Along with OSC Chair, J B Jeyaretnam, who needs no introduction, the forum will feature speakers from established elections agencies in the region. Vincent Wijeysingha, Report research coordinator will present the findings of the report. Unfortunately, Robin Chan, Head, Elections Department has declined to speak at the forum.

Alan Wall hails from Australia and is currently Project Manager for Indonesian Activities at the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES). Established in 1987, IFES provides assistance in elections planning and administration, technical expertise in the drafting of election legislation, and post election administration. IFES has field offices in 25 nations and has worked in 100 countries across Asia, Africa, the Carribean, and East and Central America.

Alan has over 16 years of senior elections administration and consulting experience in South Africa, Croatia and Nigeria and in the Elections Commission of his home country. He is currently also engaged in the work of the UN's Administration and Cost of Elections Project.

Tioulong Saumura is from Cambodia and chairs the Electoral Reform Task Force of the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia.

Saumura has lived and studied all over the world and worked in a variety of senior positions in investment banking in France. She has been a member of FUNCINPEC since its inception and of the Khmer Nation Party since 1986. She has sat as MP for Phnom Penh since 1998 and has served her country with distinction as Central Bank Deputy Governor and Chair, Interministerial Committee against Money Laundering.

Sunai Phasuk is Research Manager at the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel). Anfrel was founded in 1997 as a project of Forum Asia to develop a regional collaborative approach to elections. It has worked in Cambodia, Nepal and Thailand in the areas of elections administration, information dissemination and training. Its current Exco includes members from Sri Lanka, Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Sunai has had a distinguished career in academia and NGO work. He has published and lectured widely in English and Thai on regional political issues.

Vincent Wijeysingha, a Singaporean, is currently with the University of Sheffield, writing up a doctoral thesis on Singapore social policies. He has taught and researched several areas of sociology at Sheffield and is currently engaged as a free-lance researcher with the Open Singapore Centre.

He will present the findings of the report. The report is the first of its kind for Singapore. It looks in depth at the problems of the electoral process in Singapore and addresses anomalies that were reported in a joint Singapore Democratic Party and Workers' Party Memorandum to the United Nations after the 1997 General Elections.

As these issues have not received any media coverage, the publication of the report marks an important milestone in Singaporean democracy. The report touches on a range of election arrangements that, while to the untrained eye, may appear consistent with the democratic objective, in fact hinders democracy in our nation. It exemplifies a radical departure from the kind of uncritical elections reportage we are used to in Singapore and is a must read for all those concerned with democracy and human rights.

The forum will be held on Saturday 4 November from 2pm to 5.30pm at the Rendezvous Hotel, Straits Ballroom I, Level 2, 9 Bras Basah Road, Singapore 189559. Admission is free and coffee and tea will be served. Copies of the report will be available for sale.