Singapore General Political Discussion and News

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Hi Given our elections are now over I don't think bumping the previous election thread would be a good idea so I've decided to start my

, Singapore is often stereotyped in the western press as being a total dictatorship and while that image does have some merit it would be more accurate to consider ourselves a flawed democracy. Our elections are free and fair but the voting system itself is mostly SNTV meaning that almost no seats are competitive, it wasn't until this decade that every parliamentary seat being contested became a normal thing. The people's action party has won every election since independence and maintains 90% of parlimentary seats giving it almost total control of the goverment .The opposition faces threats from a very strict libel law and can often face bankruptcy from these things, nevertheless, they have grown in strength and now have a small parliamentary delegation with 12 members, 10 of which are from the center-left Worker Party and 2 of which are from the PAP-splinter Progressive Singapore Party.

The main political issues have been immigration and the implementation of a minimum wage, something we lack despite having one of the highest cost-of-livings in the world. Past oppostion gains have always been fueled by discontent at the PAPs immigration policy which was seen as favouring economic growth at the expense of quality of live of residents who face crowding and public transport breakdowns. Another development is the leadershing rewneal, our incumbent prime minister Lee Hsien Loong son of former prime minister and legendary leader Lee Kuan Yew had announced plans to retire around now before covid-19 hit.

His designed successor Heng Swee Keat was faced a few snags including flubbing his nomination speech which some suspect due to him having had a stroke in the past, and also generally not being a very charismatic figure. His results in the Tampinese GRC which he was moved to at the last minute in an attempt to prevent it slipping where very underwhelming by the standards of the PAP .This has caused other names to become prominent but none of them have been established.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/hihkbw/heng_swee_keats_plan_for_the_east_coast_plan/

The opposition is of course in disarray, the working party which has been the only oppostion party to be consistently in parliament has completed it's renewal going from a party mainly catering to disaffect Chinese dialect speakers regionally strong in Hougang to broader compliant party popular among many younger Singaporeans. Their new candidates include well-spoken economist Jamus Lim and Activist Rasseah Khan( who openly spoke of modelling her politics on Angela Davis, a risky move in place where hatred of communism is strong) with their leader being former army colnel and lawyer Pritam Singh. The PSP formed by former PAP MP Tan Cheng Bock who came incredibly close to winning the ceremonial presidency in 2011 had a disappointing result and despite narrowing the margins in several key races only won 2 seats automatically awarded to the closest opposition party.

The ideological SDP which had promise thanks to the return of it's veteran leader Chee Soon Juan yet again failed and is still in the wilderness being too bound to it's ideology and toxicity of its a leader to ever become an electoral force of strength. The rest of the opposition parties are one-note bands led by people with more ego than sense, that only get protests votes.

As covid-19 ends, it will be interesting if the PAP's competent handling of the crisis particularly compared to western countries will allow it to reap the same electoral divident among younger voters that had started to leave the party in 2020 their transition of Singapore to a first world country reaped among older voters.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The ideological SDP which had promise thanks to the return of it's veteran leader Chee Soon Juan yet again failed and is still in the wilderness being too bound to it's ideology and toxicity of its a leader to ever become an electoral force of strength. The rest of the opposition parties are one-note bands led by people with more ego than sense, that only get protests votes.

Interesting, how is Chee Soon Juan considered a “toxic” leader?

I'm too young to know about it personally, but he was very confrontational yelling in public about how the pap leaders had loaned billions to Suhatro. He also betrayed his mentor Chiam see Tong which splits the opposition, and has a lot of baggage. He also had a nasty habit of badmouthing Singapore to the international press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chee_Soon_Juan

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The PAP has seen its monopoly gradually erode in the past decade. As you mentioned, the Worker's Party is emerging as a credible opposition party. When do you think the PAP will face its first genuinely competitive election? How do you think the PAP will respond when it realizes as such? Also, when that happens, will the PAP stay united? The family feud around LKY's house has created bad press abroad, and damaged the PAP's reputation for competent government that it had built up for decades.

Within Asia, Singapore has gained an aura of being the "perfect country" similar to how Norway has become the "perfect country" within the western world. It will be fascinating to see real competition for the first time in living memory.

I think the Oxley House Saga has mostly faded from public memory and is pretty much a non-issue these days. I don't think I'll expect the PAP to face a competitive election before at least 2030, but who can tell with the rapid pace of change in today's politics.

The PAP's aura of competence was damaged due to their early mishandling of covid for example warning people not to wear masks and visit malls to stimulate the economy along with ignoring covid spread in foregin worker dorms but their success after those initial problems compared to continued failure in the west has helped restore some of that aura.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

It was surely pretty fair to describe Singapore as a de facto dictatorship for much of the Lee era?

