S'pore ends poll campaign with law suits flying

S'pore ends poll campaign with law suits flying

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Singapore ended its general election
campaign yesterday with law suits flying and the already
victorious People's Action Party (PAP) directing all its guns on
one opposition candidate.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told a campaign rally he would
sue Tang Liang Hong of the Workers' Party (WP), a man he accuses
of being a "Chinese chauvinist" who endangers Singapore's
multiracial society.

WP leader Joshua Jeyaretnam said Tang would sue Goh and had
already made a complaint to police alleging defamation.

Goh's PAP is assured of carrying on in government after
today's election as the opposition is not contesting 47 of
parliament's 83 seats, but he has laid his prestige on the line
in a bid to defeat the WP in the multi-member Cheng San
constituency.

"If we lose (here), the whole leadership in the government
loses," senior PAP leader Lee Kuan Yew told a rally in the
constituency on Wednesday night.

Goh said a strong showing in the contested seats was vital for
his future and for Singapore.

Setbacks would mean other countries concluding he had been
weakened and asking who would succeed him, he said. "So they
would speculate as to the stability of Singapore."

Goh has put the PAP's considerable muscle into the Cheng Sen
campaign and set most of it to work against Tang.

He made plain from the beginning of the campaign he did not
want to see the opposition increase its four seats in parliament.
Cheng San has five at stake in a winner-take-all vote and
political analysts said that was where the opposition had the
best chance.

Goh alleged Tang told a seminar more than two years ago that
Chinese-educated Singaporeans "were carrying the sedan chair for
others" when they "should be sitting on the sedan chair".

He called Tang an extremist and said his views could threaten
harmony in Singapore, which is 77 percent ethnic Chinese and has
significant minorities of Malays and Indian.

In a country where strong memories remain of racial riots in
the 1960s, it is an emotive issue.

Tang denied he had stirred up racial problems and fought back
by promising to sue Goh for defamation.

The prime minister said he would also sue, accusing Tang of
calling him a liar.

"This matter will go to court," Goh said. "This is a very,
very serious matter to call a prime minister a liar. If I lie as
PM, then I think Singapore is finished."

Race was not the only heavy weapon the PAP brought to Cheng
San. It also used the issue of heavily-subsidized renovation of
housing estates.

Goh said at the beginning of the campaign that constituencies
which voted for the opposition would "lose out" on the program
and become slums in 20 years or so.

Opposition -- page 5

Race -- Page 11