Singapore

After two decades in office, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will pass the baton to the ruling party’s chosen successor, who faces a complex geopolitical environment and growing challenges to the party’s leadership at home.

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Late last year, Cambodia finally began oil production, from offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand. A joint venture between the Cambodian government and Singaporean company KrisEnergy Ltd started production, and will be ramping up new wells in the coming months. Cambodia has known about its offshore oil for more than a decade, and other oil firms like Chevron had invested in Cambodian offshore exploration in the past. But production had been delayed for years as some companies were scared off by the low global price of oil and as the Cambodian government initially could not reach a deal on production with an oil company. The offshore fields will start with a peak production of around 7,500 barrels of oil per day, a relatively small amount: major oil states like Russia produce well over 10 million barrels each day, and neighboring states like Thailand produce more than Cambodia as well. But even that modest output will reportedly create some $500 million in new revenue for Cambodia, where GDP per capita is only around $1,500. Cambodian government believes there are hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in its offshore waters; revenues could increase as new wells are developed after the project’s first phase. Announcing the production online, Prime Minister Hun Sen called the oil output “a blessing.” And yet, in one of the most authoritarian and corrupt countries in East Asia, a place where Hun Sen has throttled the remnants of Cambodia’s pseduodemocracy in recent years, who will actually benefit from the new oil production? For more on Cambodia’s new oil production, and its impact on the country, see my new World Politics Review article.

Meredith Weiss is professor and chair of political science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy of the University at Albany, SUNY. As anticipated, the incumbent People’s Action Party (PAP) won Singapore’s July 10 general election, held amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Even Singapore’s leading opposition party, the Workers’ Party (WP), which boosted its share of seats in parliament from seven to ten, had denied seeking to deny the PAP a “mandate”—it vowed merely not to allow the long-ruling party a “blank check.” And so the WP, one of multiple opposition parties that contested the election, but the only one to win seats, did. (The Progress Singapore Party will send another two opposition politicians to parliament, but without having won any constituencies, a uniquely Singaporean consolation prize for the “best losers” nationally.) Following the July 10 election, the PAP still holds 89.2 percent of parliamentary seats (eighty-three of ninety-three), a fairly marginal decrease from the 93.3 percent share of seats (eighty-three of eighty-nine) it secured in 2015. Yet at 61.2 percent, the PAP’s share of the popular vote fell below the 65 percent for which it had hoped—a level that would be on par with its usual results, though less impressive than the 69.9 percent it garnered in 2015, in the wake of Lee Kuan Yew’s passing and Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary bonanza. The general election result is really a win for both sides: the opposition parties, and especially the WP, can rest assured that a decent share of voters finds them credible, even in times that call for especially competent leadership, whereas the PAP still knows the electorate loves it best. At the same time, the election has obliged introspection on the part of the PAP, and does suggest ways in which the PAP, or governance broadly in Singapore, will likely recalibrate. First, there is the question of leadership. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in 2018 that he would retire by age seventy (he is sixty-eight now), but his designated successor, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, failed to thrive in the general election. The group representation constituency (GRC) team Heng led won its district, but barely. Granted, the PAP faced a stiff WP challenge in that GRC, and the party “parachuted” Heng in to lead the team at the last minute—invariably a liability—but his standing as prime-minister-in-waiting seems more tenuous now. Lee has suggested that, in light of the pandemic, he might delay his departure as prime minister, but Heng’s colleagues insist they remain united in favor of his succeeding Lee, whenever the transition happens. Indeed, the PAP chose not Heng or another fellow PAP fourth-generation, or “4G,” leader to represent the party in the one English-language televised debate of the campaign but the more seasoned foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan (who later insisted he’s the same age as Heng, even if not generally considered to be in the same 4G political cohort). Lee’s new cabinet, which he announced July 25, rotates its 4G members but leaves Heng seemingly secure as heir-apparent, retains several seasoned “3G” ministers among a handful of new faces, and maintains “a greater degree of continuity” than usual, as Lee explained, given the pandemic. Meanwhile, the WP successfully navigated its own first election under new leadership: former Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang passed the reins to successor (and now Singapore’s first recognized Leader of the Opposition) Pritam Singh in 2018. Low, as well as party veterans Chen Show Mao and Png Eng Huat, then stood down from contesting this general election in favor of younger party members. That the party still maintained and expanded its foothold—with a