VZCZCXRO1909
RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHGP #1321/01 1140730
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 240730Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9653
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SINGAPORE 001321 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PSOC KISL SN
SUBJECT: SINGAPORE'S NEW MALAY/MUSLIM PAP MP CANDIDATES 
 
REF: SINGAPORE 1289 
 
¶1. (U) Summary.  Four new Muslim candidates will be running 
for Parliament on the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) 
slate, replacing four retiring Muslim members of Parliament 
(MPs).  All four are highly educated, successful 
professionals with international experience.  Only one, 
however, has the religious background, community recognition, 
and Malay-language skills to make him broadly appealing to 
Singapore's Malay/Muslim minority. End summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Over several weeks, Singapore's People's Action Party 
(PAP) unveiled four new Malay/Muslim candidates for the 2006 
general elections: Mr. Zulkifli Masagos Mohamad, 42, vice 
president of SingTel's global offices and president of a 
Malay/Muslim grassroots group; Dr. Fatimah Lateef, 40, an 
emergency physician and humanitarian worker; Mr. Muhammad 
Faishal Ibrahim, 38, a professor of real estate at the 
National University of Singapore and PAP activist; and Mr. 
Zaqy Mohamad, 31, regional director of an information 
technology company. 
 
¶3. (U) The candidates represent a new generation of 
Malay/Muslim leader -- young, well-educated professionals 
with extensive international experience.  In the past, most 
Muslim MPs were teachers, journalists, or trade unionists. 
Having succeeded under Singapore's meritocratic system, this 
new batch of potential MPs supports the PAP's claim that 
opportunities are available for those who work hard.  They 
also share the GOS vision of a secular, pluralistic society, 
and have been active in community groups that cut across 
religious lines. 
 
Mr. Masagos Zulkifli 
-------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Mr. Masagos Zulkifli bin Masagos Mohamad, 42, is the 
only one of the four new Muslim MPs who speaks Malay fluently 
and has strong religious credentials and experience in 
serving Singapore's Malay/Muslim community.  Active in the 
Muslim grassroots organization Perdaus since 1992, he has 
served as its president since 1999.  Masagos expanded 
Perdaus' mission from only offering Islamic education to 
providing social services (such as child care centers) 
regardless of religious affiliation.  At Perdaus, he 
co-founded Mercy Relief, which aids victims of natural 
disasters.  Under Masagos' leadership, Perdaus maintained 
close ties to the conservative Singapore Islamic Scholars and 
Religious Teachers Association (Pergas).  Muslim community 
leaders have speculated that Masagos may eventually succeed 
Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim as Minister in Charge of Muslim Affairs. 
Masagos himself notes that his National Service as a police 
officer and his international business experience make him a 
versatile MP who could hold many different portfolios. 
 
¶5. (U) Masagos is Vice President of Global Offices for 
SingTel, where he has worked for 18 years.  With SingTel, he 
worked in Sulawesi, Indonesia for three years and later spent 
three years in Sydney, Australia.  Masagos studied for a year 
at the University of Southern California.  He graduated from 
Singapore's Nanyang Technological Institute with an 
engineering degree.  He is married and has four children. 
 
Dr. Fatimah Lateef 
------------------ 
 
¶6. (U) Dr. Fatimah Lateef, 40, is an emergency medicine 
specialist and humanitarian worker.  She has worked overseas 
as a physician in India, the United Kingdom, and the United 
States (at the Medical College of Virginia).  As a volunteer, 
and now a director, of Mercy Relief she has led many relief 
missions to disaster sites.  She joined the PAP in 1986 when 
it established a youth wing (Young PAP). As the first single 
Muslim woman to serve in Parliament, Dr. Fatimah told us she 
feels she is under more pressure (and scrutiny) than any of 
the other MPs because she will have to represent Muslims, 
women, and her electoral district.  Unlike the other female 
Muslim MP, Dr. Fatimah covers her hair only to pray.  After 
some concerns about her "modern image," she appeared at a 
press event wearing a traditional Malay/Muslim woman's dress 
but still minus a headscarf. 
 
Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim 
------------------------ 
 
¶7. (SBU) Mr. Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, 38, is assistant 
professor of real estate at the National University of 
Singapore (NUS).  He is part of the PAP grassroots team that, 
led by the more independent-minded PAP MP Charles Chong, 
successfully lobbied the government to open a dormant metro 
station.  Faishal, who chairs a Young PAP branch, has also 
been involved with Muslim organizations.  He was a member of 
 
SINGAPORE 00001321  002 OF 002 
 
 
the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), and a 
member of his mosque's management board.  Muhammad Faishal 
attended public schools and the National University of 
Singapore, then earned his PhD from the University of 
Manchester.  From a humble background, he believes that 
Malays can achieve whatever they want through hard work.  He 
is married and has two children, aged 6 and 10.  Muhammad 
Faishal was apparently a last-minute substitute brought in 
after the PAP's star prospective Muslim candidate 
unexpectedly declined to run, and the initial replacement 
candidate, according to Masagos, proved unacceptable to some 
sections in the community during his trial launch. 
 
Mr. Zaqy Mohamad 
---------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Mr. Zaqy Mohamad, 31, was the first new Muslim 
candidate the PAP announced.  He is a regional director at a 
technology company and previously worked at IBM.  Although 
touted as a grassroots activist, leaders of several Muslim 
religious and secular groups told us they had never heard of 
Zaqy.  Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean reportedly spotted Zaqy 
when he agitated against university fee increases as 
president of the student union at Singapore's Nanyang 
Technological University (NTU).  Zaqy, who comes from a 
middle-class, English-speaking family, graduated from the 
prestigious Raffles Institution.  He is married and has two 
children. 
 
The four outgoing Muslim MPs 
---------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) These four new candidates replace four outgoing PAP 
Muslim MPs: Othman Harun Eusofe, Yatiman Yusof, Mohamad 
Maidin Packer, and Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani.  Othman and 
Yatiman, in their 60s, were expected to retire.  The PAP 
asked Ahmad Khalis, who belongs to the conservative group 
Muhammadiyah and sends his daughters to full-time Islamic 
religious schools, to step down after just one term.  Tapped 
in 2001 to appeal to more conservative elements of the Muslim 
community, Khalis did not condemn Islamic terrorism strongly 
enough, according to Muslim reporters and PAP volunteers. 
Mohamad Maidin Packer, 48, Parliamentary Secretary for Home 
Affairs, had strongly supported the GOS stand against Islamic 
terrorism.  He was reportedly forced out, however, because he 
represented an alternative power center to Minister in Charge 
of Muslim Affairs Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim.  The Malay language 
newspaper, Berita Harian, had strongly supported Maidin -- a 
former editor of that paper -- with laudatory articles. 
 
Role models? 
------------ 
 
¶10. (U) The PAP expects its Muslim MPs to be role models for 
the community, encouraging Singapore's Muslims to be part of 
the national mainstream (i.e., modern, English-speaking, and 
secular) and to raise their education and skills.  At the 
same time, Muslim MPs must link the Muslim community and the 
GOS and resolve problems connected to Islam.  Journalists and 
Muslim community leaders have questioned whether Singapore's 
Malay/Muslim minority will see the new PAP Muslim candidates 
as credible spokesmen for their concerns about language, 
culture, and religion. 
HERBOLD