Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong telephoned his counterpart, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, yesterday afternoon to congratulate him on leading the Barisan Nasional (BN) to a “convincing win” in Sunday’s hard-fought general election.
Mr Lee said he looked forward to continuing working with Mr Najib to strengthen ties. Both Prime Ministers agreed to further enhance their close bilateral partnership, according to a Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement yesterday.
Mr Lee also wrote a congratulatory letter to Mr Najib. Mr Lee wrote: “The Barisan Nasional’s convincing win reflects your people’s confidence in your leadership and the value they placed on continuity and stability.”
Mr Lee also noted recent discussions with Mr Najib during February’s Leaders’ Retreat in Singapore, where the two governments announced the construction of a high-speed rail linking Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in 90 minutes — a move both Prime Ministers said will be a “game changer”.
In his letter, Mr Lee added: “I look forward to continue working with you to deepen our bilateral cooperation. As we discussed at our Leaders’ Retreat in February, our countries have large and growing stakes in each other’s success. Let us strengthen our close partnership for the benefit of both our peoples.”
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a community event yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam felt Sunday’s election results delivered “a clear, stable government”. “For us, from a Singapore perspective, stability in Malaysia is extremely important, so the result is such that it’s a clear win,” he added.
Mr Shanmugam, however, noted the results also showed “a deep racial polarisation” in Malaysia — with the Democratic Action Party winning in areas with a substantial Chinese population and the BN in those with a substantial Malay population. He felt this has to be worked on, as Mr Najib acknowledged on Sunday, before it becomes “more problematic”.
Asked about state developments and its impact on Johor’s Iskandar region, Mr Shanmugam pointed out that developments in the area were the result of government-to-government interaction.
“Logically, the state-level developments should not impact on Iskandar Malaysia and our agreements. And the progress of Iskandar Malaysia, which is good for Malaysia and is also win-win because of deals in Singapore that were agreed to under the POA (Points of Agreement),” he said.
The two Prime Ministers had in 2010 came to an agreement on Malayan Railway land in Singapore.
Mr Shanmugam added: “At the same time, of course, we’re seeing a lot of allegations of Singapore being used as a bogeyman in these elections, and we must expect that some of that, maybe a lot of that, may continue as a result of state-level developments. We just have to watch the developments.”
Speaking to ChannelNewsAsia, Mr Shanmugam said there are lessons to be learnt from how the elections played out.
He said: “One of the lessons is that thankfully we are not at the same level of racial polarisation and I think we can also learn from the experience to try and make sure that we remain a strongly multi-racial society, multi-racial country.
“So is Malaysia, but as its Prime Minister has noted, it has become somewhat polarised, the elections perhaps have somewhat accentuated it and it is something that we have to try and guard against.”
Source: TodayOnline