Singapore General Elections, 2011 - Analysis
Singapore’s 16th Parliamentary Elections were held on 7th May 2011. The Constitution of Singapore states that the maximum term of Parliament is five years, after which it must be dissolved by the President and the General Elections must be held by the elections department within three months. The 2011 General Elections had been described as a ‘watershed election’ by many, and marks the most furious political fight in the history of Singapore, with 82 out of 87 seats being contested, and the presence of three-sided fights. Below, I would like to analyze two of the ‘hot’ areas, Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC), and Potong Pasir Single-Member Constituency (SMC).
Marine Parade GRC: Goh Chok Tong, Tin Pei Ling, and Nicole Seah
Marine Parade GRC is probably one of the hottest contested GRCs in this year’s General Elections. As most parties had realized the weight of the young voters, they had begun to introduce more young politicians to contest in the General Elections. In the case of Marine Parade GRC, both the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the National Solidarity Party (NSP) had sent in their youngest candidates; Tin Pei Ling, 27, and Nicole Seah, 24.
Without question, Nicole Seah is by far more suitable to become a Member of Parliament (MP) than Tin Pei Ling, both in reality and in public opinion.
Tin Pei Ling, PAP’s candidate, had been criticized as being immature and lackluster. She was especially unpopular among young voters, who made use of social media to criticize her experience, her image and her maturity. She had also faced ridicule in the public media, due to her statement of supporting all present PAP policies, leading the comments about her being indecisive and weak.
Tin Pei Ling had also faced an online backlash of her ‘acting cute’ with a Kate Spade bag, an image which had become both infamous and popular in a negative sense among Singaporean netizens. She had also been accused of exploiting her husband Ng How Yue’s position as the Principal Private Secretary of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to enter politics.
On the other hand, Nicole Seah is an extremely popular figure among all aged groups, surpassing Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew as the most popular politician in Singapore. She could connect with both younger students by her extensive use of social media such as Facebook, her home visits reached out to older lower-income residents, and empathized with them over their predicament, even moved to the point of crying in one of the videos, thus displaying that she cared for the welfare of the residents. Her well-organized speeches also managed to convince a large chunk of voters to switch to the NSP.
Of course, the determining factor in Marine Parade GRC is PAP’s heavyweight, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. SM Goh is the ace card that allowed PAP its victory despite incompetent candidates like Tin Pei Ling. As the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong’s long experience and excellent track record, as well as his good reputation, image and respect commanded in the Marine Parade residents is what convinced 56.7% of them to vote for the PAP.
Without doubt, if Marine Parade GRC had been a one-on-one between Tin Pei Ling and Nicole Seah, Nicole Seah would emerge as the victor with a large margin of votes. However, it is SM Goh that salvaged the PAP team and led to its ultimate win. Even so, Tin Pei Ling had caused a plummet in potential voters for the PAP, with it winning by a mere 13.3% as opposed to the previous contest.
In the end, what had the voters voted for is PAP, and not Tin Pei Ling. The majority of Marine Parade residents that had voted for the People’s Action Party did so because of the solutions and policies it proposed, its long-standing track record, its political ideology – not because of Goh Chok Tong, and certainly not because of Tin Pei Ling.
Potong Pasir SMC: Lina Chiam and Sitoh Yih Pin
This year, the People’s Action Party, fielding candidate Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin, had finally breached the opposition stronghold of Potong Pasir, after 27 years of its occupation by the opposition after its 17-year MP, Mr. Chiam See Tong, left to contest Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC and leaving his wife, Lina Chiam, to take his place as the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) candidate for Potong Pasir.
Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin, contesting Potong Pasir SMC for the third time in a row, won this time by a 0.72% margin of 114 votes. It is the closest fight in this year’s General Election.
In my opinion, Mrs. Lina Chiam obtained her 49.64% of votes largely because of her husband, Mr. Chiam See Tong, who had been the MP for Potong Pasir for 17 years, who commanded enormous respect and support from long-time residents of the area. However, this is also what led to her downfall at the hands of Mr. Sitoh.
Potong Pasir consist of mainly older HDB blocks occupied by older residents that had lived in the area for a long time, and of which most of them are supporters of Mr. Chiam See Tong, the ex-MP of the SMC. However, in the past five years, many new residences had sprung up in Potong Pasir, leading to an influx of new residents that are unfamiliar with, not to mention loyal to, the Chiams. Therefore, most of them would be convinced by the strong campaign ran by Mr. Sitoh, as Mrs. Chiam had been criticized as being uncharismatic and ‘all talk, no action’.
Also, the PAP had managed to capture the votes of a large percentage of Chiam supporters by promising estate upgrading, which Mr. Chiam had formerly failed to secure for the SMC. Potong Pasir is much less upgraded than neighboring constituencies, with much less new features, which led to many voters who were at heart loyal to Mr. Chiam voting for the PAP only because of the carrot offered by Mr. Sitoh – estate upgrading.
Therefore, Mrs. Lina Chiam’s main selling point is loyalty, which generated many votes for her from supporters of Mr. Chiam See Tong, which, in addition to the sympathy votes that went her way, almost tipped the scale in her favor. On the other hand, Mr. Sitoh is confident and decisive in his campaign and speeches, which led to many new residents and young residents voting for him, and this, in addition to the votes generated by the incentive of estate upgrading, had led to Mr. Sitoh Yih Pin’s close win – Capability over Loyalty.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that although the PAP is still the ruling party in Singapore, it’s support had started to diminish; for the first time, an opposition party had won a GRC, and the winning margins for most PAP candidates are down by a significant amount. This shows that more Singaporeans are starting to be discontented with the performance of the PAP. Therefore, in my opinion, Singapore may have a new ruling party in thirty or forty years, riding the dissatisfaction of the people into Parliament House. As for the readiness of an opposition party to govern Singapore, it is impossible to predict now – only time would tell.
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