What next for the PAP?

What. A. Night.

The Workers' Party has now cemented its position as the second party in a two-party system, albeit one that remains heavily skewed in favour of the People's Action Party. The WP will be celebrating its groundbreaking win in Aljunied GRC, and rightly so. The strong results of even its lesser-known candidates demonstrate the power of the WP brand -- indeed, a study by an Australian polling firm shows the WP brand to be as strong as the PAP's.

What does it mean for the PAP though? How will the PAP respond?

First and foremost, the PAP lost because it had lost touch with the ground. It had clearly under-estimated the extent of antipathy towards it by a large margin. Was this because of a failure in the intelligence from its grassroots organisation (aka the People's Association, even though it is a statutory board), or did the leadership simply ignore or overlook the grassroots intelligence? Those of us on the outside will never know.

But what we do know, is that it was the PAP's arrogance that had led to its downfall. The themes of government accountability and arrogance played so strongly with the electorate, that the Prime Minister was compelled to apologise for the errors of his Government late in the campaign. But it was clearly too little, too late for disenchanted voters. Worse, only the PM and George Yeo actually noted the problems with the party; it was almost as if all of the other ministers remained, in Minister Lim Swee Say's words, "deaf frogs" to the criticisms from the electorate.

I remember that the PM's "apology" speech at Boat Quay was reported in two parts, on the front page and on an inside page. The portion of the report on the inside page was dwarfed by a big article on Minister Mah Bow Tan, quoting him as intending to raise the $8000 income ceiling on HDB flats in response to feedback. Two things struck me: firstly, even though PM had acknowledged the failure to anticipate and prevent spiralling housing prices as a mistake, there was not a single squeak of sorry from Mr Mah; and secondly, the feedback on the income ceiling was not new at all, so why was the Minister considering the change only now?

So the real question is whether the PAP has truly accepted and internalised the lessons from this election and the messages from the voters. My own sense is that the middle ground, that big chunk of voters in the middle who decide the fate of elections, largely approves of the PAP as the governing party, but had grown to dislike the PAP and its style. And that is something that is entirely within the party's control.

I for one think the PM got it right, when he said that the PAP government was not perfect, and will make mistakes, but must acknowledge and admit mistakes, apologise, and then rectify the problem and try to prevent a recurrence. The problem though, is that the PAP hadn't done that at all in the past 5 years, in particular in terms of admitting and apologising for errors.

The PM was spot on when he said that the PAP needed to re-connect emotionally with voters. If the PAP wants to arrest this slide in its popularity, then it needs to be authentic and sincere in engaging with the people.

But the early signs on election night were not positive. The two ministers facing the most personal criticism over the past few years have been Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng and Minister Mah Bow Tan. Both led their teams to a 57% vote share, below the ~60% national average for the PAP. DPM Wong described it as "strong support" from Bishan voters, while Minister Mah called the 10-point swing against him since 2006 a "strong mandate". Few would agree with those claims, which ring hollow and false. If they truly believe their words, then the lessons from GE2011 would appear to have been lost on them, in which case the Opposition can expect even more gains in the next elections.

GE2011: what I'm getting up to

Some of you may know that I am part of two gazetted political associations, namely local socio-political community blog The Online Citizen and MARUAH, a registered human rights NGO in Singapore.

For the elections, I have been live-blogging for TOC at the rallies that I'm attending -- so far I've been at WP's Hougang rally on 28 April (phone network died so not much live-blogging there), NSP's rally at Delta Hockey Field on 29 April, and SPP at Potong Pasir tonight. To follow my live-blogging, go to my Twitter profile or follow #TOClive on Twitter.

As fun and exciting as live-blogging is (and it is), it's what I'm doing with MARUAH that's potentially more far-reaching and important. MARUAH are conducting an election watch project. Given the lack of access in Singapore (Elections Dept has so far not responded to our request for access to polling and counting stations) and our lack of resources (thanks PMO for the gazetting!), we've had to scope the project carefully and limit it to what we know we can do rigorously.

MARUAH will be doing monitoring how the Straits Times, TODAY and The New Paper cover the GE for the duration of the campaign. The results from the first 3 days are up, please check them out!

Workers' Party rocks Hougang, 28 Apr 2011

I made it a point to catch the Workers' Party rally tonight. It's their first rally, and I wanted to see Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim, Chen Show Mao and Yaw Shin Leong in action. I also wanted to see -- for myself -- just how big the crowd is.

