SINGAPORE — While he welcomed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s involvement in the Bukit Batok by-election, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan said he wished Mr Lee would stick to issues concerning the ward’s residents.

Speaking to the media on Monday morning (May 2), Dr Chee also suggested collaborating with Members of Parliament (MPs) from the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the Workers’ Party (WP) who have mulled over the idea of retrenchment insurance, to push such a scheme through the House.

Dr Chee, who is up against the PAP’s Murali Pillai in the May 7 poll, said of Mr Lee’s involvement in the hustings: “I certainly welcome his presence here, but I wish he would just stick to the issues — what’s good for Bukit Batok residents, rather than throwing slime all the time.

“I’m more than happy to debate with anyone, (Mr Lee) included, but it just seems as though they want to not talk about the issues ... and just continue to run their opponents down,” he told reporters after cycling around the ward and greeting residents.

“That’s not becoming of a good campaign. I just wish the PAP would stop doing things like that,” he added.

His comments came after the Prime Minister, who is the PAP secretary-general, visited Bukit Batok on Saturday, when he said Dr Chee had presented himself as a changed man but remained the same person who is not contrite about his past.

On the retrenchment insurance scheme his party is proposing, Dr Chee said some PAP and WP parliamentarians have also been looking at this measure and they should work together to propose a Bill if he is elected.

“You have PAP MPs even thinking about this as well — we need to work with them. And there are also WP MPs who want to actually start talking about these schemes,” he said. “Get together. It doesn’t mean that just because we’re from different parties, we cannot work together.”

Asked to respond to Mr Lee’s comments at the May Day Rally that the Government’s measures to help workers find employment were better than unemployment insurance, Dr Chee said: “They always say it doesn’t work until they start adopting it.”

Many advanced and productive economies in Europe and Asia already have forms of retrenchment insurance, he reiterated. By contrast, the Government here is “obstinate, wilful in its determination not to have some kind of a safety net for workers who get retrenched”, he said.

Saying that retrenched workers need “respite” and a “shock absorber” to tide over unemployment, and find a new job or retrain, he added: “We hope for full employment, but it’s not going to happen. The reality is that retrenchment is coming and taking place thick and fast.

“The people can’t live on hope, they can’t eat hope. They need assistance ... the minute they get retrenched.”

Yesterday, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong also waded into the flurry of exchanges between the PAP and the SDP. He wrote on the MParader Facebook page: “Since my name is mentioned in the Bukit Batok by-election, I say: Don’t kick up a fuss over (Dr Chee) rudely shouting at me in Jurong. Words or actions do not define a person; character is not important for a would-be MP, so says SDP.”

Mr Goh was referring to an incident during the 2001 General Election, when Dr Chee had shouted at him over an alleged loan to Indonesia.

The episode was raised again at a PAP rally on Friday by Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob and Culture, Community and Youth Minister Grace Fu.

Taking a swipe at Dr Chee, Mr Goh added: “And the fox to the farmer, ‘Hire me to look after your hen house. I have the perfect plan’.”

When asked to respond to Mr Goh’s post, Dr Chee said he had not seen it and would look at it before ascertaining if the party would respond.

As campaigning enters its final few days before Cooling-Off Day on Friday, Dr Chee, when asked what he thought of his chances thus far in the by-election, said this was not something he dwelt on, and that hard work was key.

“When you cycle or when you meet people, you shake their hands, you pay them (your) full attention,” he said. “You don’t harp on in your mind, wondering, what my chances are? That’s not something which I do.”