SINGAPORE: The Lowy Institute, a think tank based in Australia, issued an analysis of this year’s polls, asking what could be learned from an election “where nobody lost.”
In that, it referred to the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) again keeping its supermajority, and that it, as well as every other party, neither lost nor gained any of the elected seats it had from the last time Singaporeans trooped to the polls in 2020.
However, the author of the piece, the academic Kazimier Lim, underlined two main takeaways.
“First, Singaporean voters proved they are far more politically engaged and sophisticated than often assumed,” he wrote.
Mr Lim gave the results of the four-cornered fight at Tampines GRC as an example, saying that “voters showed remarkable clarity.”
Contrary to fears among many in Singapore prior to the polls that opposition votes would be spilt between the Workers’ Party (WP), the People’s Power Party (PPP), and the National Solidarity Party (NSP), voters appeared to consider the fight to simply be between the PAP, which won with 52% of the votes, and the WP, which received 47.4%. This meant that the other two parties both received less than 0.5% of votes, and their candidates lost electoral deposits of $13,500 each.
Narrowing down the choice between the PAP and the WP showed, for Mr Lim, how “Singaporean voters have demonstrated both discernment and pragmatism.”
He also cited a term for the smaller opposition parties only showing up during campaign periods but not providing viable policy alternatives is ineffective.
“Singaporeans are clearly not apathetic to the politics of the day and are incredibly savvy voters,” the author added.
His second takeaway concerned how the WP has managed to ensure a relevant place in the city-state’s political arena for the coming decades, with the highest-ever number of MPs from an opposition party.
Not only this, Mr Lim pointed out how the WP “also narrowly outperformed the PAP overall in constituencies where it ran, averaging 50.1% of votes compared to the PAP’s 49.9%.”
He cited the party’s messaging and high calibre of its candidates, who may have easily contested under the PAP banner, as being part of the reason why the WP succeeded.
The author also called WP chief Pritam Singh “one of the most effective public orators in Singapore since the late Lee Kuan Yew.”
On Monday (May 5), Prime Minister Lawrence Wong confirmed that Mr Singh would remain as Leader of the Opposition going into the next Parliament. The WP leader is the first to officially hold this designation.
“It was clear at the start that the incumbent PAP’s political future would likely be secured with a supermajority for at least another five years. But it is now also clear that Singapore’s political future belongs to a sophisticated and savvy electorate that understands exactly how – and when – to make its voice heard. And as Singh knows, it pays to listen,” the author added. /TISG