Fronted by Dr Tan Cheng Bock, former presidential candidate and elected member of parliament, the press conference officially introduced the new political party to the media after some

hiccups

over the last few months.

For a start, the introductory speech mostly covered the “erosion” of transparency, independence, and accountability in the government—one of the main reasons that PSP was started. To solve this, Dr Tan believes Singapore needs a “good political system”, which means “a robust system of checks and balances”. (Since the event, current ministers have come out to rebut Dr Tan’s comments about the government “gone astray”.)

He also emphasised that the PSP values a “good mix of people, a wide variety”, who “won’t be just scholars”. As reiterated multiple times throughout the event, what is “most important is that their heart is in the right place”.

Finally, he reinforced the goal of PSP as a “unifying catalyst” to bring Singaporeans together to combat the social divide caused by inequality. In a call to action for PSP’s party launch for Singaporeans on 3 August, he asked for “many patriotic people to make this happen” to “build up [their] strength and capabilities” and “expand [their] reach and support base”.

While I’d been to enough press conferences so I don’t expect anything exceptionally illuminating or invigorating, I’d hoped we could skip the political platitudes, not least because existing online sentiment lauds Dr Tan and his eventual party as the perennial ‘credible alternative’ that Singaporeans apparently want.

Yet, his introductory speech felt… empty and disappointing.

Since the event, media reports have discussed what was covered, from Dr Tan’s views on whether Lee Hsien Yang would be part of his party to the lack of transparency in the current government. Reports didn’t, however, cover the single glaring point about the press conference: PSP’s repeated evasion of all questions pertaining to their policy and plans.

During the Q&A session after his speech, several reporters (including ourselves) repeatedly pressed Dr Tan for the issues or policies that PSP planned to reveal or amend.

I, for one, highlighted the fact that the upcoming General Elections would be the first time Gen Z was voting. I wanted to know whether the party had a sense of the issues this generation cared about, and the steps they had to address these issues. In response, Dr Tan said the party would touch on these points at the launch on 3 August, but that they understood the current concerns of Singaporeans, such as “CPF, housing, economy, and so on”.

Another reporter followed up by asking about the policies that PSP plans to roll out, instead of merely talking about building trust with Singaporeans. Minutes later, yet another reporter asked whether there were certain PAP policies that the PSP planned to reverse.

None of us expected a detailed policy plan to be regurgitated on the spot. But over and again, the party’s response was similarly avoidant: everything would be revealed on 3 August.

In place of the practical answers that reporters wanted, Dr Tan reiterated a couple of PSP’s key positions: to create a compassionate Singapore and to act as a credible and viable alternative to the PAP.

Perhaps PSP’s strategy was to be tight-lipped about their policies because they wanted the press conference to simply highlight their reasons for setting up the party. Perhaps they believed the media would report on their ideologies, values, and beliefs, and that that would be enough for Singaporeans to believe in them.

However, this old-school mentality no longer works with an information literate generation that’s hungry for knowledge. The PSP had a chance to perform better than the ruling party, and to use their first official interaction with the media to deliver tangible statements and promises that would reassure Singaporeans they know what they are doing.

Instead, they stuck with treating the media as adversaries, and not allies. They weren’t prepared to answer hard questions with a degree of specificity required for the media to sufficiently educate and inform the public.

Unfortunately for them, no answer was also an answer.