From submitting documents to preparing reports, tons of paperwork have to be done every election.
Surprisingly – or unsurprisingly – we now have police reports added to the fray.
Since General Election 2020 (GE2020) started, at least 8 police reports have been lodged against political candidates, parties, and even a blogger.
Redditor u/maccaschocosundae shared a compilation of the police reports that have been submitted since GE2020 was called, questioning if the list will ever end.
We break it down for you below why they kena in the first place.
On Sunday (5 Jul), SPF released a statement saying that 2 police reports have been lodged against Workers’ Party (WP) candidate Raeesah Khan in relation to her comments about race.
Ms Raeesah has since publicly apologised for her comments, but the incident soon spiralled into something much bigger. Point no.2 will tell you why.
On the same night when Ms Raeesah issued the apology, resourceful netizens somehow managed to track down the whistleblower who was among the first to leak the potentially implicating images.
The group of cyber ‘CSI agents’ also managed to chance upon some questionable posts that the whistleblower had put out himself.
Given the nature of his posts, netizens naturally questioned the intentions of the whistleblower.
On Tuesday (7 Jul), the police revealed that they’re investigating the man over social media comments intended to wound religious and racial feelings.
Netizens also brought up other instances when politicians made possibly ‘racist’ remarks.
One of the mentioned cases involved DPM Heng Swee Keat who was quoted as saying that “older generation of Singaporeans not ready for non-Chinese PM“.
On Sunday (5 Jul), a police report was apparently lodged against the East Coast GRC candidate, on the grounds that he had made a “socially divisive” comment.
MS News has reached out to PAP for a statement on this, but have not gotten a response at the time of writing.
A day after Ms Raeesah’s apology, PAP issued a statement, asking WP to make clear its stand on its youngest candidate’s post.
A netizen subsequently lodged a report against the ruling party, claiming that the PAP statement had promoted “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race”.
Blogger Xiaxue was also dragged into the mix after she posted her thoughts on the Raeesah Khan saga.
A police report was apparently lodged against her by an Instagram user for a tweet back in 2010. The tweet has since been removed.
The Instagrammer even filmed the process of making the police report and shared footage of it on his account.
NUS Professor Ben Leong – known for his participation on NUSWhispers Facebook page – also had a police report filed against him, apparently over a “racist” post.
Prof Ben did not disclose which post this was but stated that he felt “quite alright” regarding the police report, apart from the fact that he had wasted an hour of his time at the police station.
Education Minister Ong Ye Kung also kena-ed a police report, albeit for reasons not relating to racism.
According to former NCMP Calvin Cheng, a netizen had lodged a police report against Minister Ong for possibly abetting a primary school child to take part in election activities.
The was presumably in relation to a video where Mr Ong was seen having a dialogue with the Sembawang Boy.
The clip has since been taken down.
Prior to Nomination Day, former PAP candidate Ivan Lim came under heavy scrutiny after numerous netizens shared damning accounts questioning his character.
Mr Lim eventually withdrew his candidacy.
However, the episode did not end there. Just a day after the withdrawal, a former SAF Colonel made threatening remarks against a whistleblower who apparently made claims regarding Mr Lim’s character.
Another Facebook user saw the comment and allegedly lodged a police report against the ex-colonel.
As we edge closer to Polling Day, there’s bound to be more drama over the coming days, and perhaps more police reports lodged.
That said, we hope these such exchanges remain civic and clean, without resorting to racial threats or personal attacks.
Featured image adapted from Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, and Instagram.
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