The second question is easier to answer: it was a massive crowd. See for yourself (photo at http://darrensoh.com/elections/), make sure to scroll all the way to the left:



The crowd was so big, that the mobile networks basically all died. After a while, nobody had any service at all. It was sheer exhilarating and inspiring madness.

As for the speeches -- Low Thia Khiang was his usual polished self, working the crowd effectively in English, Teochew and Mandarin. Sylvia Lim had a great performance as well, definitely much much more powerful than her speeches in 2006, although I was a little surprised she didn't deliver a Mandarin speech (at least a short one). Her call-and-response style worked very well. Chen Show Mao did a couple of sentences in Tamil, rather more in Malay, and was excellent in Mandarin -- but the pacing for his English speech was a little too slow. And Yaw Shin Leong acquitted himself well, although he kept building the crowd to a crescendo (which was really skilfully done) and then going an anti-climactic "ok?".

But for me, the surprise of the night was Gerald Giam. He was frankly quite stiff in the TV forum with the other parties. But he was really good tonight, worked the crowd well, delivered his speech strongly and convincingly and basically rocked the house. Gerald looks to be a real gem in the making.

Now that I'm back at home, adrenaline fading and legs aching, caught up on Facebook and much of the material from the other rallies, the question in my mind remains one asked by one of the speakers (Chen Show Mao?): last election, we also had huge crowds, but look at the voting outcome. What will it be like this time?

Disgust and loathing in Singapore

UPDATE: I should have added that so far in this campaign, I have respected SM Goh Chok Tong for his call to keep things "clean" (even though it is self-serving since Tin Pei Lin is in his GRC, but it was the right thing to say), Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng (and indeed the rest of PAP) for not mentioning Mr Chiam's health, and Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang for declining to make any personal comment about Tan Jee Say. I would also express disappointment at the NSP's Yip Yew Weng for perpetuating race-based politics (see the piece in last Saturday's(?) Straits Times about multi-cornered fights) thereby playing into the PAP's hands in terms of justifying the continued existence of GRCs.

Not much in Singapore politics gets me really worked up anymore. All too often, it just feels like "been there seen that".

In fact, nowadays, the things that tend to rile me are not about the substantive issues themselves -- it's gotten too easy to predict the PAP's response and arguments to explain why something I agree with is "not right" for Singapore. Instead, what gets my blood boiling will be questions of (un)fairness and (in)justice.

Most recently, it was the attacks on Tin Pei Ling, who does enough to destroy her own credibility in her own speeches and responses to questions without needing any help from gutter would-be-journalists trawling her Facebook account. Today, it was this personal attack by the PAP.

The PAP can try all it wants, but the objective here is transparently clear to everyone: to tell the world that Vincent Wijeysingha is gay, and thereby win the votes of that part of the population that will vote based on just this single wedge issue, regardless of any other issue.

The rest of the statement -- in particular the allusion to an alleged discussion about "sex with boys and whether the age of consent for boys should be 14 years of age" -- is just outright unjustified mudslinging insinuation that seems designed to imply a linkage between Vincent Wijeysingha and that discussion. If you watch the video in question, you will find that:

(a) Vincent Wijeysingha does not talk about sex with boys or lowering the age of consent for boys.

(b) only M. Ravi talked about that, and he also does not advocate lowering the age of consent for boys. Instead, he seemed to be talking about the age of consent for boys in the context of making a more general point (it's hard to tell precisely what the point is, because the clip has been edited -- perhaps deliberately -- such that what went on before is not shown).

[At this point, I hope that those responsible for posting the video and the misleading description about "lowering age of consent for sex with boys aged 14" are aware that they may have contravened Section 61(d) of the Parliamentary Elections Act. And I certainly hope that the Elections Department will be fair and investigate this case, and prosecute if the culprit is found.]

Considering that the constituency in question is Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, a fairly rich area which may well have a higher than average proportion of conservative Christians, this move may yet pay off in terms of votes. But it would fundamentally damage the fabric of Singapore politics, by opening the door to the slippery slope of mudslinging attack politics, where personal attacks are disguised as questions about "agenda".

This PAP statement is no different from, and is in fact worse than, the gutter attacks on Tin Pei Ling to degrade the political discourse in Singapore. I did not want Singapore politics to degrade like this, so imagine my dismay that it is the PAP itself bringing politics down.

