the Singaporean voter paradox
Will Singaporeans finally put the PAP on notice or will Lawrence Wong win his first mandate as Singapore's fourth Prime Minister?
With the conclusion of the People’s Action Party (PAP) party conference, the election now looms over the horizon. The stage is now set: the king has finally been crowned, and Lawrence Wong is poised to lead the PAP in his first ever election as Prime Minister. The timing for the election while not disclosed as of yet would have to be called by November 2025, and PM Wong’s assurance that he is “more ready” as “each day passes” certainly does little to inspire confidence in the new leadership. The most likely time would be either during or after Lee Kuan Yew’s 10th death anniversary in March 2025, where in all likelihood the PAP would invoke the ghost of Lee Kuan Yew to remind Singaporeans of the successes of the past to distract them from the problems of the future.
Problems in the opposition
The Opposition does not appear to be faring any better. Most parties have yet to release a slate of candidates, in part because surprising the PAP can be an effective weapon (though perhaps the PAP would likely think twice about shifting candidates at the last minute), but perhaps the greater reason for this would be that the electoral boundaries have yet to be announced.
The Opposition is also dwindling in number, in no small part because of the many unforced errors and constant rake stepping behaviour. Reform Party’s (RP) Kenneth Jeyaretnam is not only suffering from an undefined illness, he’s also inundated with multiple POFMA notices and possible contempt of court charges. Not only that, since the last election RP has hemorrhaged members, and a faction of the party has since splintered off into an even smaller party (yes, somehow this was possible) the Singapore United Party. Peoples Voice’s (PV) Lim Tean faces multiple criminal charges, and it is unclear if he would be contesting in the next election. As with RP, PV has also been bleeding members to other Opposition parties, though PV as a party has always been about Lim Tean. Most Singaporeans would perhaps (understandably) shed no tears over the loss of these two parties and people, but they are a still fixture of the Singaporean Opposition that might possibly be lost this cycle.
Of the more reputable parties, it remains to be seen if the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) will stand to gain or lose from Leong Mun Wai’s performance in Parliament. While Secretary General Hazel Poa has yet to announce where PSP will be contesting or their candidates, word on the street is that PSP will not be contesting as many constituencies as 2020, perhaps emulating the Workers’ Party (WP) fewer but more focused strategy. One cannot help but feel that for the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) the next election would be the last chance for either Dr Chee or Dr Tambyah to make it into Parliament, having come so close the last time. It remains to be seen whether the 2 SMCs the doctors contested in the 2020 election would remain intact or be redrawn given how close they came to winning. Of the Opposition parties, perhaps the WP are best positioned heading into the election, but even they are not without their struggles. The loss of both Raeesah Khan and Leon Perera to scandal since the last election remains fresh on the electorate’s minds, and while their leader Pritam Singh is at no risk of losing his ability to contest in the upcoming election, it remains to be seen what impact his recent legal entanglements will have for the party.
PM Wong was of course quick to remind Singaporeans that there was “no chance” of an “Opposition wipe-out” at the PAP party conference. He is right, but in the most disingenuous manner - with the NCMP scheme, Singapore Parliament is guaranteed at least 12 Opposition Members of Parliament. In the same speech, PM Wong rehashed the tried and true tactics of the PAP playbook by dropping a healthy dose of fearmongering by warning Singaporeans that voting more Opposition members of Parliament would only serve to weaken the government. You might think: since the PAP has been in power for the last 65 years, why don’t they just campaign on their track record and good policies instead of warning Singaporeans about an incompetent Opposition?
Problems in the incumbent
The answer is there just isn’t much to run on this election cycle. The past 5 years might just be the worst election cycle the PAP has ever had. They can’t talk about the economy, because no matter how many pieces the Singapore media has run about the economy improving, it largely contradicts the lived experiences of Singaporeans who have seen some of the largest layoffs in recent history.
