Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act (FICA)

If there’s anything Singaporeans have learnt is that the PAP cannot be trusted to carry out its promises. A few concrete examples illustrate this point:

1. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan promised that the TraceTogether programme will be used only by the MOH for Covid-related purposes. Months later, it was revealed that the police had used the database for its own purposes.

2. The government promised that POFMA would be used only on a “false statement of fact” but imposed it on the SDP for a statement based on interpretation of statistics. (For the record, the matter took place in late 2019 and has still to be finally adjudicated.)

3. PM Lee Hsien Loong assured the country that the government is better prepared in 2020 to handle the Covid virus than it was during the Sars outbreak in 2003. Look at the mess we’re in presently.

This list is, of course, far from exhaustive. It is, however, conclusive that the people cannot take the PAP’s promises. They mean little.

In light of this, all the warm pronouncements regarding the safeguards that Minister for Law Mr K Shanmugam has uttered about the impending Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act should be believed as much as we believe that the Sun revolves around Earth.

For decades, the SDP has warned about and acted against the PAP’s anti-democratic manoeuvres. Singaporeans are just about to experience an even deeper descent into a new era of authoritarian rule.