5 Reasons Why Singapore’s Next General Election Is Worth Watching

Singapore will hold its general election on July 10, just over a month after the country began easing restrictions aimed at containing one of Southeast Asia’s largest coronavirus outbreaks.

Singapore’s ruling party, the Popular Action Party, has never lost an election before and has ruled over the city state since 1959, before the country’s independence in 1965.

The next elections are preparing to be different from the previous ones. Here are five reasons why Singapore’s upcoming elections are worth watching.

The Southeast Asian country is not the first to hold a national vote amid the pandemic. South Korea in April held parliamentary elections that resulted in a decisive victory for President Moon Jae-in’s party.

While the South Korean government was largely praised for its handling of the virus at the time of its elections, Singapore’s response, which was initially seen as a worldwide success, lost some of its luster due to an outbreak. inside the dormitories that house migrant workers.

Those workers, usually men from other Asian countries working in low-wage, labor-intensive jobs, account for more than 90% of almost 44,000 confirmed infections in Singapore, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

The total number of new cases reported daily is still in the hundreds. However, a decrease in infections outside the dormitories led the Singapore government to ease much of its partial closure measures last month, paving the way for the elections.

Still, some observers warned that infections in the broader community could increase in the run-up to the July 10 vote.

“Any increase in community cases … until the day of the vote could lead to criticism of the government’s decision and, therefore, will be counterproductive (in) its approval rating,” said consultant The Economist Intelligence. Unit on a note last week.

The coronavirus pandemic hit Singapore at a time when its open, trade-dependent economy was already feeling the effects of the US-China trade war.

Singapore is forecasting its worst economic recession since independence in 1965. The economy is expected to shrink by 4-7% this year, according to official estimates.

In the past, times of crisis helped the ruling party to obtain greater electoral triumphs since the voters preferred a firm hand to lead the country. In the 2001 general election, which was held shortly after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the party received 75.3% of the vote.

But that “flight to safety” often occurred at the start of a crisis, not in the midst of it, said Eugene Tan, an associate professor of law at the Singapore Administration University.

“I think Singapore is now in the eye of the storm, and how the government has handled the crisis so far, I think it will come under very strong scrutiny during the campaign period,” Tan told CNBC “Squawk Box Asia” last week. .

“I don’t think it’s entirely clear that this is the general election that will favor the ruling party, most likely it will, but we shouldn’t exclude the possibility that voters may have a different opinion,” said Tan, a regular commentator. of Singapore politics.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had previously said he was ready to resign when he turns 70. Lee, who has held the highest office since 2004, is now 68 years old, which means the next election could be the last as prime minister.

Lee is only Singapore’s third prime minister since independence. He is the son of the widely respected founding Prime Minister of the city state, the late Lee Kuan Yew.

The current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Heng Swee Keat, intends to succeed Lee. Heng and a group of cabinet ministers, called fourth-generation or 4G leaders, have been at the forefront of the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Those ministers are expected to play a greater role in leading the ruling Popular Action Party, or PAP, in the upcoming elections.

For the second time since Singapore’s independence, the 93 parliamentary seats at stake in the elections will be contested. The ruling PAP is the only one that has nominated candidates for each position.

The PAP has won every election since independence, often even before voting day, because opposition parties sometimes ran candidates for a handful of seats.. The last election in 2015 was the first time that all parliamentary seats were contested.

Last week, the prime minister’s younger brother, Lee Hsien Yang, joined an opposition party. Although young Lee is not competing in the election, it is hoped that he will help garner support for the opposition.

His father, Lee Kuan Yew, co-founded the ruling party and was Singapore’s longest-serving prime minister from 1959 to 1990. He was widely recognized for the development of Singapore, a former British colony, from a third world country to the city advanced. declares that it is today.

An election in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak means that political parties must eliminate the traditional way of campaigning. Chief among them are mass demonstrations, one of the most common methods for candidates to communicate with voters.

Door-to-door campaigns and community walks are still allowed, subject to rules such as limiting each group to five people, wearing masks, and keeping a safe distance, according to guidelines issued by the Department of Elections.

To compensate for the lack of physical demonstrations, political parties will have more airtime to campaign on open television channels, according to the guidelines. Candidates can also broadcast online demonstrations online, he added.

On the day of the vote, temperature controls and other hygiene measures will be carried out at all polling stations, the department said. To avoid crowds, there will also be more polling stations, and voters will be assigned a recommended two-hour time to cast their vote, he added.