When Tan Chuan-Jin tendered his resignation as Speaker of Parliament on Monday (17 July), the announcement came as a bombshell.
Despite being embroiled in a hot mic controversy just weeks earlier, few expected Mr Tan to step down.
But this was exactly what happened when Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong announced that the former Speaker had an affair with fellow MP Cheng Li Hui.
In a strange coincidence, Mr Tan appeared to have foreshadowed his eventual “cancellation” in a podcast just a year earlier.
During the podcast, Mr Tan said being cancelled “comes with the turf”, referring to his position as a politician.
Mr Tan was a guest on the Plan B podcast in March last year.
During the episode, he answered the question, “Do you fear getting cancelled one day?” as follows:
I am being cancelled already. Every day we are being cancelled in some shape or form, right?
“You see that happening — may not be on my page recently, if you’re on certain pages.”
It’s not quite clear what he was referring to regarding these “pages”.
“But that comes with the turf, unfortunately,” he added.
In another, erm, interesting comment, Mr Tan also said this on the podcast:
I am not a morning person… more of a night person, really. I do a lot of night exercises.
As for what that means, we leave that to your imagination.
On 18 July, netizens found the segment on Plan B’s TikTok channel and started commenting on how Mr Tan did get cancelled eventually.
Source: TikTok
Another comment said karma had “hit him like a truck”.
Source: TikTok
In actual fact, comments had been left on the post since Mr Tan was caught uttering “f***ing populist” to himself, in reference to another MP’s Parliament speech.
Source: TikTok
Mr Tan resigned after PM Lee found out that, after speaking to him in February regarding his affair with Ms Cheng, he persisted in the relationship.
At the time, Mr Tan had apparently offered to resign, but PM Lee asked him to settle Marine Parade GRC affairs before doing so.
However, PM Lee said he learned “very recently” that the relationship had continued.
Though he did not go into specifics, we can presume that PM Lee had obtained evidence of the continued affair.
This evidence wasn’t made public, but it led to Mr Tan and Ms Cheng having to resign.
The Plan B podcasters certainly asked a prophetic question in light of what we know now.
Whether that means he was really cancelled is anyone’s guess, but we wonder if this was how he expected to leave politics.
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Featured image adapted from Plan B on YouTube.
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