Alex Tan
Alex Tan Zhixiang(陈智祥) is a Singaporean political activist. As a member of the Singapore People's Party, he stood in the Singaporean general election, 2011 in the Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency under the Reform Party banner. The team that he was contesting under received 49,779 votes in total, representing 30.67% of total votes cast within the GRC.[1] Tan is also a former editor of Temasek Review, a now-defunct socio-political website that covers mainly Singapore current affairs and opinion articles. Temasek Review was the most read non-government controlled website then, but it was subsequently forced to shut down for a few months by the government sovereign wealth fund company Temasek Holdings for "making use of Temasek's good name to leverage on readership". TR Emeritus later came back with a new name TR Emeritus, but with its readership significantly shaved after the incident.
Pre-election Donation Drive
As a former editor of Temasek Review, he used the then-popular website to launch a donation drive to raise his Ang Mo Kio GRC team's electoral deposits. Promising to sign IOUs with loaners and emphasizing the importance of democracy in Singapore (uncontested constituencies result in a walkover, he raised $64,000 on the last night before Nomination Day. After winning back his electoral deposits with a 30.67% vote in Ang Mo Kio GRC, he returned the money back to his 37 loaners.
GE2011 at Ang Mo Kio GRC
Tan contested under the Reform Party banner in 2011 as his party, the Singapore People's Party, was not interested in contesting in the Prime Minister's ward. As the main organizer of the 2 party's joint walkabouts, Tan sought the Reform Party's help to contest in Ang Mo Kio GRC. The Reform Party then "loaned" Alex from the Singapore People's Party to contest in the ward.
In his maiden election speech, Tan underscored the lack of a social safety net for the elderly in Singapore and the influx of foreigners that has diluted Singaporeans' identity. Other campaigning issues he took on was the state of overcrowding, cost of living and the lack of transparency and accountability in the national retirement fund, the Central Provident Fund, and the national reserves. In one of his speeches, Alex questioned Dr Vivian Balakrishnan about statements Balakrishnan had made about the government wealth fund GIC's portfolio having returned to pre-crisis levels, when no statistics or figures were provided to back up the statements.[2]
Wang Peng Fei incident
In July 2011, Wang Peng Fei, a People Republic of China(PRC) student in Singapore made derogatory remarks against a Malay woman in his YouTube video post,[3] and Tan lodged an official police report against him. The PRC student was subsequently expelled.[4] Another PRC student, Sun Xu, who made a disparaging comment about Singaporeans (referring them as dogs), was also reported by Alex.
Founder and Contributor at The Real Singapore
Alex is an editor and one of the contributors and founders of the sociopolitical website The Real Singapore that covers mainly Singapore current affairs. On 6 Feb 2015, two of TRS editors, a Japanese-Australian Ai Takagi and a Singaporean Robin Yang Kai Heng, were arrested under the Sedition Act for promoting feelings of ill will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore.