Speaking to the media after a walkabout in Kovan, Workers' Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh was asked to clarify details of the Workers' Party's meeting with religious teacher Noor Deros.Singh said that there was no situation where the WP had agreed to Noor's demands."And if this gentleman thinks that his advocacy will lead to the issues being brought up by the Workers' Party. I think he is sadly mistaken," said Singh.
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00:00What had happened was one of our Muslim committee members in one of the mosques in Al-Junyed
00:11wanted to speak to Mr. Faizal and to the Malay members of the party.
00:17And what happened was the meeting was supposed to take place with some ustazahs and senior Malay Muslim religious leaders.
00:26There was no indication that this individual would be joining the meeting.
00:30So when the meeting started he was there and my understanding is he had this list of demands and of course as our statement makes it quite clear
00:38there's no situation of if the WP pushes forth this agenda I will support you.
00:44I'm sorry we don't work politics like that in Singapore. We don't work politics like that in the Workers' Party.
00:49People have views. I think government officials, even ministers meet with various members of religious groups in Singapore.
00:55So do we. And if this gentleman thinks that his advocacy will lead to the issues being brought up by the Workers' Party I think he's sadly mistaken.
01:04I cannot control endorsements from any Singaporean for the Workers' Party but if he thinks that endorsement means we will carry his views and we share his sentiments he's sadly mistaken.
01:18As I have alluded to in earlier doorstops, Faisal is a representative of the Malay Muslim community.
01:27He is contesting in Tampanese. I think the mainstream media have already highlighted the number of Malay voters in Tampanese.
01:34But quite frankly Faisal is not or none of our Malay Muslim candidates will be MPs or candidates for only their community.
01:44I mean this is Singapore. It's a multi-racial society. So every candidate has to represent all Singaporeans equally and fairly.
01:52And beyond that, this is our approach that we take.
01:55Insofar as the strategy to place candidates, I think that's our prerogative where we want to put our team which has the highest chance of success.
02:02And if the illusion is we have put Faisal there and that's something wrong that we've done, I don't accept that.
02:09I think the Ministry of Home Affairs and ELD have put together a message and I stand behind that message.
02:16Our political scene is for our people. We persuade Singaporeans of our value proposition and we urge all Singaporeans, regardless of race, language or religion,
02:27to judge us on our manifesto and our proposals and what we do in parliament for all Singaporeans, not specific communities only.
02:36I think once we go down that road, you're going to have an unnecessary politicisation of the public space and we don't want that.
02:44That's not healthy for Singapore and that's not healthy for our minority communities as well.