MP Rahayu Mahzam seeks legal advice over economist Donald Low's 'wholly untrue' post on Raeesah Khan COP

Minister of State for Digital Development & Information and also Health, Rahayu Mahzam, is "seeking legal advice" and intends to "take action" against Hong Kong-based Singaporean economist Donald Low.

According to Rahayu, who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) for Jurong GRC, Low has "made a serious allegation" against her in relation to the Committee of Privileges (COP) proceedings involving Raeesah Khan in an Oct. 18, 2024 Facebook post.

"The allegation is wholly untrue and appears to be defamatory," wrote Rahayu in a Facebook post.

What Low wrote

While Low's post was initially published at around 8:50am (Singapore time), it was edited three times as of 6pm.

In the first version of the post, Low commented that the COP seemed to have "got it wrong", and its case against Workers' Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh now "hinges on two witnesses who have turned out to be not credible".

He then mentioned a "PAP MP".

What Loh Pei Ying said

Low was referring to the recount given by former WP member Loh Pei Ying, who served as Raeesah's secretarial assistant.

Loh took the witness stand on Oct. 17 and 18 at Singh's trial, where the Leader of the Opposition is contesting two charges of lying to COP in relation to his involvement in Raeesah's case.

During her testimony, Loh admitted to lying about the reason she redacted a message sent by another former WP member, Yudhishthra Nathan, in a document submitted to COP in 2021.

She also shared that she did so after a three-hour meeting with Rahayu, who was a member of the COP, where they reviewed all her messages "relevant to the COP" and agreed on what could and could not be redacted.

When questioned by Singh's lawyer Andre Jumabhoy if Rahayu knew that Loh was redacting that particular message, Loh replied: "No, this redaction is mine, but my position is that she would have seen (the message)."

Edited post

Low edited his post about an hour later, adding that Rahayu was a member of the COP.

At 5:34pm, Low added to his post again, which read:

"Edit: The above is based on my understanding of what was reported in the media of Loh's evidence in court. I'm not saying that what she implied about the state of Rahayu's knowledge is correct, or am I saying that Rahayu was complicit in the redacting of evidence."

While Low did not specify why he included this addition, the edit occurred after Rahayu's post, which was published at 3:30pm.

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Top images via Donald Low & Rahayu Mahzam/Facebook