Dear Voters of Sembawang,
Your vote coming Saturday, the third of May, is a vote to reset Sembawang GRC.
Since the start of the elections, at every rally, through every statement, every piece of campaign messaging from the PAP and Ong Ye Kung, there’s one thing that stands out – they are stuck in the past.
Stuck talking about what you should be grateful for, and stuck using the same old fearmongering playbook.
It is clear: the PAP is not the party of change.
Singaporeans want new ideas, real accountability and leaders who put the people – not party and their individual selves – at the centre.
In the run-up to the elections – and now throughout this election season – analysts, netizens, observers and residents alike have ranked the SDP as one of the first tier opposition parties in Singapore.
We are humbled by that recognition.
But the truth is SDP is just an ordinary party with ordinary people, but we do have lots of passion!
Nevertheless, at the request of Sembawang residents, the SDP has come forward to contest in Sembawang GRC in the hope that our passion to serve can help the residents.
So thank you, residents of Sembawang, for giving us this privilege.
With SDP, there is no need for Ong Ye Kung to bring Turf Club horses here.
The SDP’s red horses, your candidates for Sembawang GRC and Sembawang West SMC, are already here.
And with the Sembawang voters’ blessings and support, we hope to win and replace Ong Ye Kung and his PAP team for Sembawang residents.
We are the no-horse-run team.
Ong Ye Kung says: “If you don’t want to give us (the PAP) a blank cheque, then don’t give the SDP a free pass either.
It is the PAP that has had a free pass for decades. And what have they done with it?
Look around you. Costs of living have soared. Job security is failing while inequality is rising. Healthcare is expensive for ordinary Singaporeans and support is piecemeal.
Every year, every election, it is the same issues and the same hardships that Singaporeans face that the PAP cannot resolve.
Ong Ye Kung has collected millions in salary from the taxpayers’ money — it is his job to deliver results.
Not to sit back, while the civil servants do the work, and arrogantly shoot down the SDP’s ideas – ideas collected from Singaporeans to alleviate the people’s sufferings.
We can no longer afford to be passive – against this inability of the PAP to solve the people’s problems.
This situation cannot go on, it must stop – here and now.
The PAP team in Sembawang has to be replaced.
Let’s speak about Sembawang’s town development.
Every election, the PAP boasts about whatever new infrastructure has been built in the past years.
Ong Ye Kung says: “Do you think any of this would happen if the SDP were in charge?”
Dear Sembawang residents – these aren’t PAP’s gifts. Town development is not a PAP’s favour to give or not to give to people as when it chooses.
These are public projects – funded by taxpayers and have to be completed according to the national plan.
But what is Ong Ye Kung doing?
He’s issuing thinly veiled threats to Sembawang residents: vote for the PAP or lose your development projects.
What we’re seeing now is the true face behind Ong Ye Kung’s social media-spun narrative – a politically presumptuous, politically entitled, constituency-hopping, underperforming minister, who now can sense that Sembawang voters do not want him any more.
But where is Ong Ye Kung’s town plan?
On 7 April, early this month, he announced that “the Sembawang plan for the next five years will be published in the coming weeks”.
Its been 3 weeks, and we are on the second-to-last day of the campaign – still no sound, no picture.
He has become a silent Ong. A“Bo sia Ong”.
Meanwhile, the SDP has delivered its town plan, titled “Putting the ❤︎ in Heartland” for the constituencies in its Northern Strategy.
The Town Plan is a people-centred blueprint shaped by the voices of Sembawang residents, aimed at building an inclusive, accessible and connected community.
It prioritises key improvements like more seating for seniors, and lifts on overhead bridges; while also creating support systems for youths and plans to protect the environment, animals and wildlife.
The SDP will also convene regular town halls in areas under the SDP’s Northern Strategy to ensure ongoing public input and alignment.
When we mention town hall, PAP’s Sembawang West SMC candidate Poh Li San mocks our Town Halls. She calls them “political theatre.”
