Politics: Election lai liao

This week, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) announced that Nomination Day will be on April 23rd (next week), and Polling Day on May 3rd (the week after). It’s an incredibly narrow timeline that undoubtedly benefits the incumbent. To fully appreciate this, consider that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) published its report only on March 11th. It featured significant gerrymandering, as Jom reported, including the complete dissolution of some districts. Opposition parties, in other words, will have just over a month to digest the new battlelines and plan electoral strategies. So will the PAP, though its vastly superior resources and the fact that the EBRC reports to the office of Lawrence Wong, prime minister, and was taking his broader direction, means that it’ll always be best prepared.

Wong has always held the promise of a more consultative, kinder, liberal leadership than his predecessors, though in this most fundamental of democratic tenets—the running and timing of his first general election as leader—he has shown himself to be similar, if not worse. At GE2020, there was almost a four- month gap between the EBRC report and Polling Day, about twice this year’s. The choice of May 3rd is also strategically smart from a media perspective. The day prior is “Cooling Off Day”, when all “media” channels, including ordinary people on social media, are skittish about what they can or can’t say. But we should expect the mainstream media to offer lavish coverage of the government’s May Day Rally on May 1st, perhaps without getting into “politics”. (Or indeed, late political comments on the 1st that leaves the opposition no time to respond, as Ravi Philemon of Red Dot United suggested.) Put another way, the day before the election, Singapore’s media will likely be dominated by PAP politicians—possibly in their guise as labour activists.

Wong’s nerves are obvious, and for good reason. While the guitar-hero is incredibly popular, his colleagues may need more help.

Some further reading: In “How did I get here? Gerrymandering in Singapore”, Jom analyses the EBRC’s report. 

Politics: Election round-up

The PAP has turned to (relative) youth in its attempt to win back Sengkang GRC from the Workers’ Party (WP). Of the four-member team that lost by six percent in 2020, only Lam Pin Min, 55, remains. The other slots have been taken up by Bernadette Giam, 38, Theodora Lai, 39, and Elmie Nekmat, 43. Sengkang’s 120,000-strong electorate is younger than the national average, with more than half under 40. Part of the PAP’s strategy there appears to be a focus on women with young families. The party website introduces the two men with their professional chops—Lam is a veteran political operator and Elmie an associate professor at the National University of Singapore. Meanwhile, readers are first told that Giam and Lai are working mothers with “two young children” even though Giam was also formerly at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is now a director in her family’s F&B business. Lai works in venture capital and private equity. Giam, Lai et al will be up against a (still undisclosed) WP team that will have at least one change from 2020. Raeesah Khan, part of the winning team that year, resigned in November 2021 after admitting to lying in Parliament.

The PAP has announced a similarly young and untested five-member team in Aljunied. Two of them—Daniel Liu and Faisal Abdul Aziz—were even asked if they were part of a “suicide squad” in the obvious WP stronghold. In the past though, the PAP appears to have used Aljunied as a proving ground for promising candidates. In 2015, debutant Murali Pillai was on the losing side, but went on to win a by-election the following year. He is now the minister of state for law as well as transport. Meanwhile, at least two of the PAP’s 2020 (losing) Aljunied team, Victor Lye and Alex Yeo, appear likely to enter Parliament this time round as part of stronger teams in safer wards.

The ruling party is on surer ground in Chua Chu Kang GRC, where Gan Kim Yong, deputy prime minister; Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim, sitting member of Parliament; and new entrant Choo Pei Ling will be joined by Jeffrey Siow. Siow was formerly director at the Ministry of Transport and, like Lawrence Wong, served as private secretary to Lee Hsien Loong, senior minister. Impressive credentials, no doubt, although weary critics may throw up their hands at yet another senior civil servant donning whites. The resignation of others, including Goh Hanyan and Jasmin Lau, earlier this month has fuelled speculation of their imminent entry into politics with the PAP. Lightning strikes twice, and again, and again, and again…

Society: Justice for Megan

Prolonged physical and emotional abuse that culminated in the cruel, senseless murder of a four-year-old, at the hands of the very adults supposed to keep her safe. Could Megan Khung have been saved? What systems would, could or should have helped Megan? What were the lapses in the reporting of abuse and follow-up checks that led to her tragic end instead? Answers to these and other nagging questions may be clearer after the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) completes a further review of Megan’s case. MSF will cover the responses of all parties involved, including Beyond Social Services—the social service agency (SSA) affiliated to the pre-school she attended—the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA), MSF’s Child Protective Service (CPS), and the police. It’ll also include the additional information that Beyond shared after MSF’s initial statement on April 8th. In it, MSF noted that Beyond’s incident report hadn’t “fully” described the severity of Megan’s injuries, which resulted in “inadequate interventions” by the relevant agencies. It also told The Straits Times (ST) that had the pre-school and SSA used the screening and reporting guides relating to child abuse management, they would have “recognised that the injuries were significant”, and reported them “accurately as suspected intrafamilial child abuse”. They would have also consulted ECDA or CPS “urgently”.

It will be tempting to single out someone to blame. But social workers attributed Megan’s death to the “collective failure” of the system. Teachers, community workers, social service professionals, government agencies, the police and even residents, all play an essential role in ensuring our children’s safety and well-being. But they also depend on protocols, procedures and processes that enable and empower them to make informed, potentially life-saving decisions. 

It’s been more than five years since the fatal punch to Megan’s stomach ended over a year of abuse and humiliation from her mother, Foo Li Ping, and Foo’s then-boyfriend Wong Shi Xiang—both were recently sentenced for their crimes. Steps have been taken to boost our child protection system, but the collective shock of Megan’s murder lingers in the nation’s psyche. An unsparing, consultative, and open review is necessary to better protect our children, and to restore our faith in ourselves.

History weekly by Faris Joraimi

As it turns out, there are things to look forward to as part of SG60. Two performances will be dedicated to P Ramlee, the Penang-born Malaysian actor, filmmaker, singer and music composer who reached the peak of his career in Singapore in the mid-20th century. Local theatre company Wild Rice is staging “Tunggu Sekejap: The P. Ramlee Suite”, featuring arrangements of the maestro’s creations by musician and composer Julian Wong. This follows “Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita”, Wong’s triumphant tribute to the late Zubir Said, our national anthem’s composer. Patriotism, messy and grand, was brought down to human scale. Music won’t be the only medium of Wong’s conversation with the old masters this time;he’ll be speaking with P Ramlee on stage, played by actor and musician Fadhli Ramlee. 

Another actor-musician, P Radhi, will play P Ramlee in “Legasi Layar Perak” (Legacy of the Silver Screen), a concert featuring songs from the golden age of Malay cinema. He’s not just any skilled actor; P Radhi was the winner of Bintang P Ramlee in 2016, a Malaysian singing competition where contestants perform P Ramlee’s songs in his manner and style. Sharing the stage are singer Azlina Aziz (daughter of golden-age stars Normadiah and Aziz Jaafar) as well as veteran entertainer Eddy Ali. These performances will probably be a way to tune in to another Singapore. P Ramlee wasn’t a citizen, nor did Singapore (or Malaysia) exist as nation-states when he made his best work. The title of Wild Rice’s show, “Tunggu Sekejap” (Wait a While), is a number from Sarjan Hassan (1958), which Ramlee sings as a soldier off to war, far from his beloved, through the gentle rain. “As we mark SG60,” said director Ivan Heng, ‘Tunggu Sekejap’ invites us to remember the golden age of Malayan cinema and reflect on what we lost, and the artistic potential of Singapore and our region.” 

And so, “tunggu sekejap”—that delicious, coy lover’s plea—is a spell transmuting nationalist histories into expansive worlds. They persist today if we bother to wait a while and listen. Few of P Ramlee’s works celebrated national identities. He wrote about people—noble, comical, imperfect—who all sang beautifully. Perhaps in this time of destructive, simple nationalisms, we too should sing. 

Arts: Poetry lai liao

And not just from the ongoing Singapore Poetry Writing Month (affectionately abbreviated to “SingPoWriMo”). AFTERIMAGE, Singapore’s newest poetry press, has been keeping itself busy with an exquisite debut collection featuring three female and non-binary poets: Rosaly Puthucheary, ArunDitha Emmanuel and Zeha. Their verses converse with each other across metre and metaphor, and also across generations.

what is reclamation/what is it/this line between ownership and intrusion/the abyss has promised me nothingness/i don’t own this map/that is everything to me/
— from “mere-made” by Zeha, in the collection rib/cage

