Race issue moves to center of S'pore campaign

Race issue moves to center of S'pore campaign

SINGAPORE (AFP): The sensitive issue of race moved to the
center of Singapore's poll campaign yesterday when top government
leaders trained their guns on an opposition candidate for
allegedly espousing Chinese chauvinism.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew
warned that this multi-ethnic island's "racial fault lines" would
be disturbed if lawyer Tang Liang Hong won election.

They likened Tang to Australia's controversial anti-
immigration MP Pauline Hanson, at the center of a widespread race
debate involving Asians.

Goh, 55, told a People's Action Party (PAP) rally that he was
staking his personal prestige on the outcome of Thursday's poll
in the district of Cheng San from where Tang is running for
parliament on a Workers' Party ticket.

"You want this man to get into parliament? I am not going to
allow him and therefore I am entering the arena to contest
against him through the (PAP) candidates in Cheng San," Goh, 55,
said.

"It is a choice for the people -- whether they believe my
policies are the right ones for Singapore or whether they want
Singapore to go that (Tang's) way," he told the lunch-time rally
in the financial district.

PAP leaders charged that Tang, 61, unknown in the political
arena until last week, holds extreme views on the promotion of
Chinese language and culture.

In past speeches, Tang has reportedly said there were too many
Christians and English-educated Singaporeans in the cabinet and
civil service and that the Chinese-educated were left out of the
mainstream.

The issue has given a racial tinge to the campaign for
Thursday's general elections in the island of three million
people, 77 percent of whom are ethnic Chinese, 14 percent Malay
and seven percent Indian.

"This is a very sensitive problem, pitting one language
against another, and you need to balance this carefully, in order
to hold the whole place together," Goh said.

"Tang Liang's views are dangerous because the fault lines
between races would always be there," Goh said, citing the
examples of Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.

The fault lines in Singapore have been obscured by years of
affluence and economic growth but if it enters a prolonged
recession and people of various races have to compete for jobs,
"you may begin to see the fault lines clearly, " he warned.

Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew told reporters after the rally
that racial disharmony was not an immediate problem, and placed
it against the background of a growing China.

"We have got to see this problem in the context of 10, 15 to
20 years," said Lee, prime minister for 31 years until 1990 and
the architect of Singapore's much-envied economic success.

He said Tang was not a danger in himself, but "the danger is
in the context of a growing China."

"Let us face it -- in 30 years it is going to be a very
powerful country and a powerful language.

"We are in danger if we go along with the tide, because year
by year ... the Chinese tide rises. So (does) the desire of the
Chinese-educated to assert their stronger position because they
share a reflected strength.

"We go that way, we would be destroyed," Lee warned. "I have
got no doubts in mind... One, our internal divisions will destroy
us. Two, there will be external forces out to destroy us..."

Tang has denied being anti-Christian and said the PAP had
labeled him a chauvinist to frighten voters and prevent him from
entering parliament. He has threatened to sue Lee and Goh, and
both dared him to commence legal action.

The Workers' Party urged the PAP to elevate the campaigning in
the last two days "from haranguing opposition candidates" to
focus on issues.