been calling upon Dr Tan to helm an opposition alliance which they confirmed with TODAY previously that they were planning to form ahead of the next General Election. 

In a statement put up on its Facebook page at noon on Wednesday, PSP said that while Mr Alex Tan is a founding CEC member of the party, his statements were “made in jest” in the context of a “casual group chat with friends” which included members from the proposed alliance. 

These comments were then shared and found their way to the mainstream media, the party said.

“Please take note that PSP would like to clarify that these comments are not shared by Dr Tan and the rest of the CEC. 

“We deeply respect the years of commitment and sacrifice that other opposition parties and their leaders have put into working for the betterment of our nation,” PSP added in its post. 

The PSP statement came as at least two opposition party leaders — Mr Tan Jee Say and Mr Goh — made public comments on Mr Alex Tan’s remarks.

Mr Goh, in a Facebook post in the early hours of Wednesday, said that Mr Alex Tan’s comments show that PSP is “not interested at all” in leading an alliance and “was preparing to fight three-corner fights with all ‘sinking boat fringe’ parties”.

He added that people can now assume that it is “just a delusional myth to see Dr Tan as some ‘unifying figure’ of opposition”, which he calls “a shocking awakening (that) is rather unbelievable but accurate to the dot”.

In response to PSP’s statement, Mr Goh questioned why PSP claimed that these comments made in a casual group chat were shared and found their way to mainstream media, when it was already reported in The Straits Times on Tuesday that Mr Alex Tan repeated his remarks to The Online Citizen when asked for an opinion about the planned alliance.

Mr Goh followed up with another Facebook post saying: “Some people can claim they are commenting in jest when they are apparently attacking other political party leaders publicly... Politics is serious business because policies affect lives of Singaporeans. 

“Keep jesters out of opposition, please.”