PSP responds after Shanmugam calls their contesting Nee Soon GRC ‘half-hearted’

Progress Singapore Party (PSP) candidate Brad Bowyer said that the People’s Action Party (PAP) had been “trying to delegitimize” the newer party as part of its strategy.

His comments came after the PAP’s K. Shanmugam said that the opposition attempt on Nee Soon GRC this election seems to be a “half-hearted” one.

During a virtual press conference streamed from the People’s Action Party’s Nee Soon East branch, Mr Shanmugam said of his opponents, the Progress Singapore Party (PSP): “I don’t want to speculate why PSP has come, but it seems to have been very half-hearted about it. As you will recall, a week ago it was offering to trade Nee Soon for some other constituency.”

Responding, Mr Bowyer said it was a rumour that PSP had offered to cede Nee Soon, and his team had been preparing for the Nee Soon campaign since the electoral boundary report came out.

“We have been on the ground for nearly a month already as far as possible under the circuit breaker guidelines,” he said, according to a report in The Straits Times.

“It seems trying to delegitimise us is the current strategy,” he added. “I was hoping they would take a higher road and say why they deserve to be re-elected, rather than this.”

Last week, Reform Party (RP) chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam said the PSP will withdraw from “various grounds” in return for the RP not contesting West Coast GRC, and that the PSP had also offered to cede Nee Soon, but the RP decided not to contest it anyway.

The PSP team for Nee Soon consists of Mr Damien Tay, 51, party treasurer Mr Sri Nallakaruppan, 56, Mr Bradley Bowyer, 53, Ms Kala Manickam, 52, and Mr Taufik Supan, 40.

PAP’s team consists of: Mr Shanmugam, 61, Mr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, 52, Mr Louis Ng, 41, Ms Carrie Tan, 38, and Mr Derrick Goh, 51.

TISG has reached out to PSP for further comment on the matter. /TISG