Pre GE
The PAP turned the heat on itself in this election by making many missteps. Apart from its refusal to apologies for among the many issues the flood in Orchard Road, the escape of Mas Selemat, the influx of foreigners, housing woes, DPM Teo Chee Hean announcement another salary hike for civil servants and political office holders just before the elections.
The PAP was the first party to unveil its new candidates, perhaps familiarity bred contempt, but there was little about the new candidates that took people’s breath away. Some of the new candidates seemed to have little proper life experience despite their academic credentials (or may due to them) that Singaporeans could find nothing to be impressed with, Vikram Nair’s main discontent was in finishing close to the bottom of class in Secondary 2 because of computer games, Steve Tan’s biggest disappointment was in getting retained in JC1, Tin Pei Ling’s greatest regret was not bringing her living mother to the Integrated Resorts, Dr Janil Puthucheary found that he had no issue with the Internal Security Act that saw his father locked up in the 1960s… Poor PR training caused these new PAP candidates to be scoffed at before the campaign even began. Not all the new candidates came out of the unveiling session with eggs on their faces, some candidates such as Zainal Sapari and Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar performed well. Current education minister Heng Swee Keat was probably the most qualified of the group with his past experience in charge of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the new candidate to look like he could be made a minister soon. He was however to be overshadowed by 4 people, MG(NS) Chan “of-the-Lanfang-Republic” Chun Sing, Dr Janil “I-did-NS-I-saved-babies-lives” Puthucheary, Foo “allegations-I-will-not-respond-too” Mee Har and Tin “I-don’t-know-what-to-say” Pei Ling.
Chan came into the fray with much fanfare, he was the highest ranking Armed Forces officer ever to leave the uniformed service to enter politics but his public performance let him down. His first mistake was when he responded to a reporter about the oppositions bid to re-evaluate the duration of conscription, he responded in a tone that spoke down to the reporter and by extension the people in a manner reminiscent of the usual PAP style without even being an MP let alone a minister. It expectedly draw a rather bad reaction from the ground. His next mistake was in a speech he made to his PAP cadres about the obscure nations of Lanfang in Sumatra and tried to draw inferences between why it failed and how voting opposition was akin to the Lanfang Republic’s failure; firstly he deemed it proper to speak like an uneducated hooligan despite his educational background which (to many) showed a distinct lack of respect for the people around him, secondly he got his facts wrong. He then said that he would ‘mobilise’ the people of Buona Vista ward to support the campaign of their former MP Lim Swee Say in East Coast GRC, if his own GRC was not contested – old habits die hard. These presumably did not endear him to voters, especially netizens.
The litany of complaints against Tin, Foo and Puthucheary do not need to be rehearsed all over again. Suffice to say, they did not do the PAP any good in the public eye, they did not even win sympathy votes.
But the new candidates cannot be made to bear the brunt of the fault for the PAP. The senior members of the party too must share much of the responsibility. The party’s policy problems and practical failures aside, the senior members said conflicting things that only served to confuse their campaign. They were campaigning as if theyeach had an individual agenda to discredit the other. Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in a national forum that it was good for Singapore to have an opposition, Lee Hsien Loong replied in an NUS forum that Singapore could not have 2 A teams & a 2 party system; Goh Chok Tong then contradicted both when he said that there were so many ministers that each might only serve 2 terms in office, he was refuted by Wong Kan Seng who implied that it was only Goh’s wishful thinking. Lee then said that his father, then-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was irreplaceable and that there would not be another MM, to the public it was a not so oblique hint to the Senior Minister.
Then-party chairman Lim Boon Heng tried to outdo them all when he cried while introducing a batch of candidates insisting that the cabinet did not engage in groupthink. As if on cue, Vivian Balakrishnan and Lim Swee Say came out to agree with him that there was no group think in parliament. Irony?
Lim Hwee Hua attempted to top the rest when she decried the fact that Tin Pei Ling and Foo Mee Har was the target of online abuse because of their gender.
The PAP was fighting an uphill battle against an increasingly influential online media. It should come as no surprise that the online media is biased to the non-PAP parties since people turn online only because they cannot find a voice off it. And the PAP was not ready for it. Every misstep and mistake was woefully shown up, every argument dismantled and every act seen through eyes of cynicism. There was no rational way for it to engage the new media, rather there seemed to be ‘online trolls’ going around and engaging in slamming other parties. It was a truly a catch 21 proposition, the PAP needed the online media to be receptive to it online, the online media can only be receptive if the PAP is not online.
