Organisers of a rare political rally in Singapore aimed at raising funds for a veteran opposition politician said Friday that they were hoping up to 5,000 people would attend. "It's rare. I can't recall another political rally" outside election time, said James Gomez, executive director of rights group Think Centre, which is organising the rally on Saturday night.
The event is aimed at raising funds for J. B. Jeyaretnam who owes 235,000 Singapore dollars (130,000 US) from a defamation suit.
Organisers who battled for two months to be given the necessary permits to stage the rally, described the eventual government approval as a big step forward for civil rights in the tightly-regulated city-state but admitted they were in the dark as to how many people would turn out.
"We're not sure how many people will come. This is the first time we've organised anything like this," said Gomez.
"We'd like to see 3-5,000. This is even bigger than speakers' corner," he said.
Gomez was among a small band of people who championed the cause of the speakers' corner which drew less than 1,000 people when it opened last September, giving Singaporeans the right for the first time to speak in public without a permit. He later received a police warning for using the corner to hold a demonstration which "in a sense chilled the scenario for free speech and expression," Think Centre said in a newsletter.
Saturday's show of support for Jeyartnam is an attempt to save the political career of the Workers Party leader who has been declared bankrupt by the High Court after failing to pay an instalment from the defamation suit. If the verdict is upheld by the Appeals Court he will be automatically disqualified from politics.
The 74-year-old, who broke a 16-year monopoly by the ruling People's Action Party's when he was first elected to parliament in 1981, is one of only three opposition MPs in the current 92-seat parliament.
Gomez said that during canvassing to inform people of the rally there was no negative feedback "primarily because it involves" Jeyaretnam.
A book by Jeyaretnam, T-shirts and stickers will be sold at the rally with organisers hoping to raise at least 200,000 dollars. Even if Jeyaretnam is cleared of this bankruptcy, the staunch long-time foe of the government faces more legal hurdles with several PAP leaders, including former premier Lee Kuan Yew pressing defamation cases against him.
Political rallies are rare in Singapore, which has banked on domestic political and economic stability as the bedrock of its emergence from a backwater into one of Asia's wealthiest states.