Well Lee was always more a spokesperson for the collective PAP cabinet meaning power wasn't as concentrated in one person as you it would seem. However it was definitely more towards the dictatorship then democracy part of the axis.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Here's a series of articles discussing the various ministers in parliament and the problems they bring towards the succession.

I think one of the major difficulties in discussing politics is just how opaque the PAP's internal politics and the way the party is tied to the state makes it hard to separate out politics and goverment. The actual PAP party organization is organized on extremely centralized lenninst lines with membership being extremely limited.

The paper below is the only good description i have been able to find of the PAP's internal selection process which works more like a corporation where candidates prominent in fields such as busniess, medicine or law are approached for interested. They are then tested using an array of tests first designed by Shell before then either being accepted or rejected.

Ultimatley the end result is that the PAP has never run on being "normal singaporeans" but rather openly as far smarter and more intelligent than average singaporean who will be able to bring the country to prosperity.



https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2009/Tan.pdf
https://sudhirtv.com/2020/12/23/singapores-leadership-crisis-will-heng-swee-keat-be-our-next-pm/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

To what extent do you think the PAP's success was a product of Singapore's small size and other unique circumstances?

It's always easy to dominate the politics of a small city, Democrats have held numerous cities of similar size to Singapore for more than a century. Alberta was also held by conservatives for more than 40 years.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The island is currently going through a cold snap and I've been forced to wear a jacket indoors, temperatures have fallen to 22 C. In political news, the oppostion is experience a bit of a split. Fringe opposition parties attract fringe figures and one of them snuck into a more respectable party and is now posting a bunch of covid and anti-vaccine nonsense . A shame given how much promise the PSP showed as an opposition party.

Also a bad look for one the few immigrant naturalized political figures.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/psps-brad-bowyer-chided-by-party-mate-for-dangerous-opinions-on-covid-19-measures

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Wearing a jacket at 22C??? Wtf???

I remember when I was in Hong Kong, that 16C is a cold snap, and the rich would use it as an excuse to flaunt their fur coats.

Here, people will be in their shorts and sunglasses and lazing around the park.

We're just not very used to the cold. I imagine most people from less tropical weather would struggle during our sunny days.

Luckily, the idiocy expressed by Mr. Bowyer will gain zero traction in this part of the world. People in East Asia are much more aware of contagious diseases than in Western Europe or North America.

This thing is really stupid, though:

Last November, Singapore's fake news law was used for the first time with Mr Bowyer being asked to correct false statements he made about investments by GIC, Temasek and other government-linked companies.

He was issued a correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) for implying that the Government controls Temasek and GIC's commercial decisions.

The problem with such "correction directions" is that they will only work if the public trust the government more than the poster, otherwise it's the Streisand Effect.

I was actually involved in the hearings around the fake news law and did testify in a parlimentary hearings with regards to people distrusting the goverment. I've also heard plenty of idiocy around the virus and a pandemic. I don't think we're that much smarter than the est of the world just better managed.
 

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there any evident foreign policy differences between the parties in Singapore?

In recent years, no. SDP has generally advocated for a less mercenary foreign policy with more emphasis on human rights but they aren't very specific and Dr Chee their leader did loose defemation case when he accused the goverment of loaning money to Indonesia dictator Suharto

The main political issues have been immigration and the implementation of a minimum wage, something we lack despite having one of the highest cost-of-livings in the world. Past oppostion gains have always been fueled by discontent at the PAPs immigration policy which was seen as favouring economic growth at the expense of quality of live of residents who face crowding and public transport breakdowns.

Is the opposition to immigration about rich expats or poor migrant workers?

It's about both generally though poor migrant workers typically faceless opposition in the political sense mainly because singaporeans don't really want to work construction and other blue collar jobs they occupy but probably face more petty discrimination day-to-day.

Rich Expats are disliked by some because of perceived better treatment by companies and allegations of prefertial hiring by companies over locals.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

A new one-note oppostion party doomed to fade into irrelvance emerged over some petty dispute.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/former-reform-party-cec-members-and-others-set-new-opposition-party?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/tracetogether-data-use-police-restricted-very-serious-offences-says-shanmugam

Well this happend, the goverment has recovered a lot of popularity by having successfully managed to mostly reopen the economy while still keeping covid at bay. Part of this success has been through a widespread contact tracing system required to access pretty much any space outside of one's home. Adoption of a contact-tracing app able to track people whearbout  that they promised would only be used for covid-tracking purposes.

