Singapore, explained.
Singapore's Prime Minister and secretary-general of the ruling People's Action Party Lawrence Wong is back for another term (Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)
For starters, it is not a great time to be a small opposition party.
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What can we learn from the Singaporean election, where nobody lost?What can we learn from the Singaporean election, where nobody lost?
At last week’s general elections, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) once again retained its parliamentary supermajority. In fact, no election seats were gained or lost. One would be forgiven to say this was a predictable outcome for the city-state, especially for the party who has ruled since 1959, but this election was important in two regards.
First, Singaporean voters proved they are far more politically engaged and sophisticated than often assumed.
Take, for instance, the election in Tampines GRC (or Group Representation Constituencies, where teams rather than individuals contest, and the winning team takes all seats in that constituency). In Tampines was a rare four-way fight involving the incumbent PAP team (anchored by several high-profile ministers and senior ministers of state), the Workers’ Party, the National Solidarity Party (NSP), and the People’s Power Party (PPP).
Elsewhere, but especially in Singapore, multi-way contests disadvantage opposition parties by splitting the anti-incumbent vote. But voters showed remarkable clarity. The PAP received 52% of votes, while the Workers’ Party closely followed with 47.4%. The two other parties, the PPP and the NSP, performed extremely poorly and received only 0.4% and 0.2% respectively and lost their electoral deposits of $67,500 each. These constituted the two lowest electoral performances recorded since Singapore’s independence, despite the PPP’s leader Goh Meng Seng leading the former’s team and the NSP’s increased visibility and growing voter share in the three prior elections.
The Workers’ Party has cemented its position as a permanent part of Singapore’s politics for decades to come.
What Tampines demonstrates is that Singaporean voters clearly understand the political calculus of first-past-the-post voting and concentrated their votes between the incumbent PAP and the Workers’ Party as the main opposition. Such precision rebuts the old narrative that Singaporeans lack political sophistication or political engagement relative to other democracies. Quite the contrary, Singaporean voters have demonstrated both discernment and pragmatism.
In marginalising smaller opposition parties, however, party leaders now face a worrying reality. It would seem their strategies of flying in every five years to criticise the ruling PAP and its policies without providing concrete, doable alternatives or focusing on localised issues no longer work. (Singaporeans even have a term for such parties: “Mosquito Parties“.) Singaporeans are clearly not apathetic to the politics of the day and are incredibly savvy voters. It would do well for such parties to spend the next five years taking stock and reconsidering their voter value propositions if they wish to remain relevant, and more importantly, effective.
Though it is worth mentioning that amid poor opposition results across the island, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) managed a notable performance in Sembawang SMC (or Single Member Constituency), where its party leader Chee Soon Juan won a close 46.8% of votes. But Chee’s personal popularity and increasing prominence as a political veteran contrasts sharply with his party’s lower overall average of just 31.2% across other seats it contested.
Singapore opposition leader and Workers' Party Secretary-General Pritam Singh speaks at a 1 May rally ahead of the general election in Singapore (Suhaimi Abdullah/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Second, the Workers’ Party has cemented its position as a permanent part of Singapore’s politics for decades to come.
What began modestly in the 1980s with a single MP, JB Jeyaratnam, and later under Low Thia Khiang, has matured significantly. In the last three elections, the Workers’ Party has defeated senior PAP ministers to capture two GRCs, Aljunied and Seng Kang – a first in electoral history. And last weekend’s election strengthened its hold on both, turning them effectively into Workers’ Party strongholds to the chagrin of the PAP. The Workers’ Party has maintained its 10 elected MPs since 2020, the greatest number of opposition members since before the city-state’s independence.
Adjacent constituencies Jalan Kayu SMC (48.5%) and Tampines GRC (47.4%) received the highest WP vote shares among the losing candidates. In fact, the Workers’ Party also narrowly outperformed the PAP overall in constituencies where it ran, averaging 50.1% of votes compared to the PAP’s 49.9%. This result is extraordinary in first-past-the-post voting, though the Workers’ Party only won 10 of the possible 26 seats, resulting in criticisms of gerrymandering. As a result, the Workers’ Party is once again the only voice of opposition, gaining two Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) seats, who cannot vote on constitutional amendments, previously held by the People’s Solidarity Party (PSP), a smaller, but equally formidable opposition party.
The Workers’ Party success partly stemmed from its messaging, that a vote for the Workers’ Party would not risk unseating the PAP government because the Workers’ Party was strategically contesting in only one-third of parliamentary seats. The party also succeeded in attracting high-quality candidates – a diplomat and a number of lawyers and management consultants – whom the PAP might have otherwise recruited.
But perhaps the Workers’ Party’s biggest task at hand was to present itself as a party who listens to the everyday Singaporean. For that, Pritam Singh, the leader of the opposition and perhaps one of the most effective public orators in Singapore since the late Lee Kuan Yew, appears to have perfected the delicate balance of speaking up and listening up. Put together, the party’s key messages – and its fiery messenger-in-chief – undoubtedly resonated with voters who want more accountability and alternative voices without risking PAP incumbency.
It was clear at the start that the incumbent PAP’s political future would likely be secured with a supermajority for at least another five years. But it is now also clear that Singapore’s political future belongs to a sophisticated and savvy electorate that understands exactly how – and when – to make its voice heard. And as Singh knows, it pays to listen.
About the author
Kazimier Lim
Kazimier Lim (he/him) is a management consultant-turned-academic based along the Kangaroo Route: London, Singapore, and Sydney.
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