LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Resumption of debate on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Question again proposed.

4.30 p.m.

Mr R. Jumabhoy (Telok Ayer): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Corrupt, Illegal or Undesirable Practices at Elections was tabled on 14th April, 1958. I cannot understand why the Government is moving at this snail's pace. It could have brought up these things much earlier and not in August. In any case, these have been brought up, but there is no decision as to when the Select Committee will end its de1iberation. I do sincerely hope that the Third Reading of this Bill will take place on 10th September.

Sir, if the intention of the Government is to go slow and delay the introduction of the new constitution, I will tell them that they are sadly mistaken if they think that they can oppose the will of the people of Singapore. On the other hand, the holding of elections to the District Councils is not inter-dependent with the holding of the general elections to this Assembly.

Sir, I have to pass some remarks on the age of persons canvassing and taking part in the elections. The age limit is set at 21. On what basis, and why? The Member for Tanjong Pagar said this morning that you are asking our boys to take up national training at the age of 18 and yet you are not giving them the right to participate in election activities. I will go further than that, Sir. Is there any restriction if a boy or a girl wants to get married at the age of 18? I do not think there is any. If a person of either sex can set up house at the age of 18, why cannot he or she be eligible to take part in the elections? Sir, the right thing should have been that teenagers, or Secondary school students under 17, be debarred, but those students who are above the age of 17 or who are doing post school certificate studies should not be debarred at all. After all, we should not forget that the population of Singapore consists more of youngsters than others and it is their inherent right to take part in politics and select a Government of the type they want.

Sir, finally, I hope that the Government will not delay in getting this Bill to the Select Committee and have the Bill ready for Third Reading on 10th September.

4.35 p.m.

The Chief Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, the hon. Member for Queenstown brought up the subject of advertisements in the local newspapers in respect of certain sections of the Local Government Elections Ordinance, and he criticised the proposed amendments in the Bill. Sir, it is considered by Government that it is a waste of public expenditure to advertise in the way that is required by the law. It is felt that this could be achieved by just a general advertisement of, say, relevant particulars, such as the electoral districts, the polling stations, and the names of the candidates, instead of going through the usual legal jargon and having to put in an insertion for each and every division that is to be contested. In the case of the last City Council elections in December, Sir, it cost the Government $15,700 just to insert advertisements in two newspapers. For the Kallang by-election, just one insertion in one Chinese, one Malay and one Tamil newspaper cost the Government $800.

Sir, the Member for Tanjong Pagar, as usual, made wild accusations against the Labour Front in regard to what he says the use of gangsters in the Kallang by-election. He also made those allegations some time ago in this Assembly. As a result of such allegations, the Elias Commission was appointed and its Report did, of course, reveal some astonishing disclosures regarding his own Party.

Sir, the hon. Member criticised the Government for inserting the age of 21 in regard to the prohibition of persons from taking part in election campaigns. That age, Sir, was fixed for the purpose of a debate. The Minister in charge of this Bill, Sir, in moving its Second Reading, said that it would be referred to a Select Committee and all the points raised by hon. Members of the Opposition will of course be considered in greater detail there. So I hope that the Members who spoke on this Bill will be appointed to the Select Committee.

Sir, while levelling charges at the Labour Front, the Member for Tanjong Pagar made an astonishing disclosure indeed when he said that those who came out to support his Party during the Kallang by-election did so for favours done. It would seem, Sir, that one must curry favour with his political Party and that those who come out and support his Party are those who have received favours from it. It was therefore not surprising, Sir, for me to see one Sunday before Polling Day a very senior official of the City Council who, because of favours done perhaps by the Mayor, was canvassing for his Party.

4.40 p.m.

The Assistant Minister to the Chief Secretary (Mr M. P. D. Nair): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Labour Front believes in clean elections. The Labour Front itself is clean. The P.A.P. has always claimed that it is the only Party which is clean, but the P.A.P. has its own dictionary and it has a different meaning for the word "clean". I heard with great interest the analysis made by the Member for Tanjong Pagar on the Kallang by-election which a P.A.P. candidate contested. He said that the P.A.P. had no cars and that the voters all went to the polling stations by walking -

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: On a point of clarification. I did not say -

Mr Speaker: If the hon. Member will give way.

Mr Nair resumed his seat.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: I did not say we had no cars. What I said was they walked there and voted for us, in spite of the intimidation.

Mr Nair: He may have said that he had some cars, but he definitely said that many people went to the polls by walking and by cycling. But anyone who -

Mr Lee Kuan Yew rose -

Mr Speaker: If the hon. Member will give way.

Mr Nair: - was in Kallang on polling day would not have lost sight of the hundreds of cars bearing their symbols carrying voters. I was told, Sir, that they even persuaded car drivers for the Workers Party to tear off their symbols depicting a hammer and paste the P.A.P. symbols in their place. In fact, the P.A.P. had the largest number of cars and big American cars were used..

The hon. Member stated that the P.A.P. wanted to avoid incidents and that they were compelled to make an agreement with other political Parties not to put Party men within 200 yards, of the polling stations. Here they tried to be clean. Please refer to the P.A.P. dictionary again for its meaning. The P.A.P. tried every means to catch votes. They held more public meetings than any other Party. They insisted that the Labour Front is a capitalist Party, that Mr Lim Yew Hock is a colonial stooge, and that Mr Chew Swee Kee is against Chinese education. They encouraged personal hatred. They even brought a colonial agent to one of their polling meetings.

