Singapore’s corruption case against ex-minister S. Iswaran draws ‘chump change’ jokes, praises for tough stance

Netizens responded that the sums involved were minuscule compared with corruption cases in their hometowns, with some describing the amounts as “loose change” or kacang which means “peanuts” in Malay.

“I think in Malaysia, this is just another Tuesday,” one claimed, while another wrote: “In Malaysia, a corruption case gets you promoted.”

Others expressed envy, with one netizen using emojis to voice disbelief at Iswaran’s decision to resign from his official posts as minister and member of parliament and from the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), as well as return the salaries and allowances he received since investigations began last year.

Iswaran, who was widely credited with bringing Formula One racing to the city state and a long-serving member of the PAP, pleaded not guilty on Thursday after he was slapped with multiple corruption and bribery charges, six months from when the case was first made public.

He is facing fines and jail terms of up to seven years for 27 charges. Two of the charges, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, accuse him of taking “gratification” worth around S$166,282.03 in return for helping Ong further his business interests relating to a contract between the Singapore Grand Prix and the Singapore Tourism Board.

Of the remaining charges, 24 are under Section 165 of the Penal Code, which covers abuse of power by public servants. It forbids them from obtaining gifts of any value from any person he is involved with in an official capacity, regardless of whether he did any favours in return. The total value under these charges amounts to S$218,058.95.

Social commenter and former editor Bertha Henson said the amount under these 24 charges was “small beer for a minister” and they were not “corruption charges per se but more like someone who broke a code of conduct”.

Among the “gifts” he accepted, Iswaran allegedly got tickets to the Singapore Grand Prix, English Premier League football matches, musical shows such as Harry Potter in Britain and flights on billionaire Ong’s private plane.

Some netizens immediately drew comparisons of Iswaran’s case – one of the most egregious in recent decades in Singapore for a political leader – with the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal in Malaysia.

One such meme circulating online showed Najib Razak, the former prime minister and one of the main figures of the 1MDB case, laughing with a group of men with the caption, “Iswaran took what? Football tickets?”

“These charges seem almost cute, compared with the usual scope of allegations in Malaysia,” said Meredith Weiss, a political-science professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University of Albany in New York.

“I think, to their credit, the PAP handled this case in such a way as to suggest deliberation and proper investigation. While rumours are inevitable, nothing about this case has presented the sort of circus that’s come to seem the norm in Malaysia – no overstaffed 3am raids, or highly sensationalist media coverage, or even obvious political point-scoring,” she said.

“That Iswaran is one of their own, as opposed to from an opposition party, makes it all seem more credible.”

But Iswaran’s decision to plead not guilty had fuelled speculation on what line of defence he would take, she said, including whether he would try to “present these sorts of gifts as ‘normal’” in Singapore’s establishment.

Singapore minister S. Iswaran resigns after being charged with taking bribes

However, Bilveer Singh, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore, did not think the hearings would be as damaging as feared.

“There will be many different perspectives going around, but many will remember that Iswaran was charged, notwithstanding the negative headwinds which will come,” he said.

“Singapore’s approach is characteristically swift, thorough and severe. In the rest of Southeast Asia, where corruption in officialdom and collusion between government and big business seem to be very much the order of the day, implicitly if not explicitly, scandals are often dealt with in a prolonged and tapered-off approach,” said Oh Ei Sun, principal adviser at Pacific Research Center of Malaysia.

Singapore has prided itself on being a corruption-free city, consistently ranking highly on global anti-corruption indexes. It was placed the fifth least corrupt country in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2022, just after several Nordic countries and New Zealand.

The anticorruption efforts in Singapore also appeared to be untainted by political motives such as knocking out political rivals.

“Anticorruption efforts [in Malaysia] are rarely ‘apolitical’: decisions must be made as to whom to investigate or prosecute, when, in what sequence and with what level of public spotlight,” Weiss said.

While there had been amusement at the alleged sums involved and admiration at the tough stance being taken, among Singaporeans, however, the longstanding controversial issue of high ministerial salaries has also resurfaced in the debate.

“The PAP has pushed the idea that it will pay its senior public servants and politicians very well so that there’s less temptation to be corrupt. In spite of all these mechanisms, the fact that you have a senior politician being implicated for alleged corruption is a very big surprise to many,” said Chong Ja Ian, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Singapore’s PAP draws line at corruption but not affairs, No 2 leader says

Singapore’s ministers are some of the most highly paid in the world, with annual salaries of upwards of around S$1 million (US$739,000), and the government defending them as a way to attract top talent into political leadership while keeping to a clean wage system with no hidden benefits of office.

Thursday’s revelations also raised questions on possible lapses in the system, since the alleged bribes were handed out as early as 2015 and were only uncovered last year, said Singh from NUS.

The alleged crimes, which involve the two men widely seen as key to bringing the Formula One race to Singapore, also underscore the need for stronger mechanisms and laws on political lobbying, said Chong.

“Such laws will not be perfect but will make trying to influence politicians or [instances of] politicians seeking benefits much more difficult,” he said.

The charges were announced as the country was about to undergo only its third transition of premiership, expected in the coming year, with a general election next on the agenda, said Singh, who added the case could spell trouble for Iswaran’s former team of group constituency MPs.

“Everyone is following the news very closely and they’re going to see the long list of charges. So the opposition [contesting in his ward] may not need to campaign, the campaign is already being done by the media,” he said.

Iswaran’s West Coast GRC, which is a five-member group of seats rather than a single-seat ward, was the worst-performing PAP group that retained its constituency, narrowly beating its rivals with 51.7 per cent of votes in the 2020 general election.