Chee Soon Juan Asks For Independent Commission To Look Into Alleged Corruption Cases

Chee Soon Juan Calls For Independent Inquiry Into Corruption Cases

Earlier this week, several public figures including Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Transport Minister S Iswaran made the news for their transgressions.

Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leader, Chee Soon Juan, has since spoken out about the recent happenings.

In a Facebook post, Dr Chee reflected on the state of Singapore’s political leadership.

He questioned the process leading up to Mr Iswaran’s formal probe and called out several politicians for their behaviour in parliament.

Asks for independent commission of inquiry

On 13 July, Dr Chee penned his opinions regarding the recent events involving Singapore’s politicians.

Source: Chee Soon Juan 徐顺全 on Facebook

He said that the news of Mr Iswaran’s CPIB investigation “came as a bombshell”.

Thereafter, Dr Chee asked what he deemed an “equally vexing question”:

Why did the Bureau need to seek the “concurrence” of the PM before it commenced a formal probe?

He then posed a series of related questions:

• Would investigations proceed if the PM did not give his consent?
• Have there been previous cases when concurrence was sought but not given?
• Can’t the Attorney-General launch an investigation if he sees wrongdoing regardless of the PM’s views?

In the next paragraph, Dr Chee pointed out that questions about the “Ridout debacle” involving Ministers Shanmugam and Balakrishnan still remain unanswered.

Source: K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook

As such, he repeated SDP’s call for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the matter.

“The more the PAP resists the move, the more questions it raises in the minds of Singaporeans,” said Dr Chee in the post.

Calls out political leadership for behaviour in Parliament

In the second part of his post, Dr Chee singled out several politicians for their behaviour in Parliament.

He addressed Mr Tan Chuan-Jin’s recent slip-up and posited that his replacement should be considered.

Source: Tan Chuan-Jin on Facebook

“Mr Tan Chuan-Jin has apologised for his language,” he said.

“But when the Speaker of Parliament displays such contempt for views he disagrees with, consideration should be given to his replacement.”

Dr Chee then brought up Mr Christopher De Souza’s issue with the Law Society.

Source: Christopher de Souza on Facebook

He noted that the latter is still Deputy Speaker of Parliament despite having been found guilty of assisting his client in suppressing evidence in a case.

Leader of the House Indranee Rajah also didn’t escape scrutiny.

Dr Chee recalled an incident where she had brought down a file “tempestuously” during a parliamentary session.

According to the SDP chief, she had been responding to the poor conduct of Mr Leong Mun Wai.

“Irony is dead,” said Dr Chee.

Lastly, he reminded readers about Dr Vivian Balakrishnan’s hot mic incident in which he had called an opposition MP “illiterate”.

Noting that the latter apologised, Dr Chee then summarised his case by stating that these were some examples of some leaders’ behaviour.

Chee Soon Juan raises questions after corruption probe

“Singapore’s political leadership is obviously not in a good place,” he said.

Dr Chee also finds “the direction it is taking is just as troubling”.

He ended his post with the following:

When a country is ruled by one and the same party for nearly six decades – all this time without an effective opposition – is it any wonder that political decay begins to set in?

In 2021, for example, he released a lengthy post addressing the Covid-19 dine-in regulations for families.

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Featured image adapted from @60sfolks on Twitter and S Iswaran on Facebook.