Singapore Democrats

Singapore Democrats

The Singapore Democrats only know how to criticise the Government but are not constructive in providing alternative ideas. Like the other misconceptions (see here and here), this is one that the PAP and its supporters like to spread despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

As early as 1994 the Democrats adopted Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore written by Dr Chee Soon Juan as its manifesto.

The book unambiguously spells out alternative ideas in the various policy areas including the economy, politics, society, culture and the arts, education and the media. Not only that, it also provides the rationale for these alternatives.

The ideas were subsequently expanded and refined in other publications such as Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom: A Democratic Blueprint for Singapore, the SDP's Economic Report 2005, and First World For Whom? They are further developed in Dr Chee's latest book A Nation Cheated. (See all the publications here)

Our flagship publication, The New Democrat, and pamphlets consistently highlight these alternative policies.

This website includes a section, Our Manifesto, that spells out the SDP's position and counter-proposals on the various policy areas where we disagree with the ruling party.

During the Budget debate in February this year, we came up with a 5-point counter-proposal to help Singaporeans cope with the current economic crisis including suspending the GST, giving out spending vouchers, restricting the use of the ERP, etc. (See here)

All these put to rest once and for all the untruth that the Singapore Democrats are not constructive and do not offer alternative ideas.

In fact not only have we come up with alternatives, our proposals have been echoed by other people including academics, commentators, and even PAP MPs.

But Singaporeans don't know much about this because the state media will not publish our ideas. What's more, PAP and their supporters keep repeating the lie that the Democrats simply criticise and don't offer constructive ideas.

In the 2001 GE we campaigned on a few of our ideas including the Singaporeans First Policy, minimum wage, and retrenchment benefits. We repeated this in the 2006 elections.

But the media refused to highlight and debate these ideas. Instead, all it did was to focus on the actions the PAP took against us.

Such is the tragedy of Singapore politics where constructive ideas from the opposition are not highlighted and discussed. The state media ensures that no national debate takes place on such issues. As a result the nation is the poorer for it.

Censoring and not debating the Singapore Democrats' alternative proposals is one thing. But to then turn around and accuse us of not being constructive is simply dishonest.

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