NON-CONSTITUENCY MEMBER (Filling of Seat)

12.33 pm

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Community Development (Mr S. Dhanabalan): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move,

That this Parliament, pursuant to section 51 B of the Parliamentary Elections Act (Chapter 50) -

(a) declares that the seat of Mr M.P.D. Nair, who was elected a non-constituency Member of Parliament under section 51A of the Act, has become vacant by reason of his having failed to take and subscribe before Parliament the Oath of Allegiance under Article 61 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore at the first and second sittings of the first session of the present Parliament held on 25th February 1985 and 1st March 1985 respectively; and

(b) resolves that that seat be filled by Mr Tan Chee Kien of the Singapore United Front, the next succeeding candidate at the last general election in the order of priority as determined in accordance with section 51A(2) of the Act.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as is clear in the motion, it is to provide for the filling of the vacant seat as a result of Mr M.P.D. Nair not subscribing to the Oath. Under section 51(A) and (B) of the Parliamentary Elections Act, up to three non-constituency Members can be declared elected from Parties not forming the Government.

Two Opposition Members have been elected under section 49(7) of the Act, that is, under the first-past-the-post system. Therefore, one non-constituency MP was declared by the Returning Officer as elected under section 51 (A) of the Act, and he was Mr M.P.D. Nair of the Workers' Party. As we know, he has not taken the Oath of Allegiance and the motion today is to declare his seat vacant and to fill it with the next succeeding candidate who is Mr Tan Chee Kien of the Singapore United Front who polled 46.66% in Kaki Bukit. The motion will therefore declare that the vacant seat be filled by Mr Tan and that he be deemed to be elected a non-constituency Member of Parliament.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, let me assure you that I am not going to take up an hour. I will be very brief.

Mr Speaker: You can only speak once on this motion, Mr Jeyaretnam.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Yes, I accept that, Mr Speaker, Sir. I know that you are very anxious that we should finish by 1.00 o'clock.

Sir, this motion is in two parts. We have, of course, no quarrel with the first part of it, which is, a purely declaratory motion that Mr Nair having failed to take his seat, that seat is now vacant. So I do not propose to say anything about the first part of this motion. It is the second part on which I wish to speak, and I understand my worthy colleague on this side of the House is also going to say something on this.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I hope I will not be misunderstood when I say that we are opposed to this. When I say "misunderstood", I am saying that I hope we will not be misunderstood by the gentleman to whom this seat is offered. We have no objections to his occupying a seat in this House and indeed we think he will be a very worthy Member of this House. But my Party has from the outset declared its objection to this scheme of non-constituency MP seats, and it is because of that and not because of any objection to the worthy gentleman that I am here to oppose the second part of this motion.

We say that this idea was born out of hypocrisy on the part of the Government. I was not here when the Senior Minister in the Prime Minister's Office gave a long sermon on the politics of hypocrisy. Let me say that if anything is an act of hypocrisy, this is; trying to pretend that the Government is really interested in building up a credible Opposition in this Parliament.

Mr Speaker, Sir, this idea of non-constituency MP seats undermines, in my view, the emergence of a strong credible Opposition. And that, of course, was at the back of the Government's mind and its purpose in introducing this. They thought they could somehow buy off the electorate from electing Opposition Members into Parliament by the first-past-the-post system and deluding them into believing that what have been termed as second-class MPs will be just as good.

Well, it undermines the whole system of Parliamentary Opposition and it is for that reason that I propose to object or to vote against the second half of this motion. I am not going to call for a division, Mr Speaker, Sir, but I would like it recorded that we are voting against the second half of this motion for the reasons that I have set out, not because of any objection to the gentleman taking his seat.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am opposing the motion in principle and in line with what the Member for Anson has stated. It has got nothing to do with Mr Tan Chee Kien. He is an honourable man and, if he were here, I am sure he will know what to do.

There is history in this non-constituency MP scheme. It is ironical that we are here to vote in an Opposition, albeit a non-constituency Opposition. In December 1980, Sir, you will remember that the Deputy Speaker declared to the whole of Singapore that if one Opposition Member were to be elected to Parliament, our economy would shake. Foreign investors would not come. But nothing of that sort happened. Ten months later in October 1981, the people did not believe him. "Anson" happened. It was the first time we had an Opposition, genuine elected Opposition, after 16 years. Immediately, the natural reaction of the PAP was to come out with six-gun shooting.

An hon. Member: Two guns!

Mr Chiam See Tong: Opposition politics, they said, meant chaos, bloodshed, strikes. But no such thing happened. The Opposition now are responsible people. This is not the late 5Os or early 60s. We are here to build a nation. In November 1983, the Prime Minister, in one of the PAP's big meetings, announced that in fact it was quite a good idea to have an Opposition. They would make good sparring partners, to keep fit.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Were converted?

Mr Chiam See Tong: They would keep the Ministers and other Members of the Government agile. Why is there this sudden change of mind? I am sure the PAP has its feedback machinery, and they probably know that people wanted an Opposition. That is why there was this sudden change of mind.

