Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06SINGAPORE1321
2006-04-24 07:30:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Singapore
Cable title:  

SINGAPORE'S NEW MALAY/MUSLIM PAP MP CANDIDATES

Tags:  PGOV PSOC KISL SN 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO1909
RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHGP #1321/01 1140730
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 240730Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9653
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SINGAPORE 001321 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PSOC KISL SN
SUBJECT: SINGAPORE'S NEW MALAY/MUSLIM PAP MP CANDIDATES

REF: SINGAPORE 1289

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SINGAPORE 001321

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PSOC KISL SN
SUBJECT: SINGAPORE'S NEW MALAY/MUSLIM PAP MP CANDIDATES

REF: SINGAPORE 1289


1. (U) Summary. Four new Muslim candidates will be running
for Parliament on the ruling People's Action Party (PAP)
slate, replacing four retiring Muslim members of Parliament
(MPs). All four are highly educated, successful
professionals with international experience. Only one,
however, has the religious background, community recognition,
and Malay-language skills to make him broadly appealing to
Singapore's Malay/Muslim minority. End summary.


2. (U) Over several weeks, Singapore's People's Action Party
(PAP) unveiled four new Malay/Muslim candidates for the 2006
general elections: Mr. Zulkifli Masagos Mohamad, 42, vice
president of SingTel's global offices and president of a
Malay/Muslim grassroots group; Dr. Fatimah Lateef, 40, an
emergency physician and humanitarian worker; Mr. Muhammad
Faishal Ibrahim, 38, a professor of real estate at the
National University of Singapore and PAP activist; and Mr.
Zaqy Mohamad, 31, regional director of an information
technology company.


3. (U) The candidates represent a new generation of
Malay/Muslim leader -- young, well-educated professionals
with extensive international experience. In the past, most
Muslim MPs were teachers, journalists, or trade unionists.
Having succeeded under Singapore's meritocratic system, this
new batch of potential MPs supports the PAP's claim that
opportunities are available for those who work hard. They
also share the GOS vision of a secular, pluralistic society,
and have been active in community groups that cut across
religious lines.

Mr. Masagos Zulkifli
--------------


4. (U) Mr. Masagos Zulkifli bin Masagos Mohamad, 42, is the
only one of the four new Muslim MPs who speaks Malay fluently
and has strong religious credentials and experience in
serving Singapore's Malay/Muslim community. Active in the
Muslim grassroots organization Perdaus since 1992, he has
served as its president since 1999. Masagos expanded
Perdaus' mission from only offering Islamic education to
providing social services (such as child care centers)
regardless of religious affiliation. At Perdaus, he
co-founded Mercy Relief, which aids victims of natural
disasters. Under Masagos' leadership, Perdaus maintained
close ties to the conservative Singapore Islamic Scholars and

Religious Teachers Association (Pergas). Muslim community
leaders have speculated that Masagos may eventually succeed
Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim as Minister in Charge of Muslim Affairs.
Masagos himself notes that his National Service as a police
officer and his international business experience make him a
versatile MP who could hold many different portfolios.


5. (U) Masagos is Vice President of Global Offices for
SingTel, where he has worked for 18 years. With SingTel, he
worked in Sulawesi, Indonesia for three years and later spent
three years in Sydney, Australia. Masagos studied for a year
at the University of Southern California. He graduated from
Singapore's Nanyang Technological Institute with an
engineering degree. He is married and has four children.

Dr. Fatimah Lateef
--------------


6. (U) Dr. Fatimah Lateef, 40, is an emergency medicine
specialist and humanitarian worker. She has worked overseas
as a physician in India, the United Kingdom, and the United
States (at the Medical College of Virginia). As a volunteer,
and now a director, of Mercy Relief she has led many relief
missions to disaster sites. She joined the PAP in 1986 when
it established a youth wing (Young PAP). As the first single
Muslim woman to serve in Parliament, Dr. Fatimah told us she
feels she is under more pressure (and scrutiny) than any of
the other MPs because she will have to represent Muslims,
women, and her electoral district. Unlike the other female
Muslim MP, Dr. Fatimah covers her hair only to pray. After
some concerns about her "modern image," she appeared at a
press event wearing a traditional Malay/Muslim woman's dress
but still minus a headscarf.

Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim
--------------


7. (SBU) Mr. Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, 38, is assistant
professor of real estate at the National University of
Singapore (NUS). He is part of the PAP grassroots team that,
led by the more independent-minded PAP MP Charles Chong,
successfully lobbied the government to open a dormant metro
station. Faishal, who chairs a Young PAP branch, has also
been involved with Muslim organizations. He was a member of

SINGAPORE 00001321 002 OF 002


the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS),and a
member of his mosque's management board. Muhammad Faishal
attended public schools and the National University of
Singapore, then earned his PhD from the University of
Manchester. From a humble background, he believes that
Malays can achieve whatever they want through hard work. He
is married and has two children, aged 6 and 10. Muhammad
Faishal was apparently a last-minute substitute brought in
after the PAP's star prospective Muslim candidate
unexpectedly declined to run, and the initial replacement
candidate, according to Masagos, proved unacceptable to some
sections in the community during his trial launch.

Mr. Zaqy Mohamad
--------------


8. (SBU) Mr. Zaqy Mohamad, 31, was the first new Muslim
candidate the PAP announced. He is a regional director at a
technology company and previously worked at IBM. Although
touted as a grassroots activist, leaders of several Muslim
religious and secular groups told us they had never heard of
Zaqy. Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean reportedly spotted Zaqy
when he agitated against university fee increases as
president of the student union at Singapore's Nanyang
Technological University (NTU). Zaqy, who comes from a
middle-class, English-speaking family, graduated from the
prestigious Raffles Institution. He is married and has two
children.

The four outgoing Muslim MPs
--------------


9. (SBU) These four new candidates replace four outgoing PAP
Muslim MPs: Othman Harun Eusofe, Yatiman Yusof, Mohamad
Maidin Packer, and Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani. Othman and
Yatiman, in their 60s, were expected to retire. The PAP
asked Ahmad Khalis, who belongs to the conservative group
Muhammadiyah and sends his daughters to full-time Islamic
religious schools, to step down after just one term. Tapped
in 2001 to appeal to more conservative elements of the Muslim
community, Khalis did not condemn Islamic terrorism strongly
enough, according to Muslim reporters and PAP volunteers.
Mohamad Maidin Packer, 48, Parliamentary Secretary for Home
Affairs, had strongly supported the GOS stand against Islamic
terrorism. He was reportedly forced out, however, because he
represented an alternative power center to Minister in Charge
of Muslim Affairs Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim. The Malay language
newspaper, Berita Harian, had strongly supported Maidin -- a
former editor of that paper -- with laudatory articles.

Role models?
--------------


10. (U) The PAP expects its Muslim MPs to be role models for
the community, encouraging Singapore's Muslims to be part of
the national mainstream (i.e., modern, English-speaking, and
secular) and to raise their education and skills. At the
same time, Muslim MPs must link the Muslim community and the
GOS and resolve problems connected to Islam. Journalists and
Muslim community leaders have questioned whether Singapore's
Malay/Muslim minority will see the new PAP Muslim candidates
as credible spokesmen for their concerns about language,
culture, and religion.
HERBOLD