Netizens pick out election undertones from DPM Heng’s speech

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat rounded up the series of national broadcasts with his speech “Emerging Stronger Together” yesterday, June 20. The series of national broadcasts started with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech on “Overcoming the Crisis of a Generation” on June 7.

Mr Heng spoke about the government’s role in supporting Singaporeans, and Singaporeans’ role in helping Singapore emerge stronger from this pandemic. He highlighted the different roles that other ministers were playing in their bid to help Singapore come out of the pandemic stronger.

For example, he raised the point of the government providing Singaporeans with emotional and psychological support, and added that “Ministers Grace Fu, Indranee Rajah and Desmond Lee will oversee these efforts”.

When he spoke about continued efforts in terms of keeping trade and investment flowing into Singapore, he mentioned “Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and his team”.

Other ministers who got a mention from Mr Heng during his speech were PM Lee, Ministers Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong, Masagos Zulkifli, Chan Chun Sing, Josephine Teo, Ng Chee Meng, Ong Ye Kung, S. Iswaran, and Senior Ministers Teo Chee Hean and Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Following Mr Heng’s speech, many netizens’ comments speculated that the series of speeches were a lead-up to the General Elections.

The upcoming general election must be held by April 2021.

Some netizens were certain that this speech was heavily linked to the upcoming elections.

Others were less direct, but also alluded to the upcoming elections.

Mr Heng’s speech can be found here.