The Senior Minister in an interview with a foreign journalist said, "Yes, we are thinking about introducing Opposition in Parliament, two Chambers. There are many intellectuals who have got opposite views but they don't want to join the Party. They don't like the hassle of politics."

And then we have got other schemes, two-Member constituency. One is to be contested amongst the Opposition and other schemes. Of course, just before the elections, in July of last year, the amendment was made for this non-constituency Member.

At the outset, my Party did not agree with this. People have said that it is a second-class Opposition, not genuine. Why is that so? Because by its very name, they do not represent anyone - non-constituency. There is a motion before us and I am sure it will be passed. And people will say that it is by the patronage, probably by the grace of the Party that he is here. This non-constituency MP represents no one. I wonder what we shall address him when he comes here. I represent Potong Pasir. I am the Member for Potong Pasir. Mr Jeyaretnam is the Member for Anson. When the non-constituency MP is here, what do we call him?

An hon. Member: NCMP.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Well, these are your words, not mine.

Representation is important. It is the very soul of democracy. It is not by appointment. An NCMP cannot vote to amend the Constitution, cannot vote on a Supply Bill or a Money Bill, cannot vote on a No Confidence Motion. He can only hear, just to talk. And this is the very thing that the PAP does not want: Opposition for the sake of opposition. Now we have it. We are voting in an Opposition just for the sake of opposition. So where is the genuineness? Where is the sincerity? For these reasons I have to oppose the motion. Thank you.

Dr Lau Teik Soon (Serangoon Gardens): Mr Speaker, Sir, it is incredible that the two Opposition Members who are supposedly advocates of a democratic form of government should oppose this motion,

We have in this country an Act which allows for opposition in Parliament. I do not know whether they are aware that there is no such Constitution existing anywhere else, where you allow for opposition in Parliament even if voters in the constituency vote against the Opposition. The real reason, I suspect, Mr Speaker, Sir, why they are opposing this resolution is that they think it will undermine their position. But whether or not the Opposition is going to gain strength or weaken depends on the calibre of the Opposition Members which, I must say, leaves very much to be desired at this stage. It depends on what programmes they have, it depends on whether or not they can provide alternatives.

As far as the motion is concerned, Parliament is being asked to offer the seat to Mr Tan Chee Kien of the SUF. And I would say that we leave the SUF Member to speak for himself.

Mr Jek Yeun Thong: I just want to register my views about N on-Constituency and Non-Elected Members. I feel that if a man is good and if the people want him, let him come in by the front door. Why do we have to humiliate him by making him come in through the back door? Who are we here to give away seats in this Parliament and to decide how many seats the Opposition should have? Let the people decide. The people have just decided that we should only have two Opposition Members, no matter how miserable they are. So let it stay that way. Why should we upset their decision. The newspaper this morning has said that some of the Back-benchers have taken the role of the Opposition and even outshine the Opposition. So why do we need an extra Opposition Member? Would he make any difference to the arguments, to the substance and to everything that we are going to bring up in this House?

Criticism is what you decide it to be, and true criticism can only come from the heart of the Members speaking with their conscience clear. No one should stand here telling Members what criticisms they should make and what criticisms they should not make. You will make a mockery of this House if that is the way you behave and if that is the way you want this Parliament to behave. You can win arguments by better, sounder arguments. You cannot win arguments by stuffing words into other people's mouth and make a fantastic story out of it and say that you have won the case.

I have brought up many points in my speech previously and I was waiting to be discredited. I was like Noah sitting there, waiting for the torrential downpour to drown me. And what did I get? What I got was drips and sprays from the other side. So I was waiting to be debunked. If my arguments are wrong, go ahead; debunk them. Slaughter me. Discredit me. I would be quite happy, more than happy, because if the Government can prove that I was wrong, I was telling lies, then naturally the Government has made the point and the people would be happy. And if the people are happy, I would be happy too. Why should I worry about being discredited and debunked?

So, Mr Speaker, Sir, my view on this matter may sound like those of the Opposition, but rest assured that I would not go along with this one. It is the last thing I would do - to follow the way of these two feeble beings. I will vote with the Government. This may sound like politics of hypocrisy. Well, this is the rule of the game of this House.

Mr Dhanabalan: Mr Speaker, Sir, the points made by the two Opposition Members are not new. The Member for Anson was here when the Bill to amend the Parliamentary Elections Act was debated. He made the same points during the Second Reading; he tried to make the same points at the Committee Stage. The Bill was passed. It has been assented to by the President and is now law. Parliament is being now asked to exercise the power under the law.

