NSP candidate ‘will run town council directly if elected’

SINGAPORE — If elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for MacPherson, the National Solidarity Party’s (NSP) Cheo Chai Chen will run the town council serving the constituency directly. He said this is to avoid a situation like the ongoing Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) saga.

In a flier he distributed during a walkabout at MacPherson today (Sept 4), Mr Cheo, noting the tussle between the People’s Action Party (PAP) and Workers’ Party (WP) over AHPETC, wrote that the party was very concerned.

The party will not let an incident such as “TC general manager is also the boss of its contractor” happen, he wrote. He also said he would establish a fund to support low-income groups.

Mr Cheo, 64, a former Singapore Democratic Party MP for Nee Soon Central from 1991 to 1997, is facing the PAP’s Tin Pei Ling and the WP’s Bernard Chen in MacPherson.

In his message, he defended the party’s decision to contest in MacPherson after initially saying it would not, reiterating what he told TODAY in an earlier interview — that the WP was “arrogant” for skipping the second round of Opposition talks to avoid three-corner fights last month, and for not responding to the NSP when it reached out to the party for bilateral talks.

“Our party promotes cooperation among all Opposition (parties), this is the (wish) of many Singaporeans,” he wrote. “But it is regretted, there is an arrogant Opposition party (that) does not want to (cooperate). Thus, we will have a three-corner fight in this coming General Election in this constituency.”

Mr Cheo entered politics in 1988 a member of the SDP. He joined the NSP in 2006 and was part of its Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency team in 2011.