Long story short, the PAP candidates did themselves no favours with the electorate, unlike in the years past when they ran a tight ship with a singular propaganda person (S Rajaratnam) leading the way. The phrase too many cooks spoil the broth seems like an appropriate term to describe the PAP’s pre-campaign effort.
GE 2011
Nomination day began ominously enough with the official pull out of Steve Tan over possibly damaging allegations during his tenure in NTUC, and the eleventh hour appearance of Dr Chia Shi Lu as its candidate in Tanjong Pagar GRC. This gave Singaporeans more grounds to condemn the GRC system, when asked by the media why the PAP had not earlier fielded Dr Chia, and then MM Lee replied that the PAP had tested Dr Chia, he was a President’s scholar and the reason he was not fielded was because he did not have enough people experience.
Attacking other parties to destroy their credibility has been part of the PAP playbook right from the days of the Barisan Socialis, and it has always worked because the opposition candidates chosen either self-destructed in the face of criticism or were truly as the PAP had alleged them to be. This elections though was different; the PAP had aimed their guns at Chen Show Mao, but were frustrated in their attempts to attack him because he was not central to the WP campaign; unlike previous elections when there was one key candidate of GRC (Eunos GRC/Dr Lee Siow Choh 1991, Tang Liang Hong 1997, Chee Soon Juan 2001, James Gomez 2006) to train at, this time round there were too many spread all around and it did not make sense for any of the ministers to attack another person’s challenger and neglect their own.
Unlike past elections, it was not the PAP who set the agenda, but rather the WP’s clarion call of voting in a first world parliament, Singaporeans were voting to secure their future together by moving towards a first world parliament. Without a central target to attack the opposition with, the PAP ended up targeting the WP’s election slogan; it was target led by law minister K Shanmugam and deputy speaker Indranee Rajah, and later Goh Chok Tong. The concept of a first world parliament may have been debatable but the PAP’s mistake was in attacking the WP for not giving examples, forgetting that the PAP itself did this with the GRC system and the Elected Presidency.
The PAP had to defend Tin Pei Ling from attacks from all sides, with SM Goh asking the electorate to give her chance and let her learn on the job and improve. It is a wonder that the opposition did not take advantage of that comment and ask Singaporeans to give them a chance and let them hit the ground running.
The campaign was also remembered for the remarks by then MM Lee Kuan Yew that Singaporean youths were a footloose generation and that voters in Aljunied GRC would have “5 years to repent and regret” if they voted in the PAP. PAP Secretary General Lee Hsien Loong staved off an even larger electoral embarrassment by his eleventh hour apology for the past actions of the PAP and elder Lee’s comments. Mr Lee’s comments together with his points in his book Hard Truths Malay integration definitely caused the PAP to lose a substantial number of votes.
It should come as no surprise that the minister’s that did the best were the ones who said the least and had the least controversies upfront, Lim Hng Khiang, Tharman, Gan Kim Yong, Khaw Boon Wan and K Shanmugam. These were also the ministers whose wards were mostly in the west of Singapore. Former foreign minister George Yeo was arguably the most popular PAP minister of the cabinet and yet he lost to a strong WP team, perhaps it was not so much their popularity as the quality of opposition contesting their seats.
PM Lee Hsien Loong attempted to connect with the public via Facebook chat. It recieved high marks for effort, low marks for implementation. The Prime Minister was simply overloaded with comments such that the effort could have seemed insincere to many. The deluge should have been expected but somehow the forum used was not set up to cope with it. In fact, it would seem that many people “Liked” the PAP Facebook page mere to post comments and then un-”Like” the page again. PM Lee came out of the campaign with alot of credit, because his actions did help the PAP stave off further loses. What he could do in the future would be to set up a public Facebook page and find some time maybe in the evenings to have regular MPSs online. If sustained in a sincere and decorous manner, this can do more good for the PAP then any newspaper article could.
Post GE
MM Lee Kuan Yew and SM Goh Chok Tong shocked Singaporeans and the world when they announced their retirement from cabinet, to which some local commentators claimed that this showed that PM Lee Hsien Loong was clearly in charge. Rebuttals and analysis on this point has been made so many times by other commentators that little has to be rehashed. PM Lee Hsien Loong than surprised the Singaporean public by appointing fresh MPs Heng Swee Keat and Chan Chun Sing as Minister and Acting Minister respectively, and convened a committee to re-evaluate political salaries.
