Raeesah 'dumbfounded' by WP panel's review of her as MP, says Pritam & WP leaders guided her from very beginning

Taking the witness stand for a second day at the trial of Workers' Party (WP) secretary-general Pritam Singh, Raeesah Khan recounted her experience with the WP disciplinary panel.

The panel was announced on Nov. 2, 2021, a day after she admitted to Parliament that she had lied about the original anecdote.

It comprised Singh, WP chair Sylvia Lim, and vice-chair Faisal Manap.

Raeesah said she was "very surprised" to hear about the panel, as no one had contacted her about it prior.

"I was very surprised with the formality of it…. because they have guided me from the very beginning, and I was surprised [the WP leaders] were taking this drastic action," she said, in response to questions by Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivakumar Ramasamy.

Panel discussed conduct, presence on the ground

At the panel's first session on Nov. 8, 2021, Raeesah said the WP leaders brought up her personality and her conduct.

Among the topics discussed was her presence in parliament, as well as her presence on the ground, Raeesah recalled.

She added that she thought she had been doing well in both aspects, as she believed she had been making "good progress" in Parliament.

She would also regularly do estate walks and rush from parliament to attend to "really important" things that came up.

"I was so shocked that that was the route the panel was taking. I mean, I was so surprised… I was kind of dumbfounded that I didn’t know how to respond.”

Singh also spoke about her discipline and punctuality, and said she was on "borrowed time" if the Central Executive Committee (CEC) allowed her to continue in her role, Raeesah said.

He also mentioned that she had not been vocal enough in Town Council meetings with himself, Lim, and the Sengkang team.

"My response to that was, I mean, I was the youngest one there by a few years," she said, adding that she had been observing and trying to learn from the others.

She added that she had good relationships with the Compassvale residents, and would meet them regularly.

Resign?

The session ended with the panel asking if her continuing as a Member of Parliament was the right route.

Raeesah said she felt taken aback by the sense of "distance", as though they were confronting her, choking up slightly as she recalled this in court on Oct. 15, 2024.

She also spoke about text messages between her and her aides, Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan on Nov. 13, 2021.

In her messages, she said that Singh had told her that if she didn't have the support of her immediate teammates, there was "no point in her continuing".

Nathan had texted back: "So by saying this, what does Pritam want you do to? Resign?"

"I think he does," Raeesah replied.

Nathan subsequently said that if she revealed the truth about how Singh and the WP leaders had known about the lie, she could damage Singh's reputation.

Raeesah replied that she wouldn't do that.

When the DPP asked why, she said: "I wanted to protect them. I revered them."

"I wanted to protect them and the party, and I wanted to take full responsibility of what happened."

Requested second session

On Nov. 22, 2021, Raeesah messaged Singh, requesting another meeting with the panel before they made a decision.

She explained in court that she did so as she had not been prepared for the first session, and wanted to "share truthfully" about her experience.

In response, Singh said that being unprepared was "not becoming" of an MP, and that it was a formal meeting that she should have been prepared for.

"I was really upset, I didn't understand where that came from," she told the court. Prior to that meeting, she had not been told that her entire career as an MP would be reviewed, she said.

Singh subsequently sent her another message, saying he hoped she could see that it was "precisely her character" that was under review, as she had decided to lie and stick to it.

When she shared this with Loh and Nathan, they were shocked that his opinion appeared to have changed, Raeesah said.

"What happened to 'I won't judge you??'" Nathan replied.

He was referring to something that Singh had said during a meeting between him and Raeesah on Oct. 3, 2021.

While both agreed that Singh had indeed said that he would not "judge" her, Raeesah said she thought he meant that he would not judge her for "continuing the narrative".

Singh had countered that he had meant that he would not judge her for taking responsibility.

'Weren't really listening'

Raeesah met the panel on Nov. 29, 2021, for a second and final session at the WP headquarters.

This time, she shared about the successes she believed she'd had, how hard she was working on the ground, and her personal struggles.

However, the panel did not respond very well, Raeesah said.

"I realised that at the meeting, they had already made [up] their mind...It felt that they weren’t really listening," she added.

During the "emotional" meeting, one of the WP leaders also wrote down "dissociation", referring to the mental condition that Raeesah had previously mentioned to Singh.

But Raeesah explained that she did not feel like she was experiencing dissociation; simply that dissociation could be one of the symptoms of her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which she was trying to avoid.

At this second session with the panel, she felt "very defeated and betrayed," she told the court.

This was because the people she "looked up to the most and trusted the most" appeared to have used the disciplinary panel to criticise her, and "almost pretend that they were not guiding [her] [before]".

On Nov. 30, 2021, she told Singh over the phone that it was best that she resign.

What happened to protecting them?

As to what she'd earlier said about wanting to "protect" her former colleagues, DPP Sivakumar asked why she ended up changing her mind.

At the beginning, she had wanted to protect the party, but later realised that there was "no way [she] could evade the questions", she replied.

In court on Oct. 14, 2024, Raeesah said that she had deliberately not mentioned in her personal statement — which she delivered in Parliament on Nov. 1, 2021 — that the WP had leaders had earlier known about her lie.

This was so she could "protect them and take full responsibility for [her] mistake", she said.

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Top image by Andrew Koay