Ngerng had been paying S$100 each month off the S$150,000 that was subsequently awarded to Lee Hsien Loong for his accusation that Lee misappropriated Singapore’s state pension money. So it caught him off-guard last month when he raised the roughly S$144,000 he still owed in just nine days of crowdfunding, via 2,132 people.
The two examples involving bloggers don’t necessarily mean that opposition groups in Singapore will gain political momentum via such crowdfunding, or that they will deter future lawsuits. The crowdfunding campaigns come after an election last year where the PAP won 89% of seats, which could be considered a landslide in most other countries but was its weakest parliamentary showing yet. A survey released in October by Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies showed the party’s credibility rating dropped “across the board”, including with younger voters, though the majority of respondents agreed the party remained credible.
“Defamation laws have been on the statute books for decades,” Shanmugam said. “Wouldn’t it follow therefore that a significant majority of Singaporeans support the defamation laws, since they have supported the government through the decades?”
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