team of younger members’ securing a first-ever second GRC—suggests the transition was a success. Moreover, the strong strides made by newcomer opposition party Progress Singapore Party (PSP) suggests a life-after-PAP path for defectors from Singapore’s dominant party. Eighty year old ex-PAP MP Tan Cheng Bock launched PSP only in January 2019, together with other former PAP members and, as elections approached, PM Lee’s estranged brother Lee Hsien Yang. PSP benefited the most from voters defecting from the PAP. The role of younger voters in Singapore is the second key dimension to watch going forward. The electoral impact of young voters is easily overstated, but their interests did help to set the tone in this election. Voters aged twenty-five to thirty-five were the biggest population “bulge” in 2020, and they were inclined, per Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee, toward “personal narratives and ‘I feel your pain’ connectivity, approachability and authenticity.” She finds the WP well attuned to these “Zoomers.” Even so, first-time voters (aged twenty-one to twenty-four) comprised less than 10 percent of the electorate; only one-third of the electorate was people in their twenties and thirties. While concrete data are unfortunately scarce, a Blackbox Research survey found the highest support for the WP among that twenty-one to twenty-four year old segment—but that share of voters alone could not turn the tide. Rather, economically pinched voters in their forties through early sixties who switched from the PAP to opposition parties, suggests the PAP’s Lawrence Wong, incumbent minister for national development, likely had more impact in reducing the PAP’s share of the popular vote this time around. That said, PAP and opposition postmortems, and what messages seemed to stick during the campaign itself, indicate there will now likely be a change in the PAP’s tone and focus, our third factor. Wong notes the need for the PAP to step up its game with young voters. He suggests that while the party “tried [its] best” to reach younger voters with online content, including on Instagram and Telegram, “not all of this connected with netizens.” Pundits emphasized that younger voters in particular seemed to prefer a less paternalistic tone, more open discussion of sensitive issues of race and religion (a flashpoint especially in light of police investigation of first-time WP candidate Raeesah Khan’s previous social media posts alleging racial and religious discrimination in Singapore), and new voices in parliament. As popular PAP Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam put it post-election, the party’s smaller popular vote share “is leading the party to review its own game so as to win the hearts, and not just the minds, of a changing electorate.” The parties emphasized different themes, too: the PAP aimed to keep the focus on jobs, whereas opposition parties hammered home the call for new voices in Parliament. Blackbox Research found the electorate nearly evenly split on these themes, with 53 percent favoring the PAP’s economic focus over the opposition’s diverse-voices narrative. But the PAP did a sometimes-ham-fisted job of delivering its message. PAP activists, for instance, noted that when the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) Chee Soon Juan claimed the PAP had once supported a highly unpopular population target of ten million—resistance to an onslaught of foreigners, taking good jobs from Singaporeans, was a prominent opposition-campaign theme—the PAP spent more effort working to impugn his credibility and integrity than in addressing the immigration issue. Or as one PAP activist said, the party has “to do more to convince (people of) why PAP is good, and not why the opposition is bad.” Fourth and finally, that change in tone might translate to shifts in the policy process and in policy outcomes. For one thing, there will be more opposition MPs than in the previous parliament: ten from the WP, supplemented by two non-constituency MPs from the PSP who intend to work as part of a WP-led “alternative front.” The PAP has signaled that it expects the WP to contribute ideas to policymaking in parliament; the WP’s Pritam Singh has countered that PAP must be more forthcoming with information if it seeks “realistic policy alternatives.” But it seems conceivable that some of the WP’s policies, which tend slightly to the left of the PAP’s, could make it onto the parliamentary agenda. Ian Chong, a political scientist, explains that the leading opposition parties (WP, PSP, and SDP) all campaigned on a “more systematically [economically] redistributive approach” than the PAP, which “kept to its traditional emphasis on the efforts of individuals and families, with minimalist state support supplemented by one-off transfers.” On the table now could be strengthened social safety nets in particular: for instance, a minimum wage (Singapore currently has no minimum wage), unemployment insurance, and measures to support the value of the Housing Development Board flats in which over 80 percent of Singaporeans live, overwhelmingly as homeowners, but with ninety-nine-year leases. Probably less likely to change are those features of the system that protect incumbents in Singapore. Among them are the much-critiqued Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), the PAP’s monopolization of the parastatal “grassroots” People’s Association, and the mix of GRCs and single-member constituencies (SMC)—though now that the PAP has lost two of the former, each wiping out a full slate of candidates, perhaps a return to full-SMC could be in the cards. These elections are not earth-shattering in their ramifications for Singapore governance or policy directions. Yet they are meaningful nonetheless, in the short term and in signaling possible longer-term trends.  

In last Friday’s election, Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), as usual, won a large share of the seats in parliament. With roughly 61 percent of the total vote, the PAP took eighty-three out of ninety-three seats in parliament, 89 percent of the total contested seats, the result of an electoral system that is built to create large majorities for the PAP. Still, the various opposition parties made major strides. They came just short of holding the PAP to its lowest share of the popular vote ever—the PAP took about 60 percent in the 2011 general election—but they came close to that 2011 figure. The opposition also won two group representation constituencies for the first time, and seriously challenged the PAP in others, coming much closer than before in several constituencies. The opposition now has a firmer ground in parliament to scrutinize PAP policies, and propose real alternatives. And the poor showing in the election by the presumptive next prime minister, Heng Swee Keat, who led a slate that barely won its group representation constituency, raises doubts about whether Singaporeans are ready to embrace the leadership of the next generation of PAP politicians, in the same way they embrace Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong, and Lee Hsien Loong. As a result, Prime Minister Lee might wind up staying in the job longer than previously assumed, and delaying any handover to the next generation of PAP leaders. And the decision to call a snap election, during the pandemic, clearly angered some Singaporeans. The election in Singapore might well lead Malaysia’s ruling coalition, which has a bare majority in parliament and appears to be deciding whether to call a snap election, to reconsider. Reflecting on the results of the general election, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong admitted that the PAP faced a tough battle. "This was not a feel-good election," Prime Minister Lee told reporters. He also said: "The results show a clear desire for a diversity of voices in parliament." The overall trend in Singaporean politics, then, seems to suggest that, while the PAP remains powerful, it is no longer as dominant as in the past. Opposition parties are putting together deeper benches of politicians—the PAP historically has attracted the city-state’s best political talent and derided the opposition for its lack of quality recruits—and have made excellent use of social media and other tools to appeal to younger Singaporeans. In addition, the PAP’s inability to confront some of the biggest issues in Singapore society made it vulnerable in this election, and could allow the opposition to make further gains going forward. Besides the PAP’s struggle to control COVID-19, which (might) be a shorter-term issue, the persistently high cost of living, the hard-hit Singaporean white-collar workforce, the challenges with Singapore’s existing housing model, and other deeply entrenched socioeconomic problems will continue to challenge the PAP government. In the longer-term, the stage may be set for more contested politics.

