In a Workers' Party (WP) press conference today, Central Executive Council member Png Eng Huat addressed the political controversy caused by a poison pen letter against the WP's newly introduced candidate, Associate Professor Daniel Goh, who was accused of allegedly having an extramarital affair while he was teaching at the sociology department in the National University of Singapore.
This allegation came a day after Dr Goh was introduced on Wednesday as a potential WP candidate for this upcoming General Elections.
Dr Goh has since denied all the allegations and lodged a police report. The storm has apparently implicated its first casualty online, with a netizen named Han Ming Guang being wrongly accused of penning the poison pen letter.
According to Dr Goh, who posted a note on his Facebook page, Mr Han has since apologized to him for pasting a Chinese daily news article about him on popular local forum Hardwarezone and has flatly denied being the author of the poison pen letter. Dr Daniel Goh has said that he believes in Mr Han's innocence and has graciously asked netizens to not respond to a smear campaign with more smearing.
"The Workers' Party welcomes scrutiny of our candidates. If you have any evidence, please talk to us because the Internet and e-mails are anonymous. So if you have any evidence, please tell us." Mr Png said at the press conference today.
Mr Png also urged the media to be responsible and grant interviees enough time for a response before publishing any reports.
Mr Png said: "I understand that a newspaper actually put up a report online before the time is up and without giving Dr Goh time to respond."
"This is the run-up to the election, and all of us are very busy. So I hope the media can play a responsible role and understand that these are difficult, challenging times as we're running an election and time is not on our side."
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