Reform Party Declares Our Interest in Pioneer But Will Not Enter a Three-Cornered Fight

Published: 26th August 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Over the last few days Reform Party has made strenuous efforts to contact Sebastian Teo, the President of NSP, and Spencer Ng, Organising Secretary, to discuss Pioneer SMC but with no success.   We are therefore declaring our interest publicly.

Pioneer was formerly part of West Coast GRC but was carved out before the 2011 GE. We walked the ground there extensively before the election and have continued to visit the residents there since 2011.

At the Opposition Unity talks recently we agreed to relinquish our interest in Pioneer only because Steve Chia from NSP said he would be standing again. We felt he was a strong candidate and had a good chance of winning, having done well in 2011. However he has now withdrawn entirely from the election. While we believe that agreements reached at the Opposition meetings should not be undone, the circumstances in which we consented to withdraw our interest have clearly changed. If NSP withdraw entirely or are unable to field a strong candidate then we feel that we should be given the chance to contest as we have many excess candidates. However in the interests of unity and solidarity among the Opposition, we will not enter a three-cornered fight. We hope that NSP will clarify its intentions shortly.

In a similar spirit of Opposition solidarity we have made numerous efforts over the last two weeks to contact Tan Lam Siong, the former Secretary General of NSP, to head off a threatened three-cornered fight in Potong Pasir. We have offered him a place on one of our GRC teams and even as a candidate in an SMC. However so far our efforts have been unsuccessful.

 

 

Kenneth Jeyaretnam

Secretary General