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Beware of 'rojak govt' if PAP loses power, Swee Say warns
By Teo Cheng Wee
(From left) Former Speaker of Parliament Abdullah Tarmugi, PAP's East Coast GRC team leader Lim Swee Say, Senior Minister S. Jayakumar and Transport Minister Raymond Lim at the PAP rally at Bedok Stadium last night. -- ST PHOTO: TERENCE TAN
CABINET Minister Lim Swee Say yesterday warned that Singapore could get a 'rojak government with rojak policies' if the people vote in the opposition on Saturday.
He noted that none of the opposition parties is contesting in enough seats to form the government, so if the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) were to lose power, a coalition government will have to be cobbled from among the opposition parties. Each party will push for its own 'pet project', be it minimum wage or drawing down from the reserves.
'Everybody will just put in their idea... Your future will become a big bowl of rojak,' he said, in a reference to the local salad that is a jumble of ingredients.
Mr Lim, who was at the PAP rally for East Coast GRC held at the Bedok stadium, said this was why he felt compelled to examine the various opposition party proposals.
One which he hit out at last night was that of unemployment benefits. It seemed fitting that the labour chief declared - on Labour Day, no less - that the PAP's belief was that employment was the best welfare for workers.
He noted that the unemployment rate was 9.5 per cent in the United States, 8.5 per cent in Europe and only 1.9 per cent here. The crowd cheered.
He further noted that while workers elsewhere were suffering and mounting protests on Labour Day, workers here were celebrating the day at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
His team member for the five-man East Coast GRC, Mr Lee Yi Shyan, also zeroed in on labour issues last night, specifically that of the opposition's support for minimum wage, which he said he had seen in force in South Africa.
Mr Lee, who is the Minister of State for Trade and Industry and also Manpower, said minimum wage did not reward those who were productive, since one would get the minimum pay, whether one worked hard or not.
'So on the one hand, the opposition wants us to move towards the First World,' he said, in a reference to the slogan of the Workers' Party (WP) pushing for a First World Parliament, 'but on the other, they want to push us towards Third World Africa.'
Mr Lim's retirement plans also figured in his speech last night. This was because he wanted to respond to the WP, which urged voters on Saturday to retire him through the ballot box.
Mr Lim, 56, had himself raised the subject of his retirement at a dialogue last week, when he said that if he had to fight the next general election as well, it would mean he had failed in his duty to groom a successor.
To the WP's salvo, he retorted last night that he raised the subject of his retirement only because he wanted to find a 'younger, better-looking and smarter Lim Swee Say' to be labour chief.
To loud cheers, he said: 'It was never my intention to give up my place in East Coast GRC, to an opposition team not smarter than me, not better than me and not more committed than me.'
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