SINGAPORE - Progress Singapore Party chief Tan Cheng Bock on Tuesday (July 7) described the controversy surrounding Workers' Party (WP) candidate Raeesah Khan's social media posts as "gutter politics".
Ms Raeesah, 26, is being investigated after two police reports were made against her for two posts on Facebook in which she suggested that the authorities discriminated against minorities.
News of the police reports broke on Sunday, following which Ms Raeesah, who is on the WP's Sengkang GRC team, apologised for making "insensitive" and "improper" remarks.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Dr Tan said he did not want to be involved in politics like that, adding that whoever made the police reports had timed them to coincide with the campaign period.
"(The posts were made) so long ago they should've taken action (earlier). Why wait until now? That's my question," said Dr Tan.
"When it comes to politicking of this nature, let us (take the high road), then the world will look at us and regard Singapore as a mature country."
In the posts, which were made in February 2018 and May this year, Ms Raeesah suggested that police officers discriminated against citizens, and that rich Chinese and white people were treated differently under the law. She also said that minorities and mosque leaders were given different treatment compared with church leaders.
Dr Tan said parties should ask themselves if they have conducted their campaign in a "gentlemanly way".
"I don't want to pick an event that happened two years ago. That shows that they have been waiting for this moment and this is what I call gutter politics," he said in an interview after accompanying his party's Tanjong Pagar GRC team on a walkabout at Bukit Merah View Market.
The Progress Singapore Party team in Tanjong Pagar group representation constituency is led by Mr Michael Chua, 55, who runs a private firm in the environmental sector, and includes lawyer Wendy Low, 43, technologist Harish Pillay, 60, senior trainer Abas Kasmani, 67, and pilot Terence Soon, 29.
