Forum on reimagining Singapore’s electoral system set for Aug 23

SINGAPORE: A discussion on electoral reform will be held at The Projector in Golden Mile Tower from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. on Aug 23. The Singapore Democratic Party’s Chee Soon Juan and Dr James Gomez will be giving addresses, and there will also be a standalone lecture on the state of overseas voting in Singapore.

The panel discussion includes former Workers’ Party Member of Parliament Leon Perera and political scientist Elvin Ong. Jeremy Tan, who contested in Mountbatten SMC as an independent candidate in the May 3 polls, and Jo Teo are also panellists at the event. Ahmad Amsyar will moderate the discussion.

Tickets to the event are free. More details may be found here.

“Do we get the government we vote for?

Where do we draw the line?

Who wields the pen?

Will smaller GRCs lead to greater minority representation?

With only 47% of Gen Zs approving of the results of GE2025, should the voting age be lowered?

What is a reasonable notice period for the release of electoral boundaries?

Is a voter in Jalan Kayu more powerful than a voter in Bukit Panjang?

Out of over 200,000 overseas Singaporeans aged 21 and above, how many actually voted?” are some of the questions to be raised during the discussion.

In a Facebook post on Aug 7, Mr Perera wrote that electoral reform is an important subject worth having on a national level, given that electoral outcomes affect everyone’s quality of life. He asked whether Singapore’s electoral laws “help to generate fair, representative political outcomes that make for stable, sustainable politics.”

“There are those who say that this is the wrong question to ask. Some say that it is the nature of politics that governing parties would always seek to bend the rules in their favour,” he added.

The former MP also asked if “thoughtful citizens” should not seek better rules governing elections, instead of opposition parties merely using their “tenacity, resilience and ingenuity to work within these (often changing) rules that sometimes disadvantage them and try to win.”

Meanwhile, in a blog post on Aug 5, Dr Gomez underlined the need to establish an independent election commission, which has been “widely recognised as an international best practice recommended by the UN Electoral Assistance Division and the intergovernmental organisation International IDEA,” he wrote, adding, “For Singapore, this represents a long-overdue but essential first step toward genuine electoral reform.” /TISG

Read also: SDP launches petition to reform Singapore’s electoral system including abolishing GRC system