GE2020: PAP, PSP ordered by town council to take down posters in West Coast GRC for public safety

SINGAPORE — The West Coast Town Council had asked for posters of both the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) to be removed from an area with high human traffic for public safety reasons, the Elections Department Singapore (ELD) said. 

Both PSP and PAP confirmed with TODAY that the respective posters they had put up along Clementi West Street 2 were ordered to be taken down on Thursday (July 2) by the town council.

The posters were placed on lampposts at open walkways beside public housing blocks located there — an area within the bounds of West Coast Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

ELD said that political parties and candidates are required to seek consent from owners or occupiers of the premises before they put up posters and banners. 

“In this case, ELD checked with West Coast Town Council, which is the owner or occupier of the premises where the said lampposts are located.

“West Coast Town Council asked for the posters to be removed for public safety reasons, as they were affixed to open space lampposts where high volume of traffic was expected. Both political parties — PSP and PAP — have since removed their posters from these lampposts.”

ELD’s statement was issued after a short video was published on Thursday at 10pm by the PSP West Coast Facebook Page. It shows a PSP campaign poster being taken down from a lamppost. 

The note on Facebook read: “The PSP team was just ordered to take down 50 PSP campaign posters by West Coast Town Council. Hours of hard work went down the drain.” 

TODAY understands that the PSP posters were removed from 9pm to 10.30pm. 

PSP had claimed in the message that the PAP posters in the vicinity were “left untouched”. 

On Friday, Mr S Iswaran, a PAP candidate for West Coast GRC, wrote on his Facebook page to say that “PAP has complied by taking down the posters”.

TODAY understands that five PAP posters in the vicinity were removed between 10pm and 11pm on Thursday. 

Addressing the issue at a walkabout in Chua Chu Kang on Friday, PSP chief Tan Cheng Bock said that it is “within the powers” of the town council to order posters to be removed, and that “certain areas” are within their control. 

“When asked to take (down the posters), we will take away, it’s all right, we just move to another place… (There’s) no difficulty.” 

He added that his team followed the rules set by ELD, which maps out where these posters can be put up. 

Later that afternoon, Dr Tan spoke about the incident on his Instagram account, in a video addressed to his growing legion of followers.

“I would like to share with you that many of my PSP posters were taken down, and we are very upset and very sad but I hope that social media friends of mine can help spread this message and continue to support me,” he said in the post. 

Mr Iswaran said in his own Facebook post that PSP and Dr Tan’s claim that West Coast Town Council took down the posters is untrue. 

“There are rules on where posters can be put up,” he said, adding that when both PAP and PSP posters had contravened the rules, the parties were told to take them down. 

“For example, some of the posters were above seats, often used by the elderly, and near children’s playgrounds,” he said. 

“It is regrettable that Dr Tan and the PSP have chosen to give an untrue spin to the issue.”

The police told TODAY that a report was filed on Thursday at 11pm by PSP with regard to its posters displayed on Clementi West Street 2, where the party stated that the posters had been moved below the minimum height level of 2.2m and that the orientation of some posters was also shifted.

After interviewing PSP personnel and reviewing surveillance footages in the areas where the posters were put up, the police did not detect any tampering of the posters.

PSP then decided not to pursue the matter further after they were told of the findings, the police said.

SPP TAKES ISSUE WITH PAP POSTERS

Over at Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, the PAP team had to rectify some of its campaign posters, because a number of them do not bear the stamp issued by ELD.

It is a rule that no person shall display or cause to be displayed in any public place election posters and banners without authorisation by the returning officer. The returning officer is appointed by the prime minister under the Parliamentary Elections Act to oversee the impartial and smooth conduct of polls.

The issue was raised to the PAP team by one of the constituency’s opposition candidates, Mr Williiamson Lee of the Singapore People’s Party (SPP), who also sent an email to ELD to look into the breach on Wednesday.

Mr Lee and Mr Osman Sulaiman, his fellow Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC candidate, took to Facebook to talk about this on Wednesday.

Mr Osman wrote: “I saw that the PAP posters were already up once nomination closed (on June 30). How is that possible? Lightning-quick manpower. 

“But upon closer inspection, these posters have no ELD stickers on it, which is a violation of election rules. That explains why the PAP has been able to put up their posters quickly.”

Mr Osman added that the stickers were only issued by the ELD at the Nomination Centre, so his team had to take the stickers to a warehouse and paste them on their posters before heading out to hang them up.

In response to TODAY’s queries on the breach, ELD said on Thursday that it is aware of the incident and is “looking into the matter”.

It added that a handbook it provided to the candidates had stated that whenever there is a breach of regulations, ELD’s contractor will be in contact with candidates or their election agents as part of investigations.

In the event of a breach, the candidates or their election agents must remove the poster or banner within three hours of receiving the call.

When contacted on Friday, Mr Adrian Ang, the election agent for PAP candidate Chee Hong Tat who is contesting at Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, referred TODAY to a Facebook comment by one of its contractors, Mr Edy Tan, who had addressed what went wrong on Wednesday evening.

In that comment, Mr Tan stated that he was the person in charge of putting up the posters and had checked that there was a sticker on each poster before they were put up, noting that some stickers were stuck to the back of the posters instead of the front.

Mr Tan admitted that it is possible his team “may have inadvertently left out a few” posters such that they had no stamps affixed to them. 

On this, he said: “I apologise for this oversight and thank Mr Williiamson Lee for his feedback.”

The contractor added that he and his team had done another round of checks on Wednesday afternoon and have pasted a sticker on the front of each poster if they do not carry one in front, using their supply of remaining stickers issued by ELD.

This is not the first time during this election that parties have had issues with their campaign posters. 

PAP’s posters at Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC) and PSP’s posters at Chua Chu Kang GRC were vandalised in separate incidents barely a day into the hustings.

A 13-year-old boy and 51-year-old man are under investigation over these incidents, the police said.