M Ravi to contest next GE as independent in Ang Mo Kio

SINGAPORE — Lawyer M Ravi today (Feb 2) declared in a hastily-called press conference his intention to contest the next General Election as an independent candidate in Ang Mo Kio constituency.

Sending the media the invitation roughly three hours before the press conference started today afternoon at The Fullerton Bay Hotel, he spent nearly an hour unleashing a tirade against the Government for not treating Singaporeans with due respect and not putting their interests above those of foreigners.

His electoral campaign, he said, will focus on seeing Singaporeans “being put first”. He also brought up a range of issues he wants to tackle should he be elected. For example, he called for the four official languages here — Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil — to be made compulsory in school curriculum to “promote equality in the languages”.

The lawyer, who has taken on a number of cases involving government leaders, including the recent defamation suit by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong against blogger Roy Ngerng, said he chose to run in Mr Lee’s constituency because he (Mr Ravi) has a quarter of his relatives living there. He said he has not firmed up plans on who will run with him in the six-member Group Representation Constituency. Mr Ravi also said he aspires to become the Prime Minister one day. He claimed that he had set aside S$1 million for his campaign and said more details of his manifesto will be announced on Friday.