They can’t talk about the cost of living, because despite the media endlessly assuring Singaporeans inflation is falling, it doesn’t change the damage inflation has already caused. The media apparatus is already in full swing at the behest of the PAP, with headlines like “Govt doing its best to help with cost of living, while opposition tries to exploit issue: PM Wong”. It’s a desperate game of pin the tail - the PAP has to land it on anywhere but themselves. This is the narcissist’s prayer: there isn’t any inflation; and if there is, there are worldwide factors absolutely out of the government’s control; and if there aren’t, then it’s the Opposition’s fault for shedding light on this issue. Never mind that the PAP has chosen to increase the Goods and Services Tax (GST) during the throes of the worst inflationary period in decades. Never mind that they chose to split the increase into 2 separate increases, despite it being known to the government that some businesses take advantage of tax increases to also increase prices for their goods and services. The gaslighting is in full effect here: the PAP will accuse the Opposition of lacking “good solutions”, while the genius solution the incumbent has devised is to load up the money guns to spray the populace in the hopes it will distract from the GST increases and inflation.
They can’t talk about the Singaporean dream because they’re not even sure what it is. The old dream of the 5Cs is gone, dragged out back into the alley and shot in the head by the PAP’s policies. The environment that the PAP has fostered is particularly good at attracting the extremely wealthy, and the amount of billionaires has just about tripled in the last decade alone. This coupled with the changes in public housing policies which allowed the prices of resale flats to be subject to free market forces has now seen almost 1,000 HDB flats being sold at over a million dollars. Where the Singapore dream once promised upward mobility for Singaporeans to aspire to, we are now relegated to settling for the bare minimum. Perhaps the most apt case in point for this is Minister for Law K Shanmugam, who bought his Good Class Bungalow for slightly over S$8m in 1998 and has since sold it in 2023 for S$88m. Where it was once possible for lawyers like Minister Shanmugam to aspire to owning an S$8m property, a little over 20 years later it would be inconceivable for any lawyer to afford that same property now valued at S$88m. There will be no cars, no condominiums, and no country clubs for the vast majority of Singaporeans. Maybe this is why PM Wong cannot shut up about the “refreshed Singapore dream” or “refreshed Singapore compact”, laden with buzzwords and vagaries of inclusivity and purpose. If Singaporeans are no longer able to strive for upward mobility, then the Singaporean dream built on the bedrock of meritocratic ideals no longer exists, and with it the 6th C - children. As the TFR falls below 1 to new historic lows Singaporeans question why they would want to bring a child into a country where their future is not necessarily better than their forebears.
So of course the only talking point the PAP has is of an incompetent Opposition, what else can they talk about?
Problems in the elections
On paper it might seem like a slam dunk election for the Opposition. Sure, the Opposition had been hit by a couple of scandals of their own, but the PAP has bore the brunt of it this cycle. From multiple corruption scandals (Keppel and Minister Iswaran), to affairs of their own (Speaker Tan Chuan Jin), to multiple MRT breakdowns (with the added slap to the face of increasing the fare prices), to the U-turn on SimplyGo (but not without first gaslighting the public and letting Singaporeans know we actually cost ourselves an extra S$40m), to the U-turn on the Income-Allianz deal, to the U-turn on the NRIC policy, and a massive data breach (though the mystery of who asked Minister Josephine Teo to apologize remains).
If the list seems long, it is because it is. Any one of these scandals coupled with any of the substantive cost of living issues should be enough to see a noticeable swing in the electorate in almost any other democracy. Taken together it would almost certainly mean voting out the incumbent with a change of government in any other country or, if Khaw Boon Wan would have it, a more permanent solution.
Around the world, 2024 has been the year of incumbent losses, from the Tories in the UK to the Democrats in the US. Yet despite this trend or perhaps because of it, Singaporeans may find themselves inclined to vote once again for the PAP. In an increasingly uncertain world, there is an instinct for the Singaporean electorate to display a flight to safety. This was observed in the crassest terms by Minister Chan Chun Sing, who noted that Singaporeans tended to vote PAP in times of crisis - from 9/11 to Lee Kuan Yew’s death, Singaporeans have always exhibited a flight to safety in uncertain times. There will be no doubt the PAP will be milking the multiple wars around the world and what many perceive to be an unpredictable Trump presidency (though having already seen one Trump term before one could argue it would be fairly predictable), while evoking the ghost of Lee Kuan Yew on his 10th death anniversary to stoke the flames - after all, if nothing else the PAP has always abided by this political maxim: never let a good crisis go to waste. So while the stars appear aligned for a shift to the Opposition, it could be just as easily be a PAP blowout.
