GE2025: Red Dot United calls for housing reset and ‘unconditional cash transfer’ for Singaporeans in manifesto
The party will campaign under the election slogan: “First-class citizens, fairer Singapore”.
This will be RDU’s second time contesting in the General Election. The party, which was founded in May 2020, had put forward a five-member team in Jurong GRC that same year.
The team obtained 25.39 per cent of the vote against the incumbent People’s Action Party (PAP) slate led by then-Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who left politics in 2023 to contest the presidency.
On Saturday, Mr Philemon confirmed the constituencies that RDU will be contesting in: Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC, Nee Soon GRC, Jurong Central SMC, and Jalan Kayu SMC.
Some key policy proposals outlined in the party’s election manifesto include:
UNCONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER FOR SINGAPOREANS
RDU called for the establishment of a “Citizen’s Dividend” – which the manifesto described as an “unconditional cash transfer” that would serve as a financial safety net for all Singaporeans.
The party said the dividend looks to provide financial support to workers in times of job scarcity and underemployment, allowing them to seek better opportunities, reskill and innovate, without the “constant stress of financial survival”.
Mr Philemon said more job losses will be unavoidable, amid a looming trade war between the United States and China.
“From what we have seen so far, Singapore’s attempt to retrain and reskill retrenched and vulnerable workers for economic uncertainty have unfortunately left many falling through the cracks, through no fault of their own,” he added.
“It is clear that the trampoline has too many broken springs, so it is time to bring in a real safety net.”
In 2015, then-Deputy Prime Minister Tharman famously fielded a BBC presenter’s question on Singapore’s notion of a safety net with the answer: “I believe in the notion of a trampoline.”
RDU proposes for the dividend to start with the “most vulnerable employees”, before being progressively expanded to all citizens to “ensure a reliable income floor for everyone”.
Fielding queries from journalists during a question-and-answer segment at the end of the manifesto launch, Mr Philemon was asked to elaborate on the details of the dividend – including its proposed quantum, how often it would be given, and if there were any estimates on how much it would cost.
The secretary general replied he expects the proposed dividend to be in the range of about S$2 billion to S$4 billion, but emphasised the cost will not dip into the national reserves.
“We don’t believe in draining our reserves. That’s not our intention at all,” Mr Philemon said.
“The Singapore government has a track record of having surpluses and a lot of this can be covered from the different taxation that we have. The proposals that we have put forward, they can be made operational if we make changes to our tax policies.”
