Beyond GE2011: PAP may shelve defamation as a political weapon

May 12th, 2011

Writer Catherine Lim, famed for feeling the pulse of Singapore’s political culture and getting under the skin of the PAP, predicts that the 2011 General Election will force changes to the way the ruling party manages dissent. She doesn’t see the party divert drastically from the conciliatory tone that it ended the campaign with. “Neither the people nor the opposition would allow that. For by now, this promise must have sunk enough in the minds of a newly defiant electorate for them to protest as soon as they see it is not being kept. … Prediction: the most feared, most infamous instrument of PAP control—the defamation suit against political opponents—will be a thing of the past, fading away with its regular exponent, Lee Kuan Yew.”

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