Problems in our democracy
Perhaps the biggest disservice the PAP has done to Singapore is not any one issue listed above, but rather the systemic erosion of facets of our democracy. This isn’t to say that Singapore isn’t a democracy - every Singaporean has a vote and is able to vote for their representative in Parliament. However, to assert that Singapore’s elections are free and fair, which Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong did in his May Day speech this year, seems to be disingenuous at best. It depends what you mean when you say Singapore’s elections are free and fair. If you mean that every Singaporean is able to vote and that there is no election fraud, that the ballot boxes and voter slips are not tampered with, then yes, Singapore has fair elections. But if you mean that the electoral boundaries are constantly shifting, or that the local media provides ceaseless cover for the PAP, or that there is an almost invisible line between the PAP and the People’s Association (which is supposed to be a non-partisan statutory board), or that the PAP has a history of detaining and taking legal action against their political opponents which has contributed to an incredibly infantile Opposition and a chilled atmosphere for political discourse in Singapore, then you might argue that the elections are not so fair after all.
Think of a democracy as the immune system against bad governance. In the marketplace of free ideas, a democratic system will vote up the best ideas and get rid of the worst. If the party in power is doing badly, it should be voted out. The assertion that the PAP has eroded the facets of our democracy does not mean that the PAP is not currently the best government for Singapore, or that the Opposition will do a better job than the PAP at governing Singapore. It means that the PAP has eroded the means by which we determine if they are still the best government for Singapore, and because of that it becomes increasingly difficult to tell if Singapore is better off with or without a PAP government.
The strangest part of this is that it seems to be a common sentiment that Singaporeans want more Opposition members in Singapore. According to an Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) survey in 2021, 69.8% of Singaporeans believe that “Singapore would benefit from having more political parties in Parliament”. That is overwhelming support for a proposition that in reality translates to very few Parliamentary seats for the Opposition. What do Singaporeans mean when they say they want more political parties in Parliament? It seems highly doubtful Singaporeans mean they want more Opposition members making speeches in Parliament given that an overwhelming majority of Singaporeans don’t follow what happens in Parliament. Logically then it can only mean that Singaporeans want the Opposition to be able to affect the laws and policies passed in Parliament. Given that Singapore follows the Westminster Parliamentary system, the only way the Opposition can affect what laws are passed is by either having a majority in Parliament, or by having enough members in Parliament that they’re threatening a majority. Merely having a token representation of “Opposition voices” does not do anything for Singaporeans. The case in point being the successes of the WP. Since 2001 WP has made the greatest strides of any Opposition party since independence, and has held the most amount of seats for any Opposition party since the Barisan Socialis in the 1963 elections. And yet it was during this time that some of the most egregious and controversial laws and constitutional changes have passed, including POFMA, FICA, and implementing Reserved Elections to name a few. In each case, the dissent of the Opposition had been duly noted, and the laws and amendments pass, with nary a bang, with nary a whimper.
The voter paradox
And therein lies the Singaporean voter paradox: Singaporean voters seemingly want more Opposition, but at the same time refuse to vote them in. Perhaps it is understandable, Singaporeans are infamously risk averse, and many vote with the adage “better the Devil you know” in mind when going to the ballot box. Many view the Opposition as inexperienced and untested, and therefore cannot be trusted to form the government. Of course following this train of thought to its logical conclusion also means that the Opposition can never form the government.
Part of this is the Opposition’s doing. After all these years, many people still remember the original sin of the Barisan Socialis, whose members walked out of Parliament in protest and abandoned their constituents. This rake-stepping behaviour persists till today, and many Opposition members cannot seem to get out of their own way, presenting unforced errors for the PAP and their supporters to latch onto. It also does not help that there have been a bevy of what the public perceives to be unserious candidates from the Opposition. Perhaps this is one of the most unfortunate consequences of the Group Representative Constituency (GRC) system, where members of the PAP are able to slip into Parliament under cover of a more popular minister. Members who would normally fold under scrutiny now get to cruise by as backbenchers, rubber stamping any PAP motion that comes before them, some of them never speaking more than a couple of minutes in Parliament over their entire political careers.