The Opposition Member is a champion of the power of Parliament. He claims to be a respecter of laws passed by Parliament and he should respect all laws, not just the laws that he likes. He claims to be a believer in democratic principles and the main principle in democracy is not what he has been claiming which, he says, is that there should be Opposition in Parliament. I do not know where he got his definition of "democracy", but it certainly does not mean that there is democracy only when there is opposition in Parliament. But even if we accept that argument that there is parliamentary democracy only when there is opposition in Parliament, will he now go and make a public statement to all the foreign correspondents, to others as well as in this House, that there is now parliamentary democracy in Singapore, because he and the Member from the other Opposition party are now in Parliament? Does he agree that there is parliamentary democracy now in Singapore?

Mr Jeyaretnam: We are going to build it.

Mr Dhanabalan: The next thing, Mr Speaker, Sir, he will say is that he needs more Members in this House before there is parliamentary democracy. If he has more Members, he will say that he has to be in power before there is parliamentary democracy.

Sir, this is like the Communists. They have their own dictionary. Words that we use, they have their own meanings. They talk of people. When we talk of people, we mean the people at large. But when they talk of people, they mean people who support them. They talk of independence; we know what independence is. But when they talk of independence, it means that only countries which are under Communist government or Communist rule are independent. They have their own dictionary.

I think the Member for Anson is now in the process of compiling his own dictionary of political terms. By his definition, we are still not a parliamentary democracy. Parliamentary democracy means rule of the majority. I think this is the first point that he should note, rule of the majority. Secondly, it means periodic exercise of the people to elect the government of their choice. Do the two Members of the Opposition think, or claim, that the people of Singapore have not exercised their choice freely? Do they claim that the elections were not clean? If so, they should say so. The people have over many elections exercised their choice, and their choice has been that there should be no directly elected Opposition Members of Parliament. That is their choice. And so it should be. It is parliamentary democracy in practice.

The Member for Anson cannot claim that because the people did not elect Opposition Members, therefore, there is no parliamentary democracy. It is because, in election after election, no Opposition Member was returned to this House in the normal process of first-past-the-post system, that we amended the Parliamentary Elections Act to provide for up to three Non-Constituency Members. Well, in spite of all the sound and fury of the Opposition, they managed to get only two directly into this Parliament. So we can still provide for one more.

The Member for Potong Pasir, as well as the Member for Anson, has made the point that the Non-Constituency MP is a second-class MP, that he cannot do what an MP is expected to do. I thought, Mr Speaker, Sir, that politicians are practical people. They look at the practical exercise of influence and power. In what way can the two Opposition Members here do more than the Non-Constituency Member, in practical terms? Can they block a Constitutional amendment, or a Money Bill, or carry a Motion of No-Confidence? The Non-Constituency Member can move a motion on any Money Bill. He can move a motion on any Constitutional Bill; he can support a motion; he can debate a motion; and if he is unwise he can continue to say what the Member for Anson has been saying in this House. He can do everything.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Can he vote on everything?

Mr Dhanabalan: I am talking of the practical outcome: can the vote of the two Members change anything in this House? The Government will continue to govern, in spite of all the sound and fury of the Opposition Members. So there is no practical difference.

As I said, Mr Speaker, Sir, I would have assumed that politicians are practical people. Are the two Opposition Members afraid that some other party member will share what they think is the limelight that they are now enjoying? If they have no arguments against Mr Tan being deemed to be elected a Non-Constituency Member under the law, they should say so. The Member for Potong Pasir says, "Mr Tan will represent no one. Who does he represent? He represents no one." Well, if I accept his argument, can I therefore ask both of them to state quite clearly whether, in the case of the Member for Potong Pasir, he represents only the 10,000-odd voters who voted him in Potong Pasir, and, in the case of the Member for Anson, that he only represents the 9,900-odd voters who voted for him in Anson? In other words, if they claim that the 46.6% of the people in Kaki Bukit who voted for Mr Tan are not to be represented, then they themselves should not claim to represent any one other than those who voted for them in their own constituencies. And I do not think they will claim that.

So if the two Members have no reason to adduce as to why Mr Tan should not be declared as a Non-Constituency Member, they should hold their peace. I think we have been quite liberal in allowing them to say what they have said because, strictly speaking, Sir, these are not matters relevant to the motion. The motion is just to implement the law. The points they made, at least in the case of the Member for Anson (he has had an opportunity to make them when the amendment was debated) were made and the Bill has been passed. It is now law, and we intend to implement that law.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this Parliament, pursuant to section 51 B of the Parliamentary Elections Act (Chapter 50) -

(a) declares that the seat of Mr M.P.D. Nair, who was elected a non-constituency Member of Parliament under Section 51A of the Act, has become vacant by reason of his having failed to take and subscribe before Parliament the Oath of Allegiance under Article 61 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore at the first and second sittings of the first session of the present Parliament held on 25th February 1985 and 1st March 1985 respectively; and

(b) resolves that that seat be filled by Mr Tan Chee Kien of the Singapore United Front, the next succeeding candidate at the last general election in the order of priority as determined in accordance with Section 51A(2) of the Act.

Mr Speaker: Order. It is 1.00 pm. This Sitting is suspended until 3.15 pm this Afternoon. Budget Statement.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 1.00 pm until 3.15 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.15 pm