Dr Lim Wee Kiat (Canberra, Sembawang GRC), Irene Ng (Tampines-Changkat, Tampines GRC), Inderjit Singh (Kebun Bahru, Ang Mo Kio GRC) all made in quick succession comments that can be charitably described as PR-challenged and ended up getting flamed on the internet. Tin Pei Ling (Macpherson, Marine Parade GRC) can do no right in the public eye regardless what she does[1], Tin is now the classic case of “damned if you do damned if you don’t” she probably would do a better job not doing anything.
PAP ministers are now taking actions that they otherwise would not do, new transport supremo Lui Tuck Yew has been going around on public transport, national development czar Khaw Boon Wan has announced that the salary ceiling for applicants for a HDB flat would go up and is reviewing how to build BTO flats in mature estates; education minister Heng See Keat has made an open call to the public for feedback. Most of the calls from the ministers have either been received with caution or scepticism. Many Singaporeans seem to be waiting to see if the trust that the PAP had lost with them can be sustained.
Commentary
It is part of the incumbency effect that it is easier to retain a seat, but it is also easier to have the blame attributed to you. Simply put, the PAP can do nothing right in the eyes of the public. The current PAP seems to be going on its past reputation of bringing Singapore for a third world port city into a first world metropolis, forgetting that its earlier ministers are not its current ministers, and neither are its MPs the same. If it continues to risk its political mileage but keeping the status quo, it is only guaranteed to lose more seats in the next elections.
The mess of comments early on served to lead Singaporeans to a confluence of confusion. What exactly was the PAP’s message this election? The PAP would do well to go back to its early days and run its ship tightly. Take orders from one propaganda huncho and drop the mixed metaphors and conflated analogies, return to that one core message at every election.
A look at the complaints against the PAP would show that much revolves around the political salaries that it pays itself. PM Lee Hsien Loong seems to have either realised this or accepted the truth of it after the elections and has now taken steps to defuse the tension. The work of the committee will determine how much lost ground the PAP can recapture, or if it loses more. Indeed as Assoc Prof Cherian George of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communications (in Nanyang Technological University) says the opposition’s greatest fear should be that the PAP learns its lesson too well. Unlike Assoc Prof George, this writer would not agree so much that the opposition has much to fear going by the nuances of what the PAP MPs and ministers have said in this last month. It seems that many of the PAP MPs and ministers still believe firmly in the correctness of all their policies and trust that changing the delivery is all that is needed for them. A renewed humility must pervade the PAP if it wants to stem the outflow of votes from it. The electorate is not as uneducated and pliable as in previous years, in fact with new media the electorate is more vocal and will become increasingly so. Among the many Singaporeans not in parliament are so many successful people and specialist in so many fields that the PAP must accept that it does not have a monopoly of talent. If it continues to ram things down the throats of the people, the PAP will find an alternative elite, the beginnings of which have begun to show up, rising up and challenging it. This threat is very real, this election has shown that the upper middle class and above have no qualms giving their votes to the opposition if it is intelligent and credible (PAPs biggest loses in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC were in Bukit Timah district, in Aljunied GRC it was Serangoon district, Joo Chiat came close to swinging to the WP, a similar trend too in most parts of Singapore). Ironic as it sounds the ground that benefits the most is most comfortable kicking out the current government, while the group that loses the most doesn’t. It’s not very hard for the former group to end up joining the other parties.
Can the PAP ministers, MPs and grassroots humble themselves? Only time will tell.
The PAP in the years leading up to the election had shown itself too detached from the ground to know what was going on. When otherwise nonchalant youths challenged the PAP on growing disenchantment over national service the PAP ministers could only say that if it was happening that was a problem. When Singaporeans complained over the influx of foreigners taking away jobs Singaporeans want to do, the PAP ministers countered that without these foreigners Singapore’s buildings would not be built (jobs that Singaporeans never wanted in the first place). The best solution for the PAP ministers to win back the ground would be to do without their grassroots leaders and go down to the ground on their own to find out what really was going on.
The PAP has lost the ground, but it can win it back, if it changes. To win it back will require guts and character that will test the PAP in the years to come. The biggest enemy for the PAP is itself, can it change? Only time will tell.
Part One – The Worker’s Party
Part Two – Singapore Democratic Party
Part Three – Singapore People’s Party and National Solidarity Party
[1] Tin wrote a letter to the residents of her Macpherson ward introducing herself and where her Meet-the-People session would be, and ended up getting flamed on the internet – waste of taxpayers’ money to print coloured flyers, girlish font, bad design, could have just put up the letter at the area under the void deck. One would reckon that if she had put the letter at the void deck, she would be lambasted for insincerity in engaging the residents.
