Singapore House speaker resigns in another blow to ruling party

By Faris Mokhtar & Philip J. Heijman

SINGAPORE’S ruling People’s Action Party was rocked by two unexpected resignations, including that of parliament speaker Tan Chuan-Jin, further fueling one of the biggest political crises in the city-state’s history.

Once seen as a potential prime ministerial candidate by political observers, Tan, 54, stepped down from positions in government and the party, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement Monday. He is the second parliament speaker to resign for having an inappropriate relationship in just over a decade.

His resignation is the latest in a series of scandals to send shockwaves through Singapore, including a graft probe on a cabinet minister and investigations into pricey rentals by two other members of Lee’s administration. This comes at a precarious time for the PAP, which is navigating a leadership succession in its nearly six decades of power and battling voter unhappiness over rising living costs.

“I have accepted Mr. Tan’s resignation from the People’s Action Party,” Lee said in a statement on Monday. “His resignation is necessary, to maintain the high standards of propriety and personal conduct which the PAP has upheld all these years.”

Political analysts are describing the developments as a shock and a crisis for the PAP, which has been laying the groundwork for a new generation of politicians to take over, led by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. The PAP is heading for a national vote by 2025 and there’s a presidential election in September.

“This would mean that Lawrence Wong will have his hands full as he mitigates this political minefield,” said Felix Tan, political analyst at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

“Just when we thought we had about enough political intrigue, we now have yet another slew of political kerfuffle that is seemingly going to engulf Singapore.”

In his resignation letter, Tan said he made a mistake in parliament for using “unparliamentary language” and he apologized to an opposition lawmaker. Tan earlier said he was muttering to himself but his “private thoughts” were caught during a recording of the parliament hearing.

“For me personally, this recent episode has added to the hurt I have caused my family,” Tan wrote in the letter published by the Prime Minister’s Office. “I have let them down. We have spoken about my personal conduct before.”

Lee later told local media Tan had an inappropriate relationship with a fellow PAP lawmaker Cheng Li Hui, who has also resigned.

“It is painful to do this to our friends and comrades-in-arms, and it can also be politically embarrassing and costly,” Lee said. “But the PAP has to maintain party discipline and standard of conduct.” The resignations on Monday may shake voter confidence after last week’s arrest of Transport Minister S. Iswaran and property tycoon Ong Beng Seng in a graft probe that’s challenged the city-state’s reputation for clean governance.

In June, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam were cleared of wrongdoing by the anti-corruption bureau for their rental of colonial houses near a highend lifestyle hub. Lee ordered the review after the opposition asked if the ministers had paid below-market rates.

“It seems here now that when it rains, it pours,” said Eugene Tan, a law professor at Singapore Management University. “This is a significant crisis, I would use the word crisis. This combination of developments would undermine public trust and confidence in the PAP.” With assistance from Aradhana Aravindan/Bloomberg

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said this month that 45 countries need outside food assistance, with high local food prices “a driver of worrying levels of hunger” in those places.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative has allowed three Ukrainian ports to export 32.9 million metric tons of grain and other food to the world, more than half of that to developing nations, according to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul.

But the deal has faced setbacks since it was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey: Russia pulled out briefly in November before rejoining and extending the deal.

In March and May, Russia would only extend the deal for 60 days, instead of the usual 120. The amount of grain shipped per month fell

Ukraine has accused Russia of preventing new ships from joining the work since the end of June, with 29 waiting in the waters off Turkey to join the initiative. Joint inspections meant to ensure vessels only carry grain and not weapons that could help either side also have slowed considerably.

Average daily inspections have steadily dropped from a peak of 11 in October to about 2.3 in June. Ukrainian and US officials have blamed Russia for the slowdowns.

Meanwhile, Russia’s wheat shipments hit all-time highs following a large harvest. It exported 45.5 million metric tons in the 2022-2023 trade year, with another record of 47.5 million metric tons expected in 2023-2024, according to US Department of Agriculture estimates.

The earlier figure is more wheat than any country ever has exported in one year, said Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Russia blames Ukraine for attack on key Crimea military supply bridge that kills 2

TRAFFIC on a key military supply bridge connecting Crimea to Russia’s mainland came to a standstill Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing two people and wounding their daughter. Russian officials blamed the attack on Ukraine, but Kyiv officials didn’t openly admit it.

The strike on the 19-kilometer (12mile) Kerch Bridge was carried out by two Ukrainian sea drones, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.

Ukrainian officials didn’t claim responsibility for the attack, which is the second major strike on the bridge since October, when a truck bomb blew up two of its sections.

The bridge is a conspicuous symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and an essential land link to the peninsula, which Russia captured from Ukraine in 2014. The $3.6 billion bridge is the longest in Europe and is crucial for enabling Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine during the almost 17-month-long war.

Russia has expanded its presence in Crimea since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Occasional acts of sabotage and other attacks against Russian military and other facilities on the peninsula have occurred since, with the Kremlin blaming Ukraine. The attack on the bridge comes as Ukrainian forces are trying to press a counteroffensive in several sections of the front line. It also happened just hours before Russia, as expected, announced it is halting a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that allows the export of Ukrainian grain during the war.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command, said the explosions on the bridge could be a Russian provocation. But Ukrainian Ukrainska Pravda and RBC Ukraine news outlets said the attack was planned jointly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian Navy and involved sea drones.

Kyiv didn’t initially acknowledge responsibility for last October’s bombing either, but a senior Ukrainian official eventually confirmed it. In what appeared to be an indirect acknowledgment of Ukraine’s involvement in Monday’s explosion, Ukrainian Security Service spokesman Artem Degtyarenko said in a statement that details of what happened would be revealed after Ukraine has won the war. AP