Opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam was swiftly rebuked by netizens who felt his tweet on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s unsteady spell while speaking at the National Day Rally last night was grossly insensitive.
After Mr Lee paused and faltered after more than two hours into his speech, The Reform Party chief tweeted: “Did LHL have a brainstorm?” After receiving backlash for the tweet, he deleted it.
No @KenJeyaretnam, there is something called “sense of humanity”. Learn it. #ndrsg https://t.co/tXyZxkI8zp
— Kyle Malinda-White (@kylemalinda) 21 August 2016
.@KenJeyaretnam is so inappropriate. -.- And then he deleted it. Very classless. Where’s your humanity? #ndrsg pic.twitter.com/WctWYmLe1O
— Adam (@urbanexperiment) 21 August 2016
But the quarrel didn’t end there. Mr Jeyaretnam went on a relentless warpath and demanded that those who had defamed him in their tweets apologise to him.
Later on Facebook, the fiery politician admitted he made a “flippant comment”, which he quickly removed upon learning that the prime minister had taken ill.
He explained in his post: “I made one albeit flippant comment, quickly realised that something else was going on, deleted it so as not to cause offence and when it became obvious that LHL was ill, immediately sent my wishes for his health – sooner than any other politician fact. I believe.”
The politician admitted that his post “wasn’t nice”, but he didn’t apologise either.
I know it wasn’t nice. It was made when I thought it was an autocue error. Hence deletion. You repeating it is not nice. @immalegend4
— Kenneth Jeyaretnam (@KenJeyaretnam) 21 August 2016
Defending his action, Mr Jeyaretnam said he “didn’t speculate”, “didn’t impugn”, and “didn’t spread alarm” and thought that there was an autocue error.
The Straits Times, Twitter screengrabs
Among those he crossed swords with was blogger and co-founder of The Online Citizen website Andrew Loh who tweeted: “Kenneth Jeyaretnam is a complete insensitive buffoon. Shocking that his first thought on learning what happened to PM Lee is to make fun of it.”
Jeyaretnam “digusted” with Chee Soon Juan’s remark
Then Mr Jeyaretnam created another firestorm when he shifted the attention to Chee Soon Juan’s controversial post.
In his Facebook post to wish PM Lee a good recovery, Workers’ Party politician Gerald Giam said he was “absolutely disgusted” that “one politician has made an utterly insensitive remark at a time when the whole nation is concerned for the welfare of our PM”.
Although Mr Giam did not name the politician, Mr Jeyaretnam responded to his post by assuming that Mr Giam was referring to Mr Chee Soon Juan, who had mentioned in his post that Mr Lee could have suffered from a “neurological problem”.
The Singapore Democratic Party chief later edited out the two words from his post, in which he had wished PM Lee a speedy recovery.
Said Mr Jeyaretnam in his lengthy post: “I agree with you Gerald. I too am disgusted and as you won’t name that “politician” I will presume that we are talking about Chee Soon Juan leader of the SDP who put on his Facebook page that “Mr Lee Hisen Loong had suffered what seemed to be a neurological problem”.
“This comment is not only absolutely disgusting but made far worse by the fact that Chee Soon Juan admits that he was “just informed”. In other words this is third party information and pure speculation on his part”.
Telling Mr Chee off for shooting his mouth off, he said: “To speculate on the basis of no evidence that our leader PM Lee has a neurological problem is to suggest he’s not fit to serve. In fact it’s defamatory. He may have altered his post four different times but it doesn’t alter the fact that he should know better than to cry fire in a crowded theatre.”
The ruckus continues this morning.
While welcoming the “good news” that his former classmate Heng Swee Keat is recovering sufficiently to resume ministerial duties, Mr Jeyaretnam traded barbs with his opponents again.
He called Mr Andrew Loh “a liar”, as he reminded him that his “first thought on learning what had happened to PM Lee was to wish him well”.
Jeyaretnam tweeted late this morning: “It is my belief that if someone is ill then common humanity takes precedence over politicking every time.”
chenj@sph.com.sg
