Foreign funding of local politics

A member of a local group that had recently been classified as a political organisation under the Political Donations Act (PDA). wrote a piece in an anti-government website criticising the policy of restricting funding of political bodies in Singapore to local fund sources as a self-serving rule of the PAP government. He cited our openness to foreign influences in many other aspects as a kind of counter-argument.

I would say that his piece is also highly self-serving, given that his organisation's foreign funding sources have been cut off by the ruling under the PDA. No country in its right mind would want to allow foreign funding of political organisations. Even a superpower like the US, where vast amounts of money change hands in political donations, bar foreigners from donating to American political bodies. Given the size of the US, it is obvious that foreigners trying to influence US politics would have a lot less leverage. For example, donating US$20 million to a political party there would be a drop in the bucket. In contrast, that amount of money would have a huge impact on any political organisation here, even for the PAP.

To my mind, we have enough foreign influences as things now stand. Maintaining the restrictions on foreign funding of local political bodies is one of the last bastions of 'local sovereignty', even if it is merely symbolic. I don't want to see my pink IC's meaning being eroded further.