I hope -- no, I trust and believe -- that Singaporeans will see through this PAP statement for what it is. Now that the SDP has posted its response, the ball is really in the PAP's court. Will the PAP retract its statement? Will the PAP apologise? Will the PAP understand that there will be a backlash to this, the same way there was a backlash to their efforts to demonise James Gomez in 2006?

Well, we can all let the PAP know exactly what we think of this. Speak up, whether online or in the papers. Ask your grassroots leaders what they think about it, and whether they agree with the tactics apologised. Ask the next PAP candidate who asks for your vote, what he/she thinks about this and when the PAP will apologise. Ask the PM if the Government's stand on all this has changed, since he presumably had the last word on this during the Section 377A debate in 2007.

The strangest part of all this is that the political parties, including the PAP, have historically been discreet on personal lifestyles and indiscretions, as noted by Cherian George. It is unclear if this statement has been endorsed by the PAP leadership, but in the absence of any public dissociation by the party from the statement, we can only conclude that it was. That would mark the PAP leading us to the kind of "First World Parliament" that we know we do not want, namely the gay-bashing tactics of US conservative right-wing politics.

Speech on Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill: 25 August 2008

I made a total of 3 (short) speeches on 25 August 2008, and this was one of them. Quite apart from the high(er) profile issues like the recent motion on by-elections and last year's petition to repeal Section 377A, and asking questions on hot topics of the day like the misselling of structured products, I also try to speak on more routine issues and prosaic legislation.

Despite its subject-matter, the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill is one such piece of legislation. It's one of those things that I think of as "keeping the lights on" -- legislation to keep the wheels of government turning. And it is just as important to keep one's eyes on them and speak on them, as the other stuff.

The video and text of my speech, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister's responses to my points, are below.

I had wondered about whether to make the suggestion for the Government to fund polling agents to attend at overseas polling stations. When I did, I could hear some surprised titters rippling through the House. I suspect that at least some MPs saw it as a call for Goverment-funded junkets for politicians, especially Opposition party members.

But I think that view misses the point, as does the DPM's reply, that the actual process of vote-counting in Singapore is seen as fair and impartial, because of the safeguards built into the process, including the opportunity for all parties to monitor the vote-counting process. Whether or not the Opposition parties have sufficient manpower for that, is a different question. The principle remains valid. And if so, then why should there be a difference between local and overseas polling stations? The emphasis on frugality suggests that there can be a price to the integrity of the vote-counting process -- I disagree and I think it is short-sighted and sends the wrong message.

The DPM also suggested that I had said that:

"five days of campaigning is the same as nine days of campaigning, so why not close four days earlier. I am not sure if the Opposition will agree with that. I think we all want to have as much time as possible to put our views across."

I think that is an overly-simplistic representation of what I had said. I believe that qualitatively, there is little difference between five days of campaigning and nine days of campaigning -- in my view, both are inadequate, and many if not most Singaporeans would have made up their minds already anyway. And like I said, consistently limiting campaigning to the statutory minimum of 9 days is not consistent with wanting to maximise the amount of time available, or as the DPM said, "I think we all want to have as much time as possible to put our views across."

Video of speech:

Speech on the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill

Mr Siew Kum Hong (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the Bill.

This Bill seeks to refine the Act by implementing changes that the Deputy Prime Minister had announced in the Committee of Supply debate earlier this year. These refinements are positive and much welcome. Having said that, I have three points for the Deputy Prime Minister's consideration.

Sir, of all the amendments, the relaxation of the eligibility criteria for an overseas voter is the most significant. A Singapore citizen must now spend an aggregate of 30 days in the past three years in Singapore to qualify for overseas voting. It removes the previous eligibility criteria which had been heavily criticised. This will have the effect of enabling many more overseas Singaporeans to vote. It also means that at the next general elections, overseas polling stations are likely to receive many more overseas voters than in the 2006 elections.

Section 39 of the Act specifies that the Presiding Officer of a polling station, which includes an overseas polling station shall exclude from the polling station all persons except voters allotted to that polling station, the candidates, the polling agents of each candidate and other persons involved in the functioning of the polling station. My question is whether the Government will make special provision to enable polling agents of candidates to be present in overseas polling stations.