By the normally staid, unchanging standards of Singapore politics, Friday’s election appears to be delivering significant changes. Though official results are not yet out as I write this, initial counts suggest that opposition parties are going to make real gains, and the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is going to have one of its worst showings since it first came to office in 1959. The opposition apparently has won two group representation constituencies—constituencies where a slate of candidates all run for office together—and even in areas where the PAP seems likely to win, its margin has been cut significantly from the previous general election. (The opposition has not won two group representation constituencies in any prior election, so this could be a landmark.) In addition, even in many areas the PAP won, its margin of victory was shaved significantly over previous elections. Overall, initial counts suggest, the opposition apparently has gained at least 5 percent more of the popular vote than in the last election, and perhaps an even greater swing has occurred. Even in the group representation constituency where the PAP’s slate was led by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, the presumed successor as prime minister to Lee Hsieng Loong, the PAP only won with 54 percent of the vote. It is possible that the weak result in the constituency led by Heng Swee Keat might even lead the PAP to rethink whether he should be the presumptive next prime minister. To be sure, the PAP is not in danger of losing its fearsome majority. It seems likely to take eighty-three out of ninety-three seats in parliament, and the structure of Singapore’s electoral system, with group representation constituencies that are also winner-take-all, makes it harder for the opposition to make massive gains in any election. But the PAP’s mandate will be weakened, with more opposition members in parliament and, probably, a far lower PAP share of the overall vote than in the last general election. The government’s inconsistent, stumbling handling of COVID-19—after an effective initial approach, it allowed the virus to spread widely in dorms for foreign workers, and wound up with one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in Southeast Asia—the deep economic downturn, and the growing mobilization of opposition parties online all appear to have helped the PAP’s opposition. The opposition also was able to recruit several dynamic and impressive candidates, which it often had lacked in the past, and they helped the opposition hold its own in debates with the PAP during the short campaign period. And the government’s decision to call a new election, even though it was not legally obligated to do so until next year, might have backfired, making some Singaporeans angry that they had to vote in the midst of the pandemic. In the wake of this election, the PAP will need to regroup. It did so successfully after it took a hit in the 2011 general election, and it is nothing if not durable.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong declared in a televised address last week that Singapore would hold its next general election on July 10. Lee and other members of the long-ruling People’s Action Party, or PAP, have expressed confidence in being able to hold an election safely and effectively, even though Singapore has had more than 43,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the most in Southeast Asia on a per capita basis. In his address, Lee noted the difficulty of determining how long it would take to wait out the pandemic, stating there was no guarantee that Singapore could hold a coronavirus-free election by April 2021, when the current government’s mandate officially expires. Lee may have also calculated that it would be more advantageous to call the election now, before the full weight of COVID-19’s economic impact has hit Singapore, and potentially damaged the ruling party’s image. The PAP has dominated Singapore’s politics since the city-state became an independent republic in 1965; it currently holds 83 of the 89 contested seats in Parliament. This month’s campaign, however, could be its most challenging one since at least the 2011 election, when the PAP’s share of the popular vote fell to 60 percent, its lowest mark ever. “I think this is going to be a very tough election,” Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told CNBC this week. Lee is probably correct that, at least technically, Singapore has the requisite public health expertise to pull off a vote during the pandemic. It is an extremely wealthy country, and its small geographic size will allow it to create safe polling places and establish mechanisms for those in quarantine to participate, much like South Korea did for its parliamentary elections in April. While mail-in voting will not be allowed, the government has announced there will be temperature checks and enforced social distancing at polling stations. It will assign each voter a recommended two-hour slot in which to vote, to prevent overcrowding. But will the pandemic also make it harder for the opposition, which always struggles in Singapore, to win a significant number of seats in Parliament or a sizable share of the popular vote? Some opposition figures believe that COVID-19 offers an opportunity to dent the PAP’s standing. After initially handling the pandemic effectively with an impressive public health campaign that included the rapid rollout of testing and contract tracing, as well as travel restrictions, Singapore experienced a massive outbreak in April in its overcrowded dormitories for foreign workers, many of whom come from South Asia. The country hosts more than 1.4 million foreign workers, roughly a quarter of the total population, yet many of them, especially the hundreds of thousands who work in low- or semi-skilled industries like construction, often exist on the margins of Singaporean society. Their dormitories can house up to 20 people per room, making social distancing essentially impossible. While the government is now working to reduce crowding in the dormitories, the outbreak exposed a serious blind spot in Singapore’s COVID-19 response, undermining the narrative that the PAP had handled the virus well. In addition, Singapore’s tech-savvy population is becoming more willing to push back against often heavy-handed