Suprisingly they seemed to have forgotten about a law giving the police access to it and have used it to find a murder.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Can you tell us the demographic makeup of each party? Who do different ethnicities, nationalities, and religious groups vote for? What’s the class composition of each party?

oh god that's pretty sensitive information, pretty much anything regarding demographics is pretty hidden.

PAP: broad majorities of every race and ethnicity, fairly broad support but particularly strong among middle-class voters. remembr they got 60-70% of the vote giving them strong majorities among most groups. Ironically they tend to be more popular among females than Males. Dominates among established groups including civil servants, busniess owners and essential center-right counstieunces.

WP: original primary based on Hokkien speaker who felt their dialect had been marginalized in comparison to mandarin. Strong local base in Hougang with their leader Low Thia Kiang having strong appele among them helping the party survive the loss of it's original Leader J.B Jetryanm. Have now transitioned to a broader party with strong support among younger voters and ethenic minorities under it's new leader Pritam Singh

SDP: Primarly supported by the disaffected among society, one of the only ideological party so does have an upper-middle class component of ideological leftists/liberals who are attracted to the opposition but dislike the more grass-root PAP-lite WP.

Rest of the oppostion: Random people who just disaffected from the PAP, tend to skew male and lower-middle income and voters tend to be mainly Chinese even if the politician are more ethenicly diverse.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Can you tell us the demographic makeup of each party? Who do different ethnicities, nationalities, and religious groups vote for? What’s the class composition of each party?

oh god that's pretty sensitive information, pretty much anything regarding demographics is pretty hidden.

PAP: broad majorities of every race and ethnicity, fairly broad support but particularly strong among middle-class voters. remembr they got 60-70% of the vote giving them strong majorities among most groups. Ironically they tend to be more popular among females than Males. Dominates among established groups including civil servants, busniess owners and essential center-right counstieunces.

WP: original primary based on Hokkien speaker who felt their dialect had been marginalized in comparison to mandarin. Strong local base in Hougang with their leader Low Thia Kiang having strong appele among them helping the party survive the loss of it's original Leader J.B Jetryanm. Have now transitioned to a broader party with strong support among younger voters and ethenic minorities under it's new leader Pritam Singh

SDP: Primarly supported by the disaffected among society, one of the only ideological party so does have an upper-middle class component of ideological leftists/liberals who are attracted to the opposition but dislike the more grass-root PAP-lite WP.

Rest of the oppostion: Random people who just disaffected from the PAP, tend to skew male and lower-middle income and voters tend to be mainly Chinese even if the politician are more ethenicly diverse.

What about different religious identities?

The worker party always takes a grass-root common man image, they hold their MP meetings in HDB void decks(imagine public housing common areas but 90% of people live in public housing). They run down-to-earth middle class candidates(with a few recent exceptions) and their slogand tend to be providing a check on the PAP rather actually replacing them on goverment. It's given them political success but it's not a very inspiring message for people ideological opposed to the status-quo.

Religion is similar to ethnicity in singapore with Muslims probably leaning a bit against the PAP. Chinese Christians are probably more strongly PAP than Taoists/Buddhists/unaffiliated chinese voters but the difference is probably minor.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So what exactly is the SDP offering instead? What kind of candidates and policies are they offering in place?

It offers more ideological policies in line with social democracy, including an expansive welfare state, single-payer healthcare system similar to the NHS and ending the reliance on foreign labour along with old school left-wing anti-immigration sentiment seeing it as a tool suppress wages by big busniess.


In another news, leaders are reacting to the events in us with shock.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-leaders-shocked-saddened-by-violence-after-pro-trump-mob-storms-us-capitol

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Isn’t the Workers Party to their Left in policy?

No, the workers party is very milequost in their policy outlook and not very dogmatic about pushing it. They mostly advertise as serving as a check on the PAP's elitest tendencies.

on another note regarding the local response to events in the US.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So a pro-trans protestst got arrested today in singapore after they protested that the ministry of education building after a school issued a transphobic requirement to a bunch of student students ordering them conform to their assigned sex. The police arrested it in 5 minutes
https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1353992463057182722

I remember my sibling coming home and excitedly telling me he knew what "gay meant" I asked him what it meant and said he'd learned at school it meant "pervert".

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Are LGBT rights (either support or opposition) and "social issues" in general used in campaigning?

Not really, both parties have their share of pro-lgbt rights and homophobic members but the political issue isn't really a big thing.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So with some time after the election, has the PAP enacted any populist policies to shore up support? Have the opposition done any flexing?

