Text: Cindy Yeung

HONG KONG, 2 October 2015 - The People’s Action Party (PAP) secured a decisive win over the opposition parties in Singapore general election this September. Out of 89 seats, PAP won 83 seats which accounted 70% of the ballots cast. Thum Ping Tjin (P.J.), research associate at the Center for Global History and Coordinator of Project Southeast Asia at the University of Oxford, shared his views on the recent election and PAP’s dominance in Singapore politics at an one-hour presentation in Hong Kong Asia Society.

“We don’t have free and fair elections and to assume that the elections were reflections of popular will is to make a mistake that Singapore is a democracy.” P.J. made a bold statement at the start of the sharing.

The PAP has long been controlling the rules of the game. “There are a lot of structural factors that prevent real democracy from occurring. The election department is not an independent body and it is controlled by the Prime Minister and the cabinet.”

This allows PAP to create favourable conditions such as timing, nomination criteria and election constituencies, to maximize its success. Moreover, it is a common practice for PAP to arrest and sue opposition candidates by “detaining them without trails and bankrupting them”.

“There is one rule of law for PAP and one for the opposition.”

One of the examples was Lee Hsien Loong campaigning photos and posters appeared everywhere in the country despite the law stated only people running in the constituency can be displayed in the area. On the other hand, oppositions were stopped from putting promotional materials on trucks for campaigning. 

Furthermore, PAP is good at controlling information and the media to create “their narrative and promote fear”.

Before the election, PAP spinned on SG50, a propaganda campaign which celebrated Singapore’s independence from Malaysia. The nationalist narrative of SG50 also “shrined on Lee Kuan Yew’s death” and his contribution to the prosperity of Singapore that makes people “feel grateful about PAP”.

All these factors put PAP at an advantage position and it is not a surprise that the party beat down its major rival - Worker’s Party.

When asked about the prospect of Singapore’s political scene, P.J. predicted the catalyst for change. “The history has shown us that it’s unsustainable when eventually something bad happen and they cannot control. [It works] sort of the black swan effect, such as economic crisis [or] natural disaster. We’ve seen that happen in Asia and around the world. [By then] people will dessert the PAP and vote for the opposition.”

Video: Watch the complete program (1 hr., 3 min.)