While Leon Perera’s disgruntled former driver’s involvement in the exposure of Leon Perera’s and Nicole Seah’s affair is known, what hasn’t been revealed is where the video came from that showed Nicole and Leon stroking each other’s hands across a restaurant table.

The video is quite slick. Good enough to make Nicole easily identifiable when she turns to show her whole face, even though the place appears to be lit only by candlelight.

The video was leaked on Facebook by a fake profile known only as “Victoria Wang” and both video and profile have since been deleted.

I remember when a fake profile “Jenny Soo” put up two of the many death threats my wife and son had been targeted with. Also soon deleted after it had done its nasty job.

I would like to know how this video was obtained. We need a categorical denial that it wasn’t through the state’s covert surveillance of its citizens whether by ISD, PA members or paid private investigators. I hardly need to remind Singaporeans that ISD comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is Shanmugam’s purview, but like everything else is ultimately under the PM’s control.

It is interesting that a year ago Leon Perera and Sylvia Lim raised a question in Parliament on the uses of spyware. Sylvia Lim asked if her phone was hacked and Shanmugam assured her that it wasn’t. However we do know that Singapore is one of the ten countries reported to have purchased or be using the Israeli Pegasus spyware that allows its clients to surreptitiously take control of a target’s smartphone and use it to record audio and video.

To expand on the idea that the PAP is now resorting to surveillance of Singapore citizens and particularly non-elected politicians going about their business I refer to the video of my visit to Chong Pang Market in Nee Soon ( Yishun) GRC on 29th June.

I have shared this video on my Facebook page. I visited the Market as part of a walkabout with my team from RP and had posted a notice of our intention to visit beforehand on our social media pages. As soon as we approached the market we saw a group of PAP grassroots all in white at the entrance to the market standing there looking out for us. We went in and sat down at a table to wait for some of our team,and there were a lot of people there at the tables around us wearing white. One woman wearing the PAP uniform with the full PAP piping on the collar came over to me and said. “Would you like a drink?” I was a bit taken aback. What PAP do table service now? I thought.

What would you have replied in these circumstances?

I could only say, “No, Thank you!” being very aware that at 3:00pm in the afternoon she was hoping to ply me with alcohol so that they could accuse me of being a drunkard. A classic slur thrown at Singaporeans with my ancestry. They then surrounded all the tables around us with people in white. We tried to continue talking to people and stall holders under those harsh circumstances and then I decided to sit down at at table and make a short vlog about the reaction on the ground. I’ll come to that later

As we left the market a man, shown in the video wearing a tie-dye shirt, got in front of me, effectively blocking my exit. “Hi, Mr Jeyaretnam he said and he started a conversation on Ridout. Specifically he asked me whether I thought the CPIB itself was corrupt.” A leading question and another entrapment attempt. By now I realised that this wasn’t an innocent market visitor so I told him to read my blog if he wanted to know my thoughts.

At the same time I noticed two people filming me but in an unusual manner. They weren’t doing this in an excited way. The quick selfie or “Let’s get a shot of KJ”‘ way. Both the man and the woman have exactly the same stance, almost as if they had been trained to hold their arms in order to steady the camera and were expecting to be filming me for a longer time while I answered the questions from tie-dye man. I guess I headed that off.

I asked tie-dye guy, “Who are these guys?” Let me tell you that any ordinary citizen being brazenly filmed chatting to me would run. Or get angry. Tie-dye man was unperturbed. Almost playing up for the camera. look at his shrug his exaggerated, “These guys with the camera phones in my face? Never seen them in my life”

The camera-phone man answered but not my question. He didn’t say who he was or identify himself as a journalist. He said, “Oh I see. Very interesting. How do you know what you talk about?” all the while filming as did his collegue a few paces away. Even when we started to leave, these shadowy individuals continued to film us using phones, ducking behind pillars or cars in the carpark when I tried to look at them. They even filmed us getting into a taxi and the taxi’s number plates. I’m guessing they have particular luck squeezing drivers for info. I’m guessing they forget that JBJ was loved by taxi-drivers who were instrumental to his win in Anson.

A video of me, making my vlog, shot secretly from the side, appeared on the PAP Nee Soon GRC facebook page the next day. It was an attempt to poke fun at me on their territory (but it backfired because several responses dared to stand up for me even on that PAP page.) This pathetic attempt to discredit me shows what would have happened if I had accepted “a drink”. Even a juice they would have spun as laziness or who knows what`? Or if I had answered stripy guy about the CPIB or the filming guy? A video carefully edited out of context would have been would put up somewhere to discredit me.

The timing of the release of the leaked Leon Perera video on the morning of the PM’s press release is incredibly convenient. Just when he needed a sex scandal to distract everyone. This undoubtedly explains why, after LHL in his Press conference had revealed that the Speaker and one of his MPs had been having an affair for at least 3 years and that he had known about it but chose to keep it quiet, the interview took a bizarre turn and he answered a strange question.

Lianhe Zaobao: “PM you have explained the case regarding the inappropriate relationship between Mr TC-J and CLH but there were also other rumours going around and Singaporeans in general have a very high standard for our politicians, our Mps. So as Pm, as SecGen of PAP, what is your position on this matter?”

What a peculiar question. No politician addresses rumours, hearsay or speculation in an interview. But the PM went ahead and answered and then refers to the Opposition in his answer even though they hadn’t been specifically mentioned in the question. Specifically the question asked him to answer in his capacity as SecGen of the PAP not as moral arbiter of the nation.

PM: “As for what the opposition parties should do if the rumours concern their members you have to ask them.”

Commenting to Rice Media, Pritam Singh, after saying he wanted to discourage speculation, went on to say

“But I think the fact that you’re asking the question suggests it’s on your mind, and I think you’re not wrong,”

“I think it’s on a lot of people’s minds, but I leave you to draw your own conclusions, on… this ‘uncanny coincidence’ vis-a-vis timing.”

It is of course only a scandal with the ability to knock Schrodinger’s Speaker off the front page if it remains in the news or on social media day after day. Otherwise its just one incident involving some sad people that has been properly dealt with. So far Singaporeans have played straight into the hands of the PAP by letting it live in their heads rent free. Please all go and look up the meaning of a Dead Cat Distraction.

I would be grateful if the Minister for Home Affairs, Shanmugam, and the Government would categorically deny that ISD or any PAP affiliation such as grass roots PA/CA, Mothership blog and so forth were involved in the heavy handed and continuous videoing of me and my team when we visited Chong Pang Market. There must be an equally unequivocal denial with regard to the surreptitious video made of Seah and Perera. If state resources are being used to help one political party spy on and dig up dirt on its opponents then that is a very serious abuse of power and one that needs immediate investigation.

According to The Online Citizen, ‘The tailing and use of spy cameras by private investigators against Members of Parliament are explicitly disallowed in Singapore, suggesting the dated footage – some say back in 2020 or 2021 – may have come from someone with authority within the establishment.’

If private citizens not elected to parliament are being spied on and videod then we have become a full Police state, one in which the apparatus of state coercion and surveillance is deployed to protect those in power. It is in situations such as these that we can request that the UN send observers to our elections to ensure free and fair elections and if they cannot do that then at least to observe such intimidation.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam