Around 2.75 million Singapore Are justified to vote in the general elections of the Southeast Asian country on May 3 and to select a prime minister that leads the city for the next half decade.
And in the nine days of the election campaign, one of the shortest in the world, a Failed Between Allianz, the global 500 insurance giant and local income insurance from last year is brought back to the spotlight.
Last July, Allianz offered income insurance for 1.7 billion US dollars. The deal was controversial: Singapore feared that a new company owner feared the income of his social mission to ensure affordable insurance to the Singaporers who could exchange income.
A few months later, in October, Singaporian officials blocked The deal. Allianz gave up its takeover offer in December.
Now politicians from the governing Punitive Action Party and her main opponent, the workers’ party, are bringing the deal that are no longer existing to achieve political points in hotly contested constituencies. The main topic of the debate: Why Singapore civil servants were okay with the deal first before they later changed their minds and who asked no questions at that time.
NG Chee Meng, head of the National Trades Union congress, at a rally on Sunday. argumented The fact that the workers’ movement initially believed that the takeover offer was appropriate and had strengthened income insurance. Ng, who runs around a seat in parliament in Singapore as part of the ruling Pap party, reacted to arguments that the union should have been against the deal.
The income insurance used to be part of the NTUC rain umbrella. Even after the privatization of the income, the NTUC company remains a majority shareholder who holds around 72.8% of the shares.
Nevertheless, NG promised to “do better” During the rally on Sunday. “We will do our best, and sometimes I’m sorry that it is not good enough.”
Former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong argumented that the workers’ party would have approved the income insurance contract if the opposition party had held power. He found that only one opponent of the parliament had inquired after the takeover and that the workers’ party abstained from a measure to block the merger.
Pritam Singh, head of the workers’ party, again accused the Papal Labor MP of the Pap not to ask any questions about the deal last year.
Another member of the WP, Harpreet Singh, demanded that the deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong explain his role in the Scuppered deal and answer To an open letter from the former CEO of Income Insurance Tan Suee Chieh.
The letter directed to Gan and published on April 27. Questions asked About the regulatory supervision, the changing role of NTUC and the accountability obligation.
Gan on Tuesday afternoon asked Why the opposition never questioned the income agreement at that time. But the deputy prime minister also tried to explain why the government in Singapore ultimately changed her opinion about Allianz ‘offer. “We want[ed] To support the deal because it will help. But when further details have been set up, we decided [we had] To stop the deal, ”he said.
The election on Saturday will be the first political test for the president of the pap, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over the party last year. The pap, who has ruled Singapore since its independence in 1965, will probably stay in power after the election.
This story was originally on Fortune.com