South-East Asia (Page 1,554)

SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party (WP) member Nicole Seah on Tuesday (Jul 18) informed Secretary-General Pritam Singh of her decision to resign from the party due to an affair with fellow party member Leon Perera.

She said she is sorry for bringing disrepute to the party’s standing.

Read Ms Seah’s letter to Mr Singh, in full: 

Dear Pritam,

I offer my resignation as a member of The Workers’ Party with immediate effect, owing to my personal misconduct with another member of the Party. I am grateful to the Party for the numerous opportunities and responsibilities given to me over the last few years, which I have carried out with fullest diligence. I am deeply sorry for bringing disrepute to the Party’s standing and the hard work of its members and volunteers.

My actions were selfish and reckless. In pursuing impropriety, I have caused grave disappointment to the voters of East Coast GRC, and a significant base of members and volunteers who have sacrificed their personal time and resources to support the extensive groundwork we have done over the last few years. I am deeply saddened with regret to leave my running mates Kenneth Foo and Abdul Shariff, alongside a group of dedicated members and volunteers who now face the herculean task of winning back the trust of the constituents, vote by vote.

I am also mindful that my public standing means I should have been a better role model towards younger Singaporeans and youth members of the Party. I am very sorry that I am unable to carry on the good work of engaging the youth. I am confident that the Youth Wing exco will continue to flourish with enthusiasm and pride in the events and initiatives they will create throughout the course of their term.

Finally, I apologise to my loved ones for any embarrassment this might have caused, in particular my husband and my mother. Throughout this episode, I would like to humbly request that the privacy of my family be respected, as we seek to move ahead.

This is Mr Singh’s letter to Ms Seah, in full: 

Dear Nicole,

I acknowledge your letter of resignation from The Workers’ Party (WP) dated 18 Jul 2023.
You acknowledged therein that you fell short of the standards expected of the party.

Your resignation was deliberated by the Central Executive Committee the same evening. It was accepted as the requirement to be frank and honest in our dealings with the party and the people of Singapore is exacting and non-negotiable.

You made significant contributions to the WP. Your consistent commitment to the party’s outreach efforts in East Coast GRC after the 2020 General Elections was but one example of your dedication and willingness to work hard for the party’s cause. Your leadership of the WP Youth Wing was also greatly appreciated by the party.

I thank you for your valued service.

I was comforted to learn from you that you started the process of healing with your family last year. You have my full support in this regard, and I wish you all the very best in all your future endeavours.

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Despite facing a PAP team led by Mr Goh, the NSP team garnered 43.36 per cent of the votes with a thin slate of candidates, among whom Ms Seah and former MP Cheo Chai Chen were the more recognisable names.

The better-than-expected result was attributed to Ms Seah’s popularity online and offline. It was also partly a reflection of the general swing against the ruling party, 2011 being the watershed election in which the PAP lost a GRC for the first time.

Later that year, Ms Seah supported opposition politician Tan Jee Say in his presidential bid. 

HIATUS FROM POLITICS

Two years after being propelled into the limelight, Ms Seah shared about the pressure she had been under and how it had affected her.

In a Facebook post, she said that 2013 had been the “worst year” of her life thus far. Besides relationship troubles, and a gruelling schedule, she had to deal with her grandmother’s cancer diagnosis.

Ms Seah said that she was “arm-twisted” into making bad decisions during the Presidential Election, and “felt like a fraud being invited to speak at conferences everywhere”. She also wrote of people sending her rape and death threats, and “burning out from all ends”.

She described having a panic attack, contracting dengue fever and spoke about how her health suffered. But she ended her post on a positive note, writing: “Lastly, whenever you’re down and out, remember that the biggest blessing from here on is this – The only way now is to go up.”

That year, she also dealt with reports that suggested she was dating a married man, when the man in question was in fact divorced. The media outlets later issued an apology to Ms Seah.

After this crisis, she moved to Thailand for a job in the advertising industry.

In August 2014, she quit the NSP, calling it an “extremely difficult” decision to make.

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SCDF said that shouts of help could be heard coming from inside the unit when they arrived and firefighters from Sengkang Fire Station and Punggol Fire Station “conducted forcible entry through the front door”.

The unit was smoke-logged and the firefighters had to carefully manoeuvre their way into the unit, it added.

According to SCDF, five people were found inside one of the bedrooms and rescued by the firefighters.

They were taken to Singapore General Hospital for smoke inhalation and one of the adults also sustained minor burn injuries.

About 50 residents from the affected block were evacuated by the police and SCDF as a precautionary measure.

“Preliminary investigation indicates that the fire is likely to have been caused by an electrical origin in the kitchen,” said SCDF.Continue Reading

SINGAPORE: Former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song on Wednesday (Jul 19) announced his intention to run for the Singapore presidency.

The 75-year-old, who was speaking to the media after collecting eligibility forms from the Elections Department (ELD), said his bid was prompted by “recent concerns about the integrity of our national institutions”.

Mr Ng is the third presidential hopeful to throw his hat into the ring. Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was the first to do so on Jun 8, followed by businessman George Goh on Jun 12.

President Halimah Yacob’s six-year term expires on Sep 13 and she has said she will not stand for re-election.

The ELD has said that the Presidential Election may be held at any time from Jun 13, and if it has not been held by the expiration of the term of the incumbent President, it should be held shortly after.

Here’s what we know about Mr Ng:

PERSONAL LIFE

Mr Ng was born to a Teochew family and grew up in a mud-floored attap house in Kangkar, a fishing village located where Sengkang is today.

In an interview with the Straits Times in 2012, he recounted how life was not easy for the big family with 11 children who depended on his father’s income as a fish auctioneer.

“One of the things which made me sad was my mother having to borrow money from neighbours when things got desperate,” he said.

Being the second eldest child, Mr Ng felt the weight of responsibility from young and would help his father out at the fish market and look after his younger siblings.

Kangkar was “infested with gangsters” then and Mr Ng, who was baptised a Catholic when he was seven years old, credited the Catholic church and his school Montfort for keeping him focused on his studies.

Mr Ng received a Public Service Commission scholarship to study physics at the then-University of Singapore. He later obtained a Sloan Master’s degree in management from Stanford University.

He married his schoolmate from Montfort, Patricia, in 1972 and had three children, aged 50, 47 and 33. Mrs Ng died in 2005 from stomach cancer.

He is engaged to Ms Sybil Lau, a Canada-born Singaporean who is 45. She started her career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs and has been managing her family’s wealth since 2009.

Her profile on networking site LinkedIn states that she sits on the boards of American billionaire Ray Dalio’s family office in Singapore and SG Enable, the government-established agency which helps people with disabilities. She is also an independent director of WELL Health Technologies, a Canadian operator of clinics, and a partner at venture builder The Delta.

Chinese language daily Shin Min reported last Saturday that the couple have known each other for four years and that Mr Ng’s children are supportive of their relationship.

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