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Singapore’s Ruling Party Won Bigger Than Anyone Thought it Would

The ruling People's Action Party, which has never lost its parliamentary majority since Singapore won independence from the Malaysian federation in 1965, won 83 of 89 seats in the country's parliament.
Singapore Prime Minister and head of the People's Action Party (PAP) Lee Hsien Loong. (Tom White/EPA)

Friday's general elections in Singapore ended with some unexpected results, as the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) strongly improved on its popular vote total and number of parliamentary seats won following a disappointing showing in the last elections.

Singapore is not an easy scene for an opposition political party to break into. The PAP, which never lost its majority since Singapore won independence from the Malaysian federation in 1965, came away with 69 percent of the popular vote and 83 of 89 seats in the country's parliament. The PAP rebounded from its 2011 result, when economic and immigration-related issues contributed to a historic low of 60.14 percent of the popular vote and 81 of 87 seats. Opposition parties also won their first Group Representation Constituency in 2011, in which a group of candidates is elected together rather than on an individual basis.

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Observers described Friday's elections as Singapore's "most hotly-contested poll since independence," and with 2011's poor PAP showing on their minds, the eight opposition parties contested all parliamentary seats for the first time ever. The oldest and largest of the opposition parties, the Worker's Party of Singapore (WP), picked up the remaining six seats.

"I am satisfied with the performance of the Worker's Party," Low Thia Khiang, head of the WP, said. "I want to remind the PAP it is important to build trust between the people and the national institutions."

While concerns over cost of living, income inequality, and immigration policies remain, Singaporeans gave a clear mandate to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his party during a year when expectations for the opposition were higher.

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Election surveys and political polls are illegal in Singapore, where voting is mandatory, so predictions were mostly guesswork in the run-up to last week's vote. Though no one thought the PAP would lose its majority, most media coverage anticipated a tougher battle for the ruling party based on the 2011 results.

As election results became clear late Friday night, Lee said that international attention the elections received was good for the PAP, and excellent for Singapore.

"The results tonight will be noted by the outside world… by investors, by other powers, by our neighbors," Lee stated. "And I believe these results will greatly bolster confidence in Singapore and in Singapore's future."

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This year's general election was partly a referendum on the PAP's response to increasing worries from Singaporeans regarding their economic future and the well being of the nation.

Among the top concerns are immigration and the PAP's policy goal of increasing Singapore's population from its current 5.4 million to 6.9 million in order to maintain economic stability while dealing with an aging population. This population growth would largely come from foreign workers, though Singapore already officially counts a foreign workforce that is 1.4 million strong. Singaporeans also expressed frustration with the rising cost of living, slowing economic growth, the widening income gap, and management of the state's retirement fund.

Since the 2011 elections, the PAP has responded to its citizens concerns by shifting from an emphasis on importing foreign labor to innovation and easing cost-of-living burdens through reduced housing prices.

An August op-ed in Singapore's Straits Times reasoned that Singapore's voters "will remain convinced that the policy changes since 2011 — slowing down the influx of foreign talent; speeding up housing development and public transport infrastructure — are direct responses to the rise in support for the opposition."

"So, too, the move to introduce universal health insurance for life, and to expand early childhood subsidies beyond the low-income to the middle-income," the op-ed said.

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But this has also been an emotional year for Singapore, the fishing-village-turned-financial-powerhouse with a per capita GDP now third in the world, behind only Qatar and Luxembourg. Preparations for Singapore's year-long 50th "birthday party," known locally as "SG50," were years in the making, culminating in National Day celebrations on August 9.

Months earlier, on March 23, however, the nation's mood shifted to mourning, as Lee Kuan Yew, founding father and prime minister for 30 years, passed away. More than 20 percent of Singaporeans paid respects to Lee — also the father of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — at official sites around the country during the funeral week.

Though the Worker's Party of Singapore managed to pick up six seats in Friday's elections, opposition parties in Singapore face an uphill battle no matter the national mood. At the highest level, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee draws the boundaries for each constituency before general elections. This committee is convened by the prime minister and led by his secretary. The constituencies are sometimes not announced until late in an election cycle, complicating candidate efforts. The PAP also has a tendency to bring defamation charges against opposition candidates, the litigation of which can result in bankruptcy, and thus, disqualification from the ballot.

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This type of "soft repression" bankrupted WP leader Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam in 2001 and Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan in 2011.

Lee has spoken out against the very notion of opposition parties as a check to the PAP's dominance, saying that "for every one more 'checker' we have in the Parliament, there will be one fewer doer, thinker, and leader in government to serve the nation, to serve the people."

With evidence the PAP has attempted to address Singaporeans' major concerns, coupled with a year focused on national cohesion — through both celebration and mourning — perhaps the ruling PAP's convincing victory at the polls should not have been a surprise.

Related: Singapore Court Frees Amos Yee, Teen Blogger Who Insulted the Late Lee Kuan Yew

"Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other PAP leaders used the campaign period to effectively shift the political debate from the opposition's favored themes — fighting inequality and managing immigration — to some of the problems within the opposition ranks," Josh Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote. "PAP politicians drove home the message to voters that the Workers Party had mismanaged a town council it had run, that the opposition was fragmented and fighting amongst itself, and that the opposition had no experience managing a national economy, foreign policy, and other matters of state."

While there was speculation that the loss of Lee Kuan Yew might have eroded some of the PAP's "traditional support bases," the opposite seems to have occurred — a citizenry strongly willing to go another five years with the PAP in charge.

Follow Shannon Hayden on Twitter: @ShannonKHayden