Polling Day: 7th May

Today’s front pages are all dedicated to the upcoming election, of course.  Nomination Day will be on April 27^th.  Polling will take place on May 7^th.  Many commentators are insisting this will be a ‘landmark election’. 

Writing for the free newssheet, TODAY, Assistant Professor of Law, Eugene Tan, admits that, after the votes are in, ‘Barring a dramatic reversal of fortune the PAP (People’s Action Party) will form the government, continuing an unbroken run dating back to 1959’.  He also asks, ‘Would it mark the beginning of a viable two-party system in Singapore’s democratic development?’  For now, Singapore has rather more than two political parties; it has the PAP and a whole slew of other parties, several but not all of which are loosely united under the banner of the Singapore Democratic Alliance.  Frankly, it appears unlikely these will find a way to cooperate with one another in order that every ward is at least contested, and none of them are claiming that they expect to form the next administration.

Having said as much, I stumbled upon a fascinating piece of writing this morning, Zakir Hussain’s ‘What Low Thia Khiang can learn from Lee Kuan Yew’.  In it, Hussain reminds his readers that even the now mighty PAP only managed to field four candidates in the elections to Singapore’s first Legislative Assembly in April 1955.  Within four years, however, it was in power.

‘Drawing attention to this oft-forgotten fact in a speech to university students last week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made the point that the quality of an opposition is as important as the numbers of its MPs.

‘He said: 'You have three now in Parliament, there's nothing to stop them from holding the government to account, from propounding ideas and strategies, from challenging the government's assumptions and forcing the government to justify why it's thinking, what it's doing.’

The writer goes on to acknowledge that ‘No doubt, the political climate and historical circumstances at the time were vastly different from today's situation’.  What he fails to acknowledge specifically though is that Singapore hadn’t achieved full self-government in 1955 and didn’t become an independent Republic until 1965.  Not only were the political climate and historical circumstances vastly different but so too was the structure of the house the PAP pioneers sought to establish a toe-hold in.