By Terry Xu
Close to 200 individuals turned up for a protest event held at Hong Lim Park yesterday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The protest event, entitled 'Is our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong the right person to lead Singapore?' was jointly organized by Mr William Lim and Mr Osman Sulaiman after a petition created by Mr Lim was circulated to ask Mr Lee Hsien Loong, the current Singapore Prime Minister to step down.
The facebook event page wrote,
'We cannot allow a leader who has no competency and heart to lead the country. We cannot allow a leader who is devoid of compassion to continue and pile on miseries towards citizens any longer.
It's time for him to step down from office and allow a true leader with the appropriate skills, knowledge, competency and foresight to take over and lead Singapore to the next era.'
Most of the eight speakers has said that the citizens of the country have suffered from the flawed policies enacted by PM Lee over the past ten years with him helming the country state.
Organiser of the event, Mr William Lim said that he lost the respect of PM Lee after the Population White Paper was pushed through Parliament in February this year and subsequently, the suing of local Blogger, Roy Ngerng. He took offense to the statement made by PM Lee which Mr Lee said, 'Singapore belonged to everyone' and said that Singapore should only belong to Singaporeans. Mr Lee had made the statement, 'Singapore belongs to all of us' in a community event on May this year, which he said included 'Singaporeans, new arrivals, people who are on permanent residence here, people who are on employment pass here.'
Co-organiser of the event, Mr Osman Sulaiman said that PM Lee should step down as the government under his leadership do not care for its people. One of the points that he raised was the set quota for the number of graduates that Singapore is to have by the Ministry of Education. This was revealed from the U.S wires published in Wikileaks. He said, 'While they limit the numbers of Singaporeans to enter the university, they bring in all those foreigners on taxpayers' money and spend these money to enrich these people..'
Presidential Election 2011 Candidate, Mr Tan Kin Lian said that under the leadership of PM Lee, the cost of living has grown up to a level that is far too high. He pointed out that Singapore is now the world's most expensive city in the world. Though the government has clarified that the ranking only applies to expats, but he retorted by saying the same high cost experienced by expats also affects Singaporeans.
17 year old blogger, Arrifin Sha said that the government under Lee Hsien Loong has overseen a gradual decline in governance.He said that the Population White Paper which was touted to improve the country's economy was a last ditch effort, and it shows that the government has run out of ideas. 'Instead of grooming local business, they resort to bringing in large numbers of foreigners. It may boost our economy for now, but it will also bring a whole new set of problems which have yet to unfold.'
Former Secretary General of National Solidarity Party, Mr Goh Meng Seng said that PM Lee has sold out Singaporean citizens by removing the ban of food products from Fukushima, Japan where nuclear radiation is still believed to be present in the area. He alleges that this move was made so that Japan will sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is still in the negotiation stage.
Mr Lim said to TOC that he was happy that the weather turned up to be fine, and there were more participants to the event than what they have expected. Though the 'drama' segment turned out to be more heated up than what they have originally expected.
When one of the speakers, Mr Mohammed Bashir took to the mound on Hong Lim Park. Before Mr Bashir could explain the context of his speech after giving examples of how the country has benefited from PM Lee's policies and saying it is not viable for the opposition parties to take over the country, he was shouted down by boos of the riled up crowd.
Some of the attendees to the event left the park in a fit of anger after hearing what Mr Bashir was saying about PM Lee, while some even went to the front of the mound to ask him to get away.
When TOC approached Mr Bashir to ask about what he felt about being asked to end his speech halfway and to be heckled by the crowd. Mr Bashir said that he expected that to happen, and he said that it would have been good if the crowd could listen to the entirety of his speech.
He wanted to bring out the point that if oppositions were to be voted into the parliament, they would have to establish their presence way before elections are called for and they would have to progressively take more seats in the parliament as to nudge the policies with each election.
While some were at the event to support the resignation of PM Lee, a few were there just to hear what the speakers had to say. One lady who was worked up over Mr Bashir's speech said that Mr Bashir's father's generation would have supported the PAP government full heartedly, but if they were to be in current time, they would not support it.
This year is Mr Lee's 10th year as the Prime Minister of Singapore and his 30th year in Parliament.
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