https://mothership.sg/2025/10/race-religion-politics-shanmugam/

WP should've 'categorically rejected' call to vote along racial & religious lines 'from the start' in GE 2025: Shanmugam

Shanmugam questioned the timing of WP's statements, arguing that it came "more than two days" after Deros had written about his meeting with the WP.

Gawain Pek

October 14, 2025, 02:05 PM

Identity politics has no place in Singapore, and events during the recent 2025 General Elections (GE2025) had gone "too far", Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam said during a ministerial statement on race and religion in parliament on Oct. 14.

Shanmugam, who is also Minister for Home Affairs, warned that if Singapore goes down the path of racial and religious politics, minority communities will be left marginalised, as it will be most politically advantageous to chase the votes of the majority community.

So far, identity politics has failed in Singapore because the dominant political force has continuously rejected it, but this was not a permanent situation.

To illustrate his point, Shanmugam pointed to past cases where identity politics were seemingly at play during elections, including the Noor Deros incident and the platform of SDP's Damanhuri Abas during GE2025.

Playing to majority was politically expedient

In his statement, Shanmugam spoke at length about the history of identity politics in Singapore and around the world, as well as its consequences.

He highlighted that Singapore's independence in 1965 came against a backdrop where, globally, the culture and language of the majority automatically became the culture and language of the state.

Singapore's leaders, Shanmugam said, took a drastically different approach. They designed policies to enable ethnic groups to preserve their own heritage and adopted English as the language of administration and instruction.

"At the same time, we retained Malay as our national language," he said.

"We did not force any ethnic group to assimilate. The majority group accepted that while they were the biggest group, they should nevertheless take extra care and make sure that the minorities were not slighted," he added.

Further contextualising this, Shanmugam told the house that this approach was adopted at a time when some quarters of society were pushing for the adoption of Mandarin as the national and official language.

"The political expedient course for the PAP Government would have been to agree to these demands," Shanmugam said, explaining that PAP's majority had whittled down in the lead up to the 1963 elections.

Then-leaders of the PAP chose otherwise, and Singapore has continued to develop its multi-racial ideal, with the provision of a legal framework to protect communal harmony and encouraging intermixing between different ethnic communities as its two underpinning policies.

Slippery slope

"Politicising race and religion remains seductive," the minister commented.

Doing so, he added, creates irreversible division and damage, especially in a small city-state like Singapore.

This is because when one group asserts their identity aggressively, other groups will push back just as aggressively.

Looking elsewhere, Shanmugam cited the U.S. and the Netherlands as examples where identity politics have begun to create such divisions.

"[Singapore] may look stable now, but we are no more stable than other countries," which he had earlier cited.

He reminded the house that in 1963, after the PAP won all three Malay-majority seats, then Umno leaders launched a racially-charged campaign against them, resulting in a slippery slope that led to the race riots within 10 months.

"That's all it took — 10 months — to unravel everything," Shanmugam highlighted.

Tampines GE2025 contest

During his statement, Shanmugam addressed two incidents relating to the Tampines electoral contest during GE2025 and the Workers' Party's (WP) reactions to them.

Deros

For one, the minister highlighted the Noor Deros incident. Two weeks before GE2025 on Apr. 19, Deros issued a public statement saying he would campaign for any political party that could meet his list of demands, which included the adoption of Islamic economics and ending the preservation of racial proportions.

On Apr. 23, Deros made another post stating that only WP had taken his demands seriously and invited muslims to vote for the WP, Shanmugam reminded the house.

"[Deros] also called on Tampines voters to 'do the right thing'. Meaning: vote for Mr Faisal Manap," the minister said.

On Apr. 24, Deros made further public statements and reiterated his call for Tampines voters to vote for Faisal.

"Deros was saying that he would rally votes for any political party that agreed with his demands, demands which were along racial, religious lines," Shanmugam recounted.

The minister pointed out that the issue was not with whether Deros' demands were absurd or whether one agreed with them or his assessment of candidates.

Rather, it was that he was "asking Singaporeans to vote for political parties and candidates along racial and religious lines."

PAS

Apart from Deros, Shanmugam also highlighted the comments of politicians from Malaysia's Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS).

PAS, Shanmugam said, is an Islamist political party whose goal is to "Islamise" Malaysian society.

During GE2025, PAS politicians had urged voters to cast their votes for WP's Faisal Manap.

One PAS politician reposted a social media post which stated that PAP's Malay-Muslim MPs cannot be trusted.

Shanmugam implored members of the house to consider whether PAS' politicians had Singapore's best interests at heart.

WP's statement delayed and ambiguous: Shanmugam

The minister questioned the WP's reactions following Deros' posts and PAS' comments.

On Apr. 25, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Election Department (ELD) issued a statement highlighting the dangers of mixing religion and politics.