While the Act, as it now stands, permits parties to send their polling agents to overseas polling stations, the reality is that travel costs would be so high as to make this prohibitive and unrealistic. That being the case, I propose that the Government should fund the travel of one polling agent from each political party involved in the elections to each overseas polling station where overseas voters in respect of constituencies contested by that party are registered to vote so that all parties would be able to appropriately monitor the various overseas polling stations. This would ensure that the same degree of transparency and accountability applies to both local and overseas polling stations and preclude any allegation of vote rigging, foul play or other unfairness.

My second point relates to early voting for overseas voters. Ms Sylvia Lim had raised this issue in last year's COS and I think she has mentioned this slightly earlier. Sir, at COS this year, the Deputy Prime Minister had answered that there are many implications to early voting which make it unfeasible, including the fact that overseas Singaporeans would then only witness four to five days of campaigning from overseas before voting which may not be enough for them to form a conclusion on whom to vote for. I urge the Deputy Prime Minister to reconsider this and to permit early voting for overseas voters.

The concern raised by Ms Lim is certainly true that there is a valid concern about anonymity in some wards, in particular single member constituencies. It seems to me that there is little qualitative difference between five days of campaigning and nine days of campaigning. I believe that the benefits of permitting early voting for overseas voters far outweigh the potential problems. And certainly, if the Government was keen to give Singaporeans more time to come to an informed conclusion, then it should provide for much longer campaign period than the statutory minimum of nine days which has been the practice in past elections.

Also, in this year's COS, Mr Matthias Yao had raised the question of contingency plans to deal with possible disruptions to the smooth conduct of elections, such as severe weather on Nomination Day and Polling Day. The Deputy Prime Minister's response then was that the Elections Department was looking into this and legislative amendments would be introduced to address such situations. The Bill currently before this House does not appear to address this issue. I therefore hope that the Deputy Prime Minister can update this House on the status of the Elections Department's work on contingency planning and the proposed legislative amendments that he had referred to in this year's COS.

Sir, the Amendment Bill before this House is a well-balanced piece of legislation that preserves the principles of democracy by enabling many more overseas Singaporeans to vote than is presently the case. This keeps our general elections relevant in today's globalised world. I believe that the refinements I have suggested would improve the Act even more.

With that, I support the Bill.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Sir, I thank the Members for supporting the amendments in this Bill. I will answer the questions raised by both Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Siew Kum Hong.

[...]

On advancing the end of poll for overseas polling stations, I have explained before that it will shorten the time for overseas voters to make an informed decision. I have just heard Mr Siew saying that five days of campaigning is the same as nine days of campaigning, so why not close four days earlier. I am not sure if the Opposition will agree with that. I think we all want to have as much time as possible to put our views across. The timing right now to close the poll for overseas station no later than we close the poll for the Singapore station is a correct one. We will see how else we can deal with the situation of too few voters in a particular constituency. But as more Singaporeans go overseas to work and register themselves to vote, then the chances are that many of them will come from a particular constituency, and therefore the question of secrecy or anonymity of the vote will no longer arise. In fact, even if there are five overseas Singaporeans who voted for a particular constituency, nobody can tell really how the five individual members actually voted other than to know that maybe X number for one party and Y number for another party. Beyond that, who voted for who is anybody's guess. I think the Opposition Member, Mr Low Thia Khiang himself, also once agreed with me that the vote is secret and we cannot really tell.

On the eligibility criteria, I have explained that. Mr Siew is quite happy with the change. His suggestion about Government funding the polling agent to go to a polling station overseas is something that we will not need to do, because there is no law compelling any party to send any polling agent to the polling station. It is not compulsory. They do not have to do it. In fact, there are some parties that could not even have enough polling agents for the Singapore elections. So we do not see the need to spend public money to send the Opposition or PAP polling agent to an overseas station. We should trust the integrity of the election process and, so far, there has been no complaint. People know that our election is fair and transparent and it is not an issue at all not to have polling agents to oversee it. If the party wants to do so, I think they are free to spend whatever they need or even to appoint somebody overseas as their polling agent. But, again, that must be subject to the availability of space in a particular overseas polling station because, as we know, Singapore is quite frugal. We do not have large Missions like some countries and, therefore, we may not be able to find enough space to accommodate all the parties that want to send their polling agents to those countries.

On the last question of contingency plans, these are still being worked out. This particular Bill only deals with overseas voting and registration for overseas voting.