Lawrence Wong: Fair That People Scrutinise Ivan Lim; Character of Candidate is a Serious Issue

By
George Yang
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In the last few months, we’ve grown to know that when Prime Minister Lawrence Wong spe—

Reader Bao: He’s not Singapore Prime Minister, for dog’s sake!

Oh sorry. What I meant is that when President Lawrence Wong speaks, we’d all up the volume of our speakers and listen intently. Sometimes, his words would lead to cheers, like the one he did in the middle of this month. Very often it led to tears—so often, he himself also teared while he spoke.

So when he spoke today, we waited with bated breath, hoping that he won’t bring us back to Phase One because more people have been gathering in Holland Village.

Thankfully, he didn’t say anything about COVID-19, which sounds weird.

But you’ve to remember that Lawrence Wong isn’t just the co-chair of the multi-ministry task force set up to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak and the Minister of National Development—he’s also a husband to a woman who knows how to cut hair and a Member of Parliament for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.

If that’s not enough, the 48-year-old is also a member of the PAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Advisor to PAP Policy Forum (PPF).

So with the election fever, he’s not going to merely talk about Circuit Breaker or Phases or his haircut, but about the election, too.

And today, the enemy of COVID-19 has spoken about the elections during his walkabout, and of course people asked him about Ivan Lim.

Lawrence Wong: Fair That People Scrutinise Ivan Lim

Mr Wong said, “The public will want to scrutinise all our candidates – that’s fair – and they will scrutinise opposition party candidates as well.”

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He acknowledged that the character of any candidate is a serious issue. So does he believe in the allegations? “We do not have any reason to believe that these allegations are true, but we do not have the time either, to mount a full investigation.”

With that, he urged people to give Ivan Lim and his family members some privacy and space to recover from COVID-19—I mean, from this issue.

Responsible Thing to Do

The phases of Ivan Lim’s controversy came in three phases: Phase One was when the online allegations about his elitist conduct surfaced, Phase Two was his response to the allegations that led to more allegations and finally Phase Three when he withdrew from the contest, which some would call a switch in a Circuit Breaker of candidates.

Reader Bao: I’ve never seen anyone tried so hard before

Thanks.

Mr Wong said, “He recognised the controversy around his candidacy was threatening to eclipse and distract us from the serious nature and the serious issues that we have to confront during this election and during this crisis.”

According to Mr Wong, Ivan did the socially responsible thing by withdrawing from the contest, though it was a “very difficult and painful decision for him.”

Mr Wong then commented about the selection process, saying, “No process is perfect, no candidate is perfect, but we stand by our selection process.

“It is a selection process that has thrown up many good candidates over many years and in this particular election.”

In the meantime, the face of the fight against COVID-19 shows us what leading by example is in a video captured by The Straits Times, when he appears to count the number of people in a table a few million times even when everyone has settled down:

No wonder he’s an MP for so long.

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]