Mr Speaker: Order. Is not the hon. Member going into too great detail? He is at liberty, of course, to generalise but if he goes into detail I will have to say it is irrelevant.

Mr Nair: Sir, I was just explaining how clean the P.A.P. was in the by-election. Sir, the P.A.P. even thought -

Mr Speaker: Order. I think if the hon. Member says "unclean", perhaps that would be sufficient.

Mr Nair: Sir, I think this is a very serious matter in which I have to bring in more facts to prove that we have been clean.

Mr Speaker: If the hon. Member insists on going into detail, I must rule him out of order.

Mr Nair: Sir, what I was trying to say was that the P.A.P. used more unclean methods in this by-election than the Labour Front.

Sir, the reference was made by the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar to canvassing for votes. He referred to an agreement made before the polling day to the effect that Party men should not canvass within 200 yards of the polling stations. Sir, what happened really was that half an hour before the polling commenced, very many P.A.P. supporters who wore no badges came outside the polling stations and had their places ready. At about 10 a.m. when they found that the going was not very heavy, they all wore their badges and they took up positions. Later, when they found that P.A.P. supporters were already there, Labour Front supporters came and complained to us and said, 'Now we have made an agreement; we have not put in any men; but why are the P.A.P. putting men outside the polling stations?' Therefore, Sir, you will see that that agreement was not carried out by the Party itself.

Sir, it has become a practice in this Assembly to make allegations against Assistant Ministers without making any mention of the name whatsoever. I think, Sir, we all must agree we must respect each other and we must treat people as equals and human beings. It is not fair to anybody to accuse unnecessarily and without substantiation. I do hope that the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar will have his facts clear first before he makes any allegations.

4.45 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Mr E. P. Shanks): I wonder, Mr Speaker, if I might perhaps try and steer the motoring part of this debate back to clause 16 of the Bill. I understood the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar to say this morning that the proposed new section 66A contained in clause 16 of the Bill differed from the English provisions in that in England a person could not even use a car for the conveyance of his own family.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: No; household, not family.

Mr Shanks: Household - I beg his pardon, I understood him to say family. I would suggest that the Select Committee, in considering this clause, should have careful regard to the corresponding provisions of the English Representation of the People Act from which I think they will find that the restrictions to be imposed are probably greater under the Bill before this House than they are in England, where, for example, the expression "member of the same household" includes a visitor spending the night before or after the day of the poll. And far from being less fierce, I think the provisions of the Bill will be found to be much more restrictive than the corresponding provisions in the United Kingdom.

4.48 p.m.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng: Mr Speaker, Sir, I must confess I enjoy very much having the privilege of being an Independent Member belonging to no political Party after listening to A Party accusing B Party, and B Party accusing C Party, of corrupt practices during the by-election at Kallang. Sir, I think it is an open secret to the people of Singapore that that by election was a fight between the samsengs and haksengs, i.e. gangsters versus students; gangsters versus gangsters; students versus gangsters; English school students versus Chinese school students; the 08 Group versus the 24 Group. Therefore when I speak on this Bill, I must extend my congratulations to its mover. It is timely and important, although of course many amendments should be made to it especially about the age limit and the so many troublesome and cumbersome procedures which could be easily abused by the Party in power to disqualify a candidate.

Secondly, I wish the Government to assure that the Select Committee will be established as soon as possible and give a target date for the completion of this Bill, in order to fulfil the promise that District Council elections will be held.

Thirdly, I wish the Government Party have the same confidence as the leader of the P.A.P. - face them, do not suffer from a certain degree of inferiority complex, challenge them.

4.51 p.m.

Inche Abdul Hamid: In reply, Sir, I do not think I have very many points to clear. Although the Chief Minister mentioned, in passing, the remarks of the Member for Queenstown, I would like to say a few words with regard to his comment on the advertisements in the press. He would appear to me to fear that lack of advertisement in the press would result in the public not knowing that there is an election and, consequently, that not very many people would go to the polls. Well, Sir, I disagree with him. My experience has been that very few people read such advertisement. They have no news value except when presented as a news item in pure journalese. Secondly, as the recent by-election at Kallang had indicated, it all depends on the virility of political Parties and their supporters to make people conscious that there is an election on.

The point raised by the Member for Tanjong Pagar with regard to holiday on polling day is a point again which needs clarification. The Bill which is before this House only deals with the machinery of local government elections. Government has accepted the principle of a holiday on polling day but the appropriate legislation is not the Local Government Elections Ordinance but the Holidays Ordinance which empowers the Governor to declare from time to time any day a holiday in addition to those which are already embodied in the schedules.

The reasons given by the Member for Tanjong Pagar with regard to what he calls U.M.N.O. opposition to compulsory voting, are quite incorrect. My Party, Sir -

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Is it democratic?

Inche Abdul Hamid: - it is very, very democratic, Sir, it is more democratic than the People's Action Party, because we are anti-Communist and they are non-Communist. My Party, Sir, did not oppose compulsory voting for communal reasons, but because of other reasons which cut right through the rights of the individual. Even so, we are prepared to be persuaded to the contrary if there can be sufficient safeguards with regard to prosecutions and so on.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Select Committee consisting of Mr Speaker as Chairman and seven Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.-[Inche Abdul Hamid].