‘Unusual’ for Leader of Opposition to give 1st in-depth GE2025 interview to M’sian podcasters: PAP

The People's Action Party (PAP) said it was "unusual" that the Leader of the Opposition (LO) Pritam Singh gave his first in-depth interview on general election (GE) 2025 to Malaysian podcasters when he had "declined invitations from Singaporean podcasters".

Additionally, instead of discussing "a wide range of topics", such as international, regional, and domestic matters, like Singapore ministers do when they engage with foreign media, the Workers' Party (WP) chief "focused almost entirely on Singapore's internal politics" during the podcast.

The PAP made the points above in a statement issued on Jul. 3 night in response to an earlier statement issued by the WP.

In WP's statement, which was made in response to a statement issued by PAP on Jul. 3 afternoon, WP defended Singh's appearance on the podcast hosted by former Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and former UMNO Information Chief Shahril Hamdan.

In particular, WP denied that Singh's podcast had any detrimental impact on Singapore's national interests, adding that it "exemplified how a non-government Singaporean politician can speak fairly and frankly about Singapore and Singapore government" instead.

WP also highlighted that PAP leaders routinely give interviews and share their views on domestic matters to foreign media outlets, but "no right-thinking individual would accuse the PAP of 'foreign involvement' to benefit the party".

Adding that no legal convention had been communicated to Singh that "fetters his freedom of speech, locally or overseas," WP thus contended that the PAP was "opposing for the sake of opposing".

WP continued 'brush aside serious concerns': PAP

Besides rebutting WP's assessment of Singh's appearance on the podcast, PAP also found WP's response, stating that it had "decisively dealt with" the issues involving self-identified religious teacher Noor Deros and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) during GE2025, to be unsatisfactory.

This is because "many important questions" asked by the PAP in its earlier statement on Jul. 3 and the Petir article rebutting WP candidate Harpreet Singh "remain unanswered", contended PAP.

One example raised by PAP was that WP has yet to explain what transpired in its meeting with Deros and why Deros subsequently expressed public support for WP candidates during GE2025 despite public interest.

In WP's Apr. 26 statement on its meeting with Deros and other religious leaders, the party said that "there were no promises, commitments, or agreement made to any individual, including Noor Deros, in exchange for political support for WP candidates".

PAP thus submitted that WP "continued to brush aside serious concerns about its engagement with Noor Deros, as well as the public endorsement made by PAS politicians in support of its candidates".

"The questions we asked in both our statement and the article in Petir are not trivial matters. They go to the heart of maintaining a clear boundary against foreign involvement in our domestic affairs," read PAP's statement.

"Many important questions raised remained unanswered," the PAP statement noted.

Top images via Keluar Sekejap/YouTube