A media release by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) yesterday stated that stern warnings were issued to a total of four people who were involved with cooling-off day breaches during the May 2016 Bukit Batok by-election.
Fabrications about the PAP Facebook page founder Jason Chua Chin Seng, along with The Independent Singapore team members Kumaran Pillai, Ravi Philemon and Alfred Dodwell had published online articles on the Cooling-Off Day and Polling Day of the by-election last year, which directly breached the prohibition of election advertising under the Parliamentary Elections Act.
In the statement by the SPF, they stated that the Attorney-General’s Chambers had decided to administer stern warnings to all parties in lieu of prosecution.
Under the Parliamentary Elections Act, anyone breaching the prohibitions of election advertising can be jailed up to a year and/or fined $1,000.
The intended purpose of Cooling-Off Day is for all voters to mull over their thoughts independently before casting their votes the next day. As such, election advertising is strictly prohibited on those days.
Police also added in the above statement, “The Cooling-Off Day breaches detected during the 2016 Bukit Batok by-election go against the spirit of the election rule. Left unchecked, such breaches can undermine public trust in Singapore’s electoral process.”
The next General Election will only be coming in another four years’ time. The next time we’ll be heading to the ballots will be in September when we vote for the new (Malay) president.
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