Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam criticised Progress Singapore Party (PSP) Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai for making comments that suggest a lack of value for the government’s multiracial approach to policies.

Shanmugam was replying to a parliamentary question Leong had filed on whether the Government plans to review the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) framework.

Leong's parliamentary question arose following Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong’s comments at an Institute of Policy Studies conference on January 20, where Tong said the CMIO model should be constantly reviewed to reflect Singapore’s increasingly complex multicultural landscape.

The exchange that followed with Shanmugam, focused on whether Leong valued the multiracial approach to policies and ethnic integration in Singapore’s housing estates

Shanmugam highlighted a pattern of concerning statements from Leong:

• Comments about the Singapore-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) that members of Leong's own party found to have racial undertones

• Criticism of the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), despite its role in maintaining racial integration in housing estates

The Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) is a key plank of the People’s Action Party’s policy to ensure that people live together and are integrated, said Shanmugam.

“We put a lot of value in making sure our housing estates are well managed, because we care for Singaporeans, and the CMIO is a key plank of those policies,” he said.

In response, Leong said he wanted to put on record that the PSP supports the EIP.

What it takes issue with is that the EIP has an economic cost to minority-race home owners, Leong added.

“We have recommended in this Parliament that we should compensate the minorities for that economic cost that they have incurred,” Leong said. “So that’s all we say. We are not against the EIP at all.”

Shanmugam replied: “I note that Mr Leong doesn’t deny saying that 80 per cent of Singaporeans who live in HDB flats are condemned, and that his comments were racist.”

Leong is no stranger to controversy. During his time in Parliament as a NCMP, he Leong has engaged in a pattern of divisive, polarising politics – aimed at making people angry and rile up negative sentiments for political mileage.

In February 2024, Fathership reported that Leong was ousted as Secretary-General by his own party.

The next day at a press conference, Leong claimed that he wanted to "take responsibility" for his transgressions by 'voluntarily stepping down'.