The GRCs, combined with largescale detention of Opposition members in the 1970s and 1980s, and the use of defamation suits and POFMA notices have led to a chilled and apathetic political climate in Singapore. Even the most ardent supporters of the PAP would have to admit that the playing field is not exactly the fairest. Of course, none of this is to suggest that it is the duty of the PAP (or any political party for that matter) to ensure that members of the Opposition get elected, after all, a political party is a vehicle to secure political victories. It is however the duty of the government to ensure that the democratic system remain as free and fair as possible to allow for the best possible political party to win elections. The PAP in assuming government should have ensured that a country can not only survive succession, but that the institutions are robust enough to endure bad governance. Instead, the narrative painted by the PAP is that the country would not survive a non-PAP government. In engineering an uneven playing field as possible, the PAP have done Singapore the greatest disservice - the country is now losing its immune response to bad governance.
Ironically, the PAP have the solutions to the very things they constantly fear-monger about. The WP are winning on a “checks and balances” platform, winning seats on the promise that they will hold the government accountable. This is clearly a key concern of many Singaporeans. It is in the PAP’s power to give the people exactly that: by being more transparent, and taking more responsibility for what people perceive as failures. Instead, we get Minister Chan “What is the point behind the question?” Chun Sing, refusing to answer questions in Parliament, and Minister Josephine “no apology” Teo, who refused take any accountability for the foreign worker debacle during the pandemic. Of course, the PAP would never voluntarily become more transparent, that would undermine the information asymmetry that the PAP currently enjoys.
Next is the warning that by voting in more Opposition members, we might inadvertently vote out essential ministers, case in point being George Yeo when the PAP lost Aljunied GRC in 2011. It is of course a time honoured PAP trick to blame the electorate when something does not go their way. After the failure of SimplyGo, Minister Chee Hong Tat wasted no time telling Singaporeans that it was their fault they now had to spend S$40m to maintain the older ticketing systems, all to be funded by the government (read: you, the taxpayer). Now, PM Wong warns Singaporeans that each GRC the PAP loses will result in a loss of another minister. This is of course entirely because of the PAP strategy of fielding a minister in every GRC to string along a team of backbenchers. The PAP has the solution to this: they could abolish the GRC system. Without the GRC system, it would be incredibly likely for most ministers to retain their seats, and there would be little risk of losing ministers. However there would be a greater risk of losing seats of the many unknown backbenchers. Once again, the PAP has the solution to their scaremongering but will never implement the solution.
But by far the favourite scaremonger trick is to warn Singaporeans that it doesn’t take a large vote swing before the Opposition becomes the government. Both PM Wong in his PAP party conference speech and SM Lee in his exit interview earlier this year warn of an incompetent Opposition coming to power as the government and bringing Singapore to ruin. There is a solution for this: they could form a Shadow Cabinet, which would allow members of the Opposition to better scrutinise the government, while allowing them to learn the inner workings of government should they ever become the government. Instead, the PAP in their infinite wisdom have elected to appoint Pritam Singh to their newly created position the “Leader of the Opposition”. As far as anyone can tell, there doesn’t seem to be any added responsibilities, and the position seems to be about as useful as the 5 mayors we have, though perhaps at the fraction of the cost to the taxpayer.
A stronger government
In 2023, a survey held by the Pew Research Center found that Singaporeans were split on whether they preferred a leader with a strong hand or a democratic form of government to solve their country’s problems. Perhaps Singaporeans remember all too fondly the days of Lee Kuan Yew, whose promise of economic prosperity more than made up for his brand of strong man leadership. For all his faults, Lee Kuan Yew was a visionary.
Today, the story could not be more different. We no longer have visionaries as leaders, but rather bureaucrat scholars that have outlasted their competition in political maneuvering. The problem with strong men and authoritarianism is that you’re more likely to get a Stalin or Pol Pot than you are to get a Lee Kuan Yew, history has at least shown us that much. The only solution to this is to build a system robust enough that the democratic functions of society correctly sieves through the bad governance in favour of the good.
Singapore is reaching a cross roads at the next election, and only time will tell which direction is the right one.