In Singapore’s Election, All Eyes Are on the Margin of Victory, Not the Winner
Like the last time Singapore held elections, it is in the throes of a global crisis.
Five years ago, the governing party portrayed itself as the steady hand to guide the nation through the coronavirus pandemic. The pitch is the same this time, as President Trump upends the world’s trade order.
And, like last time, there is no doubt that the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since 1959, will retain power. But Saturday’s election will be a test of the popularity of the P.A.P., which had its second-worst showing in 2020, even as it garnered a clear majority. It was growing evidence of a desire for a competitive democracy in the city-state.
Now many political analysts agree that the opposition is gaining clout in Singapore. Many voters are unhappy with the P.A.P.’s response to the rising cost of living. During the campaign, rallies for the country’s main opposition party, the Workers’ Party, were packed, and its merchandise sold out. Still, Pritam Singh, the party’s leader, took pains to assure the public that his party was not contesting enough seats to form a government but added that Singapore needed a more balanced political system.
“When you have opposition in Parliament, your alternative voice is heard by the government,” Mr. Singh said at his party’s first rally last week.
“We must be active participants in our democracy,” he added.
The election could also end up being a referendum for change: Prime Minister Lawrence Wong took office last year after the two-decade tenure of Lee Hsien Loong, a son of Singapore’s founding father. Mr. Wong has said that navigating the trade war and U.S.-China tensions “will take people in government who have built up trust and close relationships with their counterparts in both America and China.”
He reiterated the same argument that his party has made for decades: that the P.A.P. has a track record of delivering stability and prosperity to this nation of nearly six million, one of the world’s richest per capita.
The problem is, many average Singaporeans no longer feel prosperous. Singapore now has more millionaires than London. While average wealth has more than doubled in local currency terms, median wealth has fallen 1.8 percent from 2008 to 2023, according to the Swiss bank UBS.
In the last election, the P.A.P. won with one of the lowest vote shares in history and conceded a record 10 seats to the opposition. Since then, the government has bolstered social spending, giving allowances to those retrenched and offering generous paternity benefits. But it has continued to face discontent over the rising cost of living, raising the sales tax twice, and declining housing affordability, issues that the opposition has seized on.
The opposition has widely criticized the P.A.P. for holding one of the world’s shortest campaigning periods — nine days — and for gerrymandering by redrawing election boundaries in districts where they had made gains in the previous poll. The P.A.P. rejected the assertions, saying that the electoral boundaries review committee operates independently of the government.
In February, Mr. Singh was found guilty of lying under oath to Parliament, but voters shrugged it off. In a survey conducted by Blackbox Research in the weeks before the election, Mr. Singh had an approval rating of 71 percent, up seven points from the previous quarter. Mr. Wong was a touch ahead, with 75 percent.