On Apr. 26 at 9am, WP issued a statement responding to MHA's and ELD's statement, stating that no promises or commitments were made to Deros.

That same day, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong held a press conference to call on Singaporeans and all political parties to reject the bringing of race and religion into politics.

Shanmugam questioned the timing of WP's statements, arguing that it came "more than two days" after Deros had written about his meeting with the WP.

"In these circumstances... more needed to be said by the WP. And it needed to be said immediately after Deros made his posts," Shanmugam commented.

He said that the delay on such an important matter "begs many questions", adding that it can lead voters into thinking that the WP was considering Deros' demands.

"Deros was saying all these things, and the WP was silent. MHA-ELD had to step in and say this was unacceptable. After that, the WP issued its statement," Shanmugam said.

The minister also characterised WP's statement as "ambiguous".

"If we accept that identity politics has no place in Singapore, then a clearer and more immediate response was called for," he said.

Shanmugam pointed out that WP's statement did not "categorically reject" Deros' call to vote along racial and religious lines, and suggested that a clearer response would include an explicit rejection.

He reiterated that it should have been "squarely stated" and "immediately" after Deros' posts on Apr. 23, rather than letting it "drag" for a few days.

He acknowledged that Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh did follow up at interviews on Apr. 26 and 27 to say that Deros' endorsement doesn't mean the WP will carry forward his policies.

However, he hoped future occurrences of such incidents would be met with a "more immediate, forthright, and unequivocal response."

Separately, the minister expressed concern that WP's statement did not "clearly reject foreign influence." Instead, it merely said that WP "had no control over what others said."

While WP did clarify its position at a doorstop interview and at a rally speech on the evening of Apr. 26 where Singh said he "categorically rejected" foreign involvement in Singapore's politics, "it would have been better if the WP had said this right from the start."

Racial politics leads to marginalisation of minorities

Deros' posts and their content were "reckless" and set a "dangerous precedent", Shanmugam added.

"If we allow this, other racial and religious groups will have similar demands. And we have to allow them to make similar calls too," Shanmugam said.

"The natural result in a democracy will be that the largest, the best organised religions and races will get their way," the minister added.

Taking this hypothetical further, Shanmugam pointed out that if Singapore goes the way of canvassing votes based on identity politics, the result will be that most parties will appeal to the Chinese vote and thus, the minorities will "feel the squeeze and be marginalised."

"Our sense is that something like that may have started to happen in Tampines. Many Chinese voters in Tampines seem to have observed the communal nature of the appeals to the Malay voters. And they seem to have chosen to take a different direction, during this GE," the minister commented.

"But this sort of racial dynamics in politics is very bad for Singapore," he added.

Damanhuri's GE2025 platform

Moving on from Tampines and the WP, Shanmugam addressed another incident during GE2025 involving Damanhuri Abas from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

"At an SDP event, Damanhuri accused PAP Malay MPs of failing to represent the Malay community and ignoring their issues. He claimed that more opposition Malay MPs were needed to raise Malay issues in Parliament," the minister recounted.

Damanhuri repeated similar assertions in an interview and a podcast, Shanmugam said.

Shanmugam argued that while Damanhuri had framed it as an issue of "upholding Malay dignity", dignity was a euphemism for "more Malay 'rights'".

He characterised Damanhuri's rhetoric as deceptive and said it was "trading off the long-term welfare of the Malay community ... for his immediate political gain."

"This is a slippery and dangerous path that will invite a strong reaction from other races in future elections," the minister concluded.

No guarantee that identity politics will always fail

From time to time, some have tried to stir up the Chinese and Malay communities, but these attempts have been unsuccessful due to the PAP being the dominant political force in Singapore, the minister posited.

"So, it has been able to bear the political cost of fighting against such sentiments", he said.

He also pointed that this statement would incur a cost as well.

"But this statement has to be made in the country’s interests," he added.

However, this isn't a permanent situation.

He noted that if future generations of political leaders on all sides see such identity politics gaining traction, they might be pressured and tempted to engage in it too.

He went on to say Damanhuri's brand of politics will fail as long as the dominant political force in Singapore rejects identity politics. However, if those like Damanhuri succeed, there will be a risk that others will follow suit, to the detriment of Singapore.

Progress only if identity politics avoided

Wrapping up his statement, Shanmugam explained that he was discussing the issue of race, religion and politics due to the events of the recent GE.

While it is unavoidable for electoral candidates to profess that they can better represent a specific race, religious or some other identified group, Deros, Damanhuri and PAS "have gone too far".

"As Parliamentarians, we may debate and disagree on many things, but I hope we can all commit to handle issues of race and religion in a responsible and sensible manner, and to uphold the integrity of Singapore's secular politics," he said.

The lives of Singaporeans have improved "regardless of race or religion", but this can only continue "if we steer clear of identity politics", Shanmugam said in conclusion.

Top image via govsg / YouTube

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