When he decided to be actively involved as a Workers’ Party candidate, Dr Ong Lue Ping, a senior principal child psychologist, decided to move out of a director position at the Institute of Mental Health.
The WP candidate for Tampines GRC tells Steven Chia why staying could present a conflict of interest and what prompted him to join the opposition party.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation:
Steven Chia, host:
Have you measured your own social KPI? In the sense that what kind of impact this will have on your personal and your family life as well?
Dr Ong Lue Ping, WP candidate for Tampines GRC:
You mean joining politics?
Steven:
Yeah, what do your wife say when you told her?
Lue Ping:
My wife is a very private person.
She’s not very keen for me to join politics, especially opposition politics. Mainly because I think she’s concerned about the public scrutiny on the family, especially the children, which I think are valid concerns, but eventually we agree to disagree.
She knows I feel very passionately about the well being of Singapore and Singaporeans, and that’s something that I really wanted to do.
Steven:
You did say it was opposition politics that she was not keen for you to join. So if you had been joining the PAP, would she have been …
Lue Ping:
I think it would be the same, as long as it’s politics. You will put yourself out in public scrutiny. And having said that, even joining PAP may also put you in a lot of scrutiny as well. So I wouldn’t say it’s just opposition politics.
Steven:
Do you feel that there is a bit more of a challenge joining a different party besides the PAP?
Lue Ping:
Definitely it will be a different challenge in terms of resourcing. The Workers’ Party is really volunteer-driven. We don’t have a lot of resources that the current ruling party has. So a lot of things you have to be hands on and so forth. So that’s the part that’s different. But otherwise it’s really just (having a) different political philosophy as well. I don’t think that’s right or wrong. It’s really which one you’re more aligned to.
At the end of the day, I think to have a really balanced parliament, we really need to have diverse perspectives and views in the process of policymaking. Because if we don’t do that, we will likely have blind spots.
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