Singapore Democratic Party Lack of Transparency

Singapore Democratic Party have links with foreign groups.

Should foreign activists fund S'pore civil groups
Ho Lian-Yi
The New Paper, 27 July 2009

..... So what was the agenda of the Swedish activist, Mr Johan Skarendal?

He is a member of the Swedish International Liberal Centre (Silc), whose avowed goal, as stated on its website, is 'to strengthen organisations and support individuals who develop and promote democracy and human rights'.

Mr Skarendal, 29, is in charge of Silc activities in Singapore and the group is affiliated to the Liberal Party, one of the four political parties in the Swedish government since 2006.

The group has extensive reach globally and funds activities which promote its goals....

The rules for foreign funding of local political parties here are clear. The Political Donation Act bans political parties and organisations from receiving foreign donations.

But could foreign groups influence politics through non-political donations using civil societies as a front?

After all, NGOs have shown they can spark a change here....

Singapore Management University law lecturer Eugene Tan said no CSO (Civil Society Organisation) would be breaking the law by virtue of receiving foreign funding as long as they are not recognised as a political organisation.

But he said they have an 'ethical duty' to say who funds them so people who give donations can make an informed opinion about the group's motives...

Gay rights activist Alex Au, who is also a member of Maruah, however, didn't think there was any issue with foreign funding...

But he agreed that funding sources should be as open as possible.

'Any organisation that takes a public profile should act in a way that is in the interest of accountability, to a reasonable extent,' he said.

Who did Swedish activist meet here?

In about a one-week period in April, Swedish activist Johan Skarendal met an array of Singapore liberals.

They include filmmakers Martyn See and Seelan Palay, Myanmar activist Myo Myint Maung, and Mr Andrew Loh and Mr Choo Zheng Xi of socio-political blog The Online Citizen.

Others included activist Alex Au from gay movement People Like Us and lawyer Peter Low...

Mr See said he met Mr Skarendal over drinks in town in a casual setting and the topic was mainly his experience with the Films Act...

Overseas Burmese Patriots spokesman Myo Mying Maung said he was introduced to Mr Skarendal by Mr Palay, and there were five Myanmar activists at the meeting, himself included.

Gay rights activist Mr Au said they spoke about social change and politics here.

'He asked us a number of questions, and we answered,' he said...

But The New Paper understands Mr Skarendal did not meet any minister or 'members of the establishment'...

Fact-finding

Activist Mr Palay, who was present at several of the meetings, would only say that Mr Skarendal came on a fact-finding mission...

All those interviewed denied being offered funds by Skarendal, who is not new to Singapore. A self-described good friend of opposition politician Chee Soon Juan, Mr Skarendal has been involved with the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief's work in human rights and the promotion of liberal democracies.

Just how close is the relationship and has Mr Skarendal funded Mr Chee's non-political agenda? The Swede would not say. Ignoring the question, he merely replied earlier that he considered Mr Chee a good friend and someone who had written a testimonial for his studies in Taiwan. Their relationship goes back to 2003. After Mr Chee visited Sweden in February that year, the SDP's youth wing organised a conference here in July...

Mr Chee also spoke at the conference, which was sponsored by Swedish-based institutions including SILC.

It was co-organised with the Sweden-Singapore Initiative for Democracy (SSID).

On SDP's website, the party says it is affiliated or working in close cooperation with several organisations including SSID, which is also funded by SILC.

Singapore Democratic Party Exposed 1

To date, Honorary Secretary of Young Democrats, Jarrod Luo hasn't responded to our email.

To allow Singaporeans to understand the Singapore Democratic Party, we will now launch the SINGAPORE DEMOCRATIC PARTY EXPOSED SERIES.

The information are shared by ex-SDP members who have been alienated by the party, as well as those who have left the party after knowing what the party stands for.

We have always maintained our posture and objective of exposing the myth of the SDP. And now we present you the reality.

REALITY: Young Democrats has only 5 members

President: Priveen Suraj
Vice-President: Jufri Salim
Honorary Secretary: Jarrod Luo
Program Director: Khalis
Member: Shamin

Of the 5, only Jarrod Luo is a University Graduate. The only work he has done since is MLM (which he calls a business).

REALITY: Seelan Palay is not a SDP member

Seelan is not a YD or SDP member. But he helps out alot with their activities. He runs some campaigns(anti-death penalty, myanmar protest etc) in his own capacity but his work is often interwined with SDP's. It is not that he does not want to be a SDP member but John Tan (Asst Secretary General, SDP) thought he could help the party better by being a non-partisan member instead of a full-fledged SDP member. This is to make it appear like as if non-political sections of Singapore support SDP.

REALITY: No Internal Elections held to contest Party Leadership since Chiam's departure

There has also been no internal elections to contest the party leadership since Mr Chiam See Tong left the party. John Tan only joined the party in 2007, yet he was quickly made the Assistant Secretary General by Dr Chee Soon Juan. Again, no elections, no contests. Other members were not even consulted on the issue.

REALITY: Dr Chee Soon Juan is no Democrat

Dr Chee Soon Juan designates positions as he likes. There is no mechanism within the party to remove him from his position.

Dr Chee Soon Juan also has full control over income earned through the newsletter. Some of the funds are believed to be used for his own personal use [sentiments from ex-SDP members].

REALITY: The True Purpose for selling newspapers

SDP tries to recruit new members through their newspaper selling walks but this method has never been very successful. When they are out and about selling their newspapers, they also sell Dr Chee's books at the same time. Dr Chee's book sales are unaccounted for in the party records as it is his personal business. This is one way how Chee uses his party members for his own personal gain.

Most of SDP's present recruits have come through the various seminars and public forums that SDP conducts. It is during this forums that they try to get members of the public interested in their party.

Wait a Minute!
How do we know if you are telling the truth?

We have reliable sources. We offer the Singapore Democratic Party the right of reply to whichever points it feels are not accurate.
Members of SDP can email to perplexperspective@hotmail.com OR
post your comments at the blog itself

SDP can't differentiate a state from a government

It is disappointing to read that members of a political party (SDP, for this instance) do not know the difference between a state and a government.

For your info,

State refers to the set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory and population.

A government is the organization, that is the governing authority of a political unit.

Could we now trust SDP to champion on Democracy (Gee, they might not know what that means).

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SDP attempts to mislead Singaporeans into believing that the government is corrupted, unlike the findings of Transparency International, that ranks Singapore 4th least corrupt in the world.

SDP's article read "Singapore a clean state?". SDP is referring to a country as a whole, while CPI measured the degree of corruption in the public sector and politicians. See below:

"What is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)?

The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, a poll of polls, drawing on corruption-related data from expert and business surveys carried out by a variety of independent and reputable institutions. The CPI reflects views from around the world, including those of experts who are living in the countries evaluated. Transparency International commissions the CPI from Johann Graf Lambsdorff, Chair Economic Theory, University of Passau and Senior Research Advisor to TI."^

Perhaps why Singapore was placed fourth and not better is because of some politicians. For example, there is one politician from SDP that misappropriated research funds.

Challenge to the SDP

Show Singaporeans the amount of online donations that SDP has accumulated. The "donate" button had been on the website for a very long period of time. How can Singaporeans be assured that SDP had not engaged in money laundering with the donations?

Even Barack Obama announces the campaign donation amount. See: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/04/obama-sets-record-with-january-donations-online-donations-88-of-total/

Failing to disclose the SDP donation amount just places a tight slap onto the faces of SDP members.

Source:
^ http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2008/faq#general1