government policies and criticize politicians and elected officials. Many Singaporeans are increasingly turning to social media for information, blunting the impact of mainstream news outlets, which tend to offer coverage that is highly favorable to the PAP. For example, one PAP candidate for a seat in Parliament, Ivan Lim, was forced to withdraw his bid for office after an outcry on social media over allegations of poor behavior during his time in military service, among other issues. “Ivan Lim’s pressured withdrawal shows the power of ordinary Singaporeans on social media,” Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate with the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute in Malaysia, commented on Twitter. “The days of unquestioned acquiescence to decisions are over,” she added, referring to decisions made by the government and the PAP. Opposition parties also recently recruited several prominent figures to join their ranks, which might help them galvanize support. Lee Hsien Yang, the prime minister’s estranged younger brother, has formally joined the Progress Singapore Party, founded last year by a former PAP presidential candidate, Tan Cheng Bock. However, Lee Hsien Yang will not run for a seat in Parliament. The Singapore Democratic Party, another opposition party, has gotten Paul Tambyah, a prominent infectious disease specialist and leading expert on the coronavirus, to run in one constituency. The younger Lee is a prominent critic of the PAP, taking it to task for its response to COVID-19, among other issues. His family lineage gives his attacks more weight than many other Singaporean politicians. “The PAP has lost its way,” Lee said last month in a video posted to the Progress Singapore Party’s Facebook page, arguing that his brother’s government was “distinctly different” from that of their father, Lee Kuan Yew, who ruled Singapore from independence until 1990 and is still widely beloved in the country. The Progress Singapore Party claims that it already has seen increases in public support and donations due to Lee Hsien Yang’s decision to formally join it. Meanwhile, the Workers’ Party, the only opposition grouping with elected MPs in Parliament, plans to campaign primarily on socioeconomic issues. Many Singaporeans have 99-year leases on government-constructed apartments, some of which are deteriorating in value, hurting their owners’ nest eggs. That, along with other issues like persistent inequality and the high cost of living, all point to a long-term need to make Singapore’s economic model more inclusive. All of this means the PAP might receive a lower share of the popular vote than it did in the last election in 2015, when it got nearly 70 percent. That would be a dent in the PAP’s image and perhaps a sign that younger Singaporeans will eventually push for greater political change. But ultimately, there is little likelihood that the PAP’s long winning streak will be broken this month. The party is stocked with political talent, and always oversees an effective campaign. Despite some public anger over how the government has handled COVID-19, the PAP has actively addressed the massive economic damage the pandemic will cause to Singapore’s open, trade-dependent economy, passing huge economic relief measures equal to some 20 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the numerous opposition parties have not united behind a single candidate in some constituencies, and could split the opposition vote as a result. That would make things even easier for the PAP. Singapore’s electoral system also imposes a high barrier to entry for opposition parties. Most parliamentarians are elected from multimember districts, known as group representation constituencies, in which voters choose one slate of candidates from a party to represent their district. This puts opposition parties, especially new ones, at a disadvantage, as they often have more trouble fielding a large slate of candidates. Moreover, the lines demarcating those districts are drawn by a government-controlled agency. Last year, the government also implemented a “fake news” law that, while potentially useful to limit disinformation and foreign influence efforts, could also have a chilling effect on public debate in the run-up to the vote. Because of COVID-19, the government has also imposed curbs on campaigning in what is already a very short election cycle, including banning rallies. This may be a prudent public health measure, but it will hurt opposition parties that depend on mass gatherings to bolster their name recognition—a problem the PAP certainly does not have. Given these limitations, even if the opposition makes a major dent in the PAP’s share of the popular vote, it will still struggle to win even one of the multimember constituencies that would give it a real voice in Parliament. And local polls still show high levels of satisfaction for the PAP government, despite public concerns about inequality and the high cost of living. Opposition parties may feel emboldened, but they remain a long way from toppling the PAP.

Last week, the Singaporean prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, of the long-dominant People’s Action Party (PAP), declared that the city-state would hold its general election on July 10. The prime minister, and other PAP leaders, expressed confidence that Singapore could hold an election effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though Singapore has the second highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia. He noted that it might be impossible to determine how long the country would need to wait out the pandemic and there was no guarantee that Singaporeans could hold a COVID-19 free election by April 2021, when the government’s mandate officially expires. Despite its reputation for staid politics and decades of effective PAP governance, this general election could prove the toughest for the ruling party since 2011’s election. Then, the PAP’s share of the popular vote fell to “only” 60 percent, its lowest mark since independence. On July 10, the ruling party could face a similar—though hardly catastrophic—result. For more on the prospects for the election, see my new World Politics Review article.

The recent rise in COVID-19 cases in Singapore shows that there are limits to what national responses to a global pandemic can achieve.