Around 2.75 million Singaporeans are eligible to vote in the Southeast Asian country’s general election on May 3, and choose a prime minister to lead the city for the next half decade.
And in the nine days of the election campaigning, one of the world’s shortest, a failed deal between Allianz, the Global 500 insurance giant, and local insurer Income Insurance from last year is getting dragged back into the spotlight.
Allianz offered to take over Income Insurance for $1.7 billion last July. The deal was controversial: Singaporeans worried that a new corporate owner might push Income away from its social mission of providing affordable insurance to Singaporeans.
A few months later, in October, Singaporean officials blocked the deal. Allianz abandoned its takeover bid in December.
Now, politicians from the ruling People’s Action Party and its main opposition, the Workers’ Party, are bringing up the now-defunct deal to score political points in hotly-contested constituencies. The main topic of debate: Why Singaporean officials were first fine with the deal before later changing their minds, and who failed to ask questions at the time.
Speaking at a rally on Sunday, Ng Chee Meng, chief of the National Trades Union Congress, argued that the labor movement initially felt the takeover bid was reasonable and would have strengthened Income Insurance. Ng, who is running for a seat in Singapore’s parliament as part of the ruling PAP party, was responding to arguments that the union should have spoken up against the deal.
Income Insurance used to be part of the NTUC umbrella. Even after Income’s privatization, NTUC Enterprise remains a majority shareholder, holding about 72.8% of shares.
Still, Ng promised to “do better” during Sunday’s rally. “We will do our best, and sometimes I’m sorry that it is not good enough.”
Former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong argued that the Workers’ Party would have approved the Income Insurance deal if the opposition party had held power. He noted that only one opposition member of parliament had inquired about the takeover, and that the Workers’ Party abstained from a measure to block the merger.
Pritam Singh, leader of the Workers’ Party, has in turn accused the PAP’s labor MPs for not asking questions about the deal last year.
Another member of the WP, Harpreet Singh, demanded that Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong explain his role in the scuppered deal, and respond to an open letter by the former CEO of Income Insurance Tan Suee Chieh.
The letter, addressed to Gan and published on April 27, posed questions on regulatory oversight, the changing role of NTUC, and accountability.
On Tuesday afternoon, Gan asked why the opposition never questioned the Income deal at the time. But the deputy prime minister also tried to explain why the Singapore government ultimately changed its mind over Allianz’s bid. “We want[ed] to support the deal, because it will help Income. But when more details were furnished, we decided [we had] to stop the deal,” he explained.
Saturday’s election will be the first political test for the PAP’s leader, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over the party last year. The PAP, which has governed Singapore since its independence in 1965, is expected to remain in power following the election.