They handled covid well and given a bunch of tourist vouchers as well as relifef checks to lower income households. They've also delayed the increase in GST(sales tax) but they haven't done anything too extreme or populist. The oppostion just doesn't seem to have been able to do anything post-election despite it's offical status and prominence.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So with some time after the election, has the PAP enacted any populist policies to shore up support? Have the opposition done any flexing?

Ironicaly it seems like we have our first right wing populist party in parliment, there's a scheme where if there arent' enough oppostion MP's the least bad performing oppostion parties get NCMP(ie sh**tty mp seats with terrible pay and limited voting rights) into parliment to provide a token oppostion.(literal purpose it to say people don't need to vote for the oppostion if they want an oppostion to exist).

Well it seems like a populist party slid in using that role, one of their members Brad Bowyer(An american immigrant) went full Qanon vaccine conspiracy theories but the other member who hold a seat in parliament. One of the things they've raised is that Hawker centers are selling too much foregin food( ridiculous given how much of our own cusine is brought in from elsewhere and it's probably caused by changes in taste).

https://unscrambled.sg/2021/03/17/psps-dangerous-flirting-with-far-right-policies-and-politics/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So what will happen now that the PAP's planned leadership succession has been thrown into disarray?

Nobody knows, this is funnily enough the second time it happend. LHL's previous succseor was going to be George Yeo until he lost his seat in an upset victory in 2011 so the focus shifted to heng swee keat, who's election roll-out didn't go too great. He won election by suprisingly narrow margins in his tampinese seat and was a gaffe machine.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/hihkbw/heng_swee_keats_plan_for_the_east_coast_plan/

but here's a list of some of the speculated names.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/mmun15/singapores_next_prime_minister/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Are there any right-wing/conservative opposition parties in Singapore?

The PSP has a conspiratorial strain and the oppostion is generarly anti-immigration with some of the one-note parties being incredibly xenophobic but most of those parties trend towards populism rather than being conservative.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Finished Making this.
Political Compass of Singapore

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Long-time SDP leader, Perennial Candidate and Former Professor of Psychology Chee Soon Juan has started a cafe. A controversial politician known for his confrontational style of politics and being subject to numerous Libel Lawsuits, a pivot to the F&B busniess espeiclay in a time like this seems a rather weird move.

https://www.asiaone.com/lifestyle/inside-chee-soon-juans-new-cafe-orange-teal-cosy-reading-nook-affordable-western-food

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chee_Soon_Juan

I decided to pay a visit to his cafe out of a sense of curioisrtiy. It's location is rather weird located in Rochester Mall which is a new but obscure mall with little foot traffic filled with the kind of business like Tution Centers and Chiropcrationers that don't normally rely on foot traffics. It seems like his name was sufficient to attract a large crowd and the cafe was quite crowded with a que outside.

The Cafe does suffer from tettering problems with it failing to print our order and our coffe taking far too long to arrive. Dr Chee seemed rather busy and personaly attended to our table so I was able to get a photo. The Cafe also has a nice library of politica books including Nate Silvers famous book the signal allowing with the Dr's own books avaliable for purchase.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

First political drama that's not covid related in a while. Singapore's most left-wing MP Raeesah Khan, who had gotten in a bit of hot water earlier during the election for tweeting that "Everything you need to know about my politics is that i've read every Angela Davis Book" has resigned after lying in parliment regarding a rape case. She claims that she acompanied a sexual assult victim to the police station where the claim was not taken seriously and dismissed by the police even after the report was filled.

It turns out she had fabricated her acamponying the victim and search through the police databases couldn't find any reports that matched her descrption. She admits she based this on anonymous information she got online from a support group for sexual assult victims, claiming her lie was because she didn't feel comfortable telling people she was a sexual assult victim.

Well she has resigned on that matter, which is a seriously blow to the WP and it's perception of being a competence grass-roots issue focused party. No by-elections will be held as that only happens when a multi-member ward is entirley vacant.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/raeesah-khan-resigns-from-wp-and-from-position-as-sengkang-grc-mp
 

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So what has happened since December 2022

I've already posted a thread about the presidental election that has had no response. Tharman Singapore's who is most famous for his time as Finance minister has resigned to contest it, he was among the most prominent PAP ministers and reputed to be in consideration for the PM post. Busniess Man George Goh is also contesting but it remains unclear if he'll qualify. His policy views are unclear but he has emphasises his evangellical christian faith in his message so far.


The recent controversy was following a speach by Worker Party MP Jamus Lim criticsing the lack of an offical poverty line and the goverments provisons for low income singaporeans, the speaker of parliament Tan Chuan-Jin was recorded mouthing "F*ucking populist" which he subsequently apoligised for.