A Singapore court recognized on Monday the opposition chief of the country guilty of lying under oath in Parliament, in a case that riveted the country because it raised the prospect of disqualifying it from its functions.
Pritam Singh, member of the Parliament and leader of the principal opposition party, the workers’ party, was sentenced for two counts for an oath parliamentary committee and was sentenced to a fine of 7,000 Singaporean dollars, around 5 $ 220, for each charge. He plans to appeal.
But Mr. Singh can remain in office and run for this year’s elections. According to the constitution of Singapore, the members of the Parliament are not eligible for his functions for five years if they are sentenced to a fine of 10,000 Singaporean dollars or more for a single offense.
The case could tarnish the reputation and credibility of the party among the indecisive voters.
But Mr. Singh stressed that his party is part of “evolution towards a more balanced political system”.
Mr. Singh, 48, is the first leader in the opposition in Singapore to be officially designated as such. It was the result of the 2020 elections, in which his party won a record of 10 out of 93 seats in Parliament. The legislator was still massively controlled by the People’s Action Party, which has been leading Singapore for decades. But that year, the PAP received one of the smallest voting actions in its history.
According to the law, this year’s elections must be held on November 23. It will be the first time that the PAP will face the voters under its new chief, Lawrence Wong, who has become Prime Minister in May. He succeeded Lee Hsien Loong, who held this position for more than two decades and was the son of the founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
The accusations of Mr. Singh were linked to his management of another deputy for his party, Raeesah Khan, who admitted that she had lied several times in Parliament in August 2021 in a case involving a victim of sexual assault.
A parliamentary committee was summoned in November 2021 to investigate the case, with a lot with Mr. Singh. The legislators then referred his case to prosecutors, who accused her of making two false declarations during the procedure of the Committee.
“The parliamentary committee was the right body to investigate this,” said PN Balji, political analyst and former newspaper editor. “He held hearings and concluded that Pritam had lied. Could it have ended with a censorship of the Parliament, instead of going to the courts? »»
Singh denied the accusations and a trial began last November. Monday, Luke Tan Judge of the Court of State found him guilty in an oral judgment. The prosecutors had asked for the maximum fine of $ 7,000 Singaporeans for each charge.
Singapore, generally an oasis of stability, has been shaken by a series of political scandals in the past two years. In October, a former Minister of Transport was imprisoned for accusations of transplant. In July 2023, the president of the Parliament resigned for an extramarital case with a legislator. That year, the real estate relations of two ministers, involving government bungalows, also aroused controversy.
Sui-the weekend Contributed reports.