What this really shows is how far removed the PAP is from the basic idea of democracy. To them, public participation sounds alien – something unnecessary or even threatening.
It also shows that the PAP can only see open, honest, public consultation efforts as political stunts; because they do not see the use in talking to you, the residents.
But to us in the SDP, Town Halls are about real engagement. Town Halls bring people together publicly, so problems can be discussed collectively.
We plan to hold such Town Halls in Sembawang and other constituencies in our Northern Strategy regularly.
At every Town Hall, we will engage with the people. That is accountability.
We know the PAP rejects this approach – and that is exactly the difference between the PAP and the SDP.
Let’s move to healthcare.
Ong Ye Kung is a Health Minister – with no medical background – propping himself up over civil servants at the health ministry, talking down to the very people he’s meant to serve.
Over the years, the PAP has built a system so complex – MediSave, MediShield, aggressive means-testing and stringent subsidies.
All the while, he fails to keep healthcare prices in check – punishing Singaporeans for not being able to afford private options themselves.
The SDP proposes a single-payer universal healthcare model. One that removes unnecessary administrative waste, eliminates duplication caused by the current multiple-cluster system and puts money directly into care – not bureaucracy.
At the same time, we will push for lowering healthcare costs.
Meanwhile, across a whole week of campaigning, Ong Ye Kung has not presented a single new health idea – only recycling the PAP’s tired party lines and political posturing.
Ong Ye Kung has no cogent argument, apart from spouting out a bunch of convoluted statements.
On the other hand, the SDP has launched a detailed Policy Brief “Nationalising Mental Health Care” – in addition to its national healthcare policy platform – that seeks to address the root causes of the mental health crisis, together with increasing support for those with poor mental health conditions.
Our proposal is to bring mental healthcare centrally as a critical component of Singapore’s national healthcare plan.
This is the kind of initiative that SDP MPs are capable of bringing to Parliament.
Our initiatives on the Town Plan and National Health Care are examples of the ideas and work SDP MPs can do for the residents of Sembawang GRC.
That’s why we are fielding not only passionate candidates, but also candidates of calibre with sound policy-oriented ideas and who are ready to serve.
Let’s talk about housing.
Ong Ye Kung insists that removing land costs from new BTO flats will cheapen new flats but will damage resale value.
Ong Ye Kung is out of touch. Not all young people are thinking about the resale value of flats.
If your first flat is priced out of reach, then what good is the resale market later?
Young people want affordable housing, want to start families and do not want to worry about costs and expenditures.
Increasingly, for young people: a home is a place to live, not just a stock to flip down the line.
We propose a non-open market scheme that prices HDB flats for their construction and administration costs, and allows HDB buybacks – not to rob value, but to restore access.
To restore the original core value of having an HDB flat scheme in the first place.
For young Singaporeans, what matters most is affordable housing to start their independent lives.
In short, in this election campaign, Ong Ye Kung has nothing substantive to offer.
And in this vacuum of ideas, he continues to attack the opposition and bully the voters to vote for him and the PAP – all the while downplaying the problems eating away at Singaporeans or denying them altogether.
Ong Ye Kung is a great example of the type of politicians the PAP grooms and props up.
Singaporeans do not want PAP MPs who speak down to them condescendingly.
When voters reject such PAP candidates in one constituency, the PAP parachutes them into another re-drawn constituency – hoping that a weak political contender there will let them through with a free pass.
Well, not this time, not in Sembawang GRC.
This time it’s a face-off with the SDP.
Vote for SDP, Vote for SDP MPs.
Give us a clear mandate of 50.1% or more.
It is clear, as we gallop into the final turn, that Ong Ye King is haemorrhaging public support, hence, he has started going on a political self-praising campaign.
Self-praise, if used judiciously, can be a positive tool to boost confidence and self-esteem.
In Ong Ye Kung’s case, this self-praise is excessive, boastful and arrogant.
It is simply too much.
So, Ong Ye Kung leaves us no choice.
We have to “Sack that bugger, Sack that bugger, Sack that bugger”
Thank You.