Our local poetry catalogue has lain fallow for some time, following the folding of Math Paper Press, the publishing arm of beleaguered bookstore BooksActually. In its heyday, the small press churned out stacks of poetry chapbooks and anthologies, then ultimately shuttered in debt to both customers and suppliers. But this year is looking poetically fertile, with a fresh crop of titles to be released by small presses and local publishers in the coming months. AFTERIMAGE is rolling out its sophomore collection: Boh Beh Zao, by Zillennial poet Cheng Him, an exploration of Singaporean vernacular in the voice and psyche of the ah seng—that softer, sweeter sidekick to the hard-edged hooligan of the ah beng.

imagine you sleep you wake 
up dont know what is day what is
night what is floor what is sky.
— from “Wake Up” by Cheng Him, in his forthcoming collection Boh Beh Zao

This isn’t the only publisher with a large yield. Ethos Books has a few releases in the pipeline, including several reissues and expanded editions: one of award-winning poet Alvin Pang’s What Gives Us Our Names (2011), accompanied by translations into Malay, Indonesian, German and Spanish; and the anthology Little Things (2013), which will feature a new section that explores environmental themes. The publishing stalwart will also be launching and distributing two new collections by younger writers that circle around notions of home and belonging. Theophilus Kwek, the double-hatting public servant and poet, pays homage to his family’s neighbourhood in Commonwealth. The public housing estate becomes a point of embarkation, location and dislocation—through documentary and oral history sources, we travel back in time to the large-scale displacement of the Bukit Ho Swee fires of the 1960s, then are propelled into a pandemic world where we must all “shelter in place”. And in homesick, the multidisciplinary artist nor has crafted an ode to young adulthood, and the politics and pop culture that have shaped our 20-somethings:

at 26—/ the earthquakes began—// tell me,/ how was I supposed to feel at home// when the ground beneath me shook so fast
— an excerpt from nor’s forthcoming collection, homesick

And if you want to pen your own paean to this place we all call “home”, you may want to vote for a poetry party after a month of political parties: the SingPoWriMo closing party is slated to take place on May 3rd, Polling Day.

Tech: GXS Bank Grabs Validus for SME lending

Grab’s tentacles continue to spread. GXS Bank, its digital bank business, has expanded its SME financing services by acquiring Validus Capital, the local arm of South-east Asian lending platform Validus Group. Validus’s credit models and regional experience stood out during due diligence, offering GXS immediate scale in trade finance and working capital loans—key gaps in its current FlexiLoan-centric offerings. The all-cash deal, expected to close by mid-April, brings Validus’s Singapore customer base, technology and loan portfolio under GXS’s umbrella—adding a proven SME financing operation that has disbursed over US$1bn (S$1.31bn) since 2015. GXS aims to grow its combined loan book fivefold within three years, and plans a full business banking rollout by Q3 2025.

The company soft-launched business banking earlier this year, and the acquisition accelerates its ambitions in SME lending. The deal also underscores how digital banks are blending organic growth with targeted mergers and acquisitions to challenge traditional SME lenders. The result could mean more seamless access to capital for Singapore’s small businesses, albeit with fewer standalone fintech options. GXS has ruled out further buys for now, but is eyeing partnerships to embed financing into non-banking platforms—hinting at a broader pivot toward embedded finance. Meanwhile, Validus Group will refocus on Indonesia and Thailand, where it sees larger untapped markets.

Tech: Every move you make…

“Minority Report”, here we come. The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) Home Team Science and Tech Agency (HTX) have designed a new experimental AI system to detect emotional distress during prison tele-visits. Set for trial in October 2025, the platform uses advanced facial recognition and sentiment analysis algorithms to identify signs of conflict or emotional turmoil in real-time, enabling officers to intervene before situations escalate. Presently, staff rely largely on happenstance—overhearing arguments during routine patrols or learning about conflicts through post-visit disclosures. Common triggers like marital disputes, financial stress, or family tensions often go undetected until they reach a boiling point. The new system will preempt this by analysing micro-expressions—subtle facial movements like frowning or changes in eye and mouth positioning—that may indicate rising emotions. It also detects unauthorised smartphone use during visits, addressing a persistent compliance issue.

However, the technology’s accuracy in distinguishing genuine distress from false positives remains untested at scale. There are also broader ethical considerations about the appropriate boundaries of surveillance, even within prison environments. Singapore’s experience could influence correctional approaches worldwide, potentially setting new standards for balancing security with rehabilitation in the digital age. The ultimate measure of success will be whether such technology genuinely enhances the human aspects of corrections or is another step towards a panopticon-style dystopia.

Correction notice: A previous version misspelt the names of Jeffrey Siow and Jasmin Lau.

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