Singapore's democratic growing pains
Singapore's ruling PAP scored a landslide win in the latest general election, which also cemented the role of the country's main opposition party.
Saturday, May 3, Singapore held its latest general election (GE), marking the culmination of nearly three weeks of campaigning and political rallies. A cornerstone of local democracy, the election drew the few million Singaporeans at home, and over 200,000 living overseas, cast their ballot to pick their representatives in Parliament for the next five years.
While the official campaign period only lasted about 19 days, the GE spirit was felt months before that. From CDC vouchers to $1 deals, to the controversial report from the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) which once again redrew constituencies in a manner most arbitrary.
With the dissolution of Parliament, and subsequent announcement that the election would officially be held on May 3, GE fever effectively swept the island-state, making it the center of the political universe. To the average outsider, largely isolated from the tribulations of Singapore politics, seeing Singaporeans become politically enthused may come as a surprise.
The stakes felt even higher this time around. GE2025 marked the first election since Lawrence Wong, of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), became prime minister. GE2020 had seen an unprecedented rise of the opposition in parliament, hinting at a gradual erosion of the PAP’s supermajority, bolstered by the party’s lowest vote share of their history, scoring just over 60% of the total vote.
The past five years were also marred by several scandals that undermined confidence in elected officials. From Raeesah Khan lying in parliament, to the Ridout Road saga, S. Iswaran’s corruption case, Tan Chuan Jin and Cheng Li Hui’s extramarital affair, Leon Perera and Nicole Seah’s affair, the NTUC Income-Allianz deal, and Pritam Singh’s false testifying case, both sides of the political chess board had faced challenges to their integrity and credibility, with the potential to cost them seats in GE2025.
Concurrently, Singaporeans’ frustration with the current social and economic contract was becoming more apparent. The skyrocketting prices of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats, slowly curving towards S$1 million, 9% Goods and Services Tax (GST) hike, and a precarious job market amid a growing foreigner population, are just some examples of bread and butter issues keeping Singaporeans up at night.
The erosion of democratic norms, namely free speech and political expression, also became cause for concern to many to home, with issues like the declining freedom of press, excessive use of POFMA, and Singapore’s position on Gaza and Palestine. Despite being a concern to a growing number of Singaporeans, those issues often go unaddressed by PAP elected officials, effectively shutting down any possibility to involve citizens in these complex political discussions.
Nomination Day also brought its share of surprises. The newly-fleshed out Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC — one of the most bizarre carvings from EBRC for GE2025, described to me as “unrecognizable” by a former Marine Parade GRC constituent — remained uncontested, resulting in a walkover for the incumbent PAP team. The last walkover dated back to GE2011, when former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew-led PAP team ran uncontested in Tanjong Pagar GRC.
Additionally, Singapore saw its first ever four-way contest in Tampines GRC, held by the PAP team led by Masagos Zulkifi, Minister in charge of Muslim Affairs, who had himself faced backlash for his position on wearing the tudung in healthcare services and Singapore’s inaction in the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In this context, it seems unsurprising that the opposition, mainly the Workers’ Party (WP), Singapore’s largest opposition party, received much attention from voters during the campaign. The inaugural WP rally, held at Anchorvale Crescent, attracted a crowd so significant that police forces had to set crowd control measures for everyone’s safety. The Youtube livestreams echoed similar numbers, with WP rallies attracting over 30,000 viewers online.
Other opposition parties also piqued the interest of voters, particularly Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), with figures such as party secretary-general Chee Soon Juan, Paul Tambyah, and political newcomer Ariffin Sha garnering much attention. The founder of online blog and social media platform Wake Up Singapore, Sha’s entry into politics was seen by many as an exciting opportunity for Singapore’s opposition.
Then again, scandals had to get in the way.
SDP’s Gigene Wong, contesting in Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC with Sha, made several racist comments about her colleague, calling him a racial slur and deliberately mispronouncing his name. The incident served as a reminder that racism remains normalized racism in the city-state despite the promotion of racial and religious harmony. It also actively undermined the opposition, failing to present SDP as a united front.
In other cases, media attention drew away from addressing political issues at the heart of the campaign, focusing perhaps too much on image and aesthetics. WP’s Alexis Dang and independent candidate Darryl Lo found brief popularity online, at times for their ideas and policy commitments, other times from thirsty netizens.
Mainstream media picked up on the latter, asking Dang about comments made on her appearance, and Lo if he was single — neither of which contributing to the political debate ahead of an election. These might have scored great for social media engagement, but ultimately raise questions about the political literacy of Singaporean media when it comes to assessing and platforming candidates.
On polling day, as CNA began broadcasting the first sample counts, hopes for a shift to the opposition in key constituencies quickly vanished. As the night progressed, and news that PAP had scored a higher vote share in those battleground constituencies, reality kicked in. Online spaces can’t accurately predict voting tendencies. Signs were undeniably there to assume a bigger win for Singapore’s opposition parties, but that ultimately didn’t translate to actual votes.
The final result: maintenance of the 2020 status quo, with stronger wins for WP in Sengkang GRC and Hougang SMC.
The broader geopolitical context shouldn’t be neglected when looking at the results; global uncertainty following US President Donald Trump’s tariffs might have played a role in favouring the incumbent, much like in Canada and Australia, which both held elections the same as week as Singapore, which also favoured the respective incumbents.
Admittedly, PAP’s repeated calls for a “strong mandate” throughout the campaign also factors into this equation, warning citizens that stability and prosperity would be jeopardized should the ruling party lose too many seats in Parliament.
Disappointment was stronger for constituencies such as Jalan Kayu SMC, which saw the reelection — albeit by a narrow margin — of Ng Chee Meng, whose position as secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) almost led to the selling out of the national insurance company NTUC Income Insurance to Allianz, a deal that was eventually blocked by the Singapore government. His opponent, WP’s Andre Low, had instead been discredited online for repeatedly using ‘fucking’ in private Telegram messages, for which he publicly apologized.
In Sembawang West SMC, SDP’s Chee Soon Juan, long-term advocate for greater political freedom and democracy in Singapore, also faced a disappointing loss in the eyes of those who hailed his commitment to bettering life for the average Singaporean. He scored over 46% of votes in the constituency, losing to PAP’s Poh Li San, and failed to secure a Non-Constituent Member of Parliament (NCMP) seat, which many of his supporters had hoped for as a last resort option.
Tampines GRC’s four-way contest resulted in decimating losses for NSP and PPP, scoring 0.18% and just over 1% of votes respectively, against a PAP win with 52% of the votes. WP’s team scored just over 47%.
Punggol GRC, which many had hoped would fall to the WP, expanding the party’s hold in Singapore’s northeast region, also saw a narrow PAP victory, with just over 55% of the vote there. The WP team had boasted four promising candidates, led by lawyer Harpreet Singh, Alexis Dang, Jackson Au, and Siti Alia Mattar, whose speech supporting Palestinians was wrongly framed online to imply the issue was more important than domestic bread and butter concerns.
One can turn to recent history to notice the patterns. After WP scored significant electoral gains in GE2011, winning over Aljunied GRC, many had hoped they would further expand their mandate in GE2015. Instead, PAP consolidated its hold, with no additional gains for the opposition at the time. Many had argued, however, that the passing of Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew a few months prior to the election had swayed voters in favour of PAP.
Amid these results, and with the same number of seats won by both PAP and WP in this election as GE2020, in addition to two NCMP seats likely attributed to WP in the coming weeks, it’s easy to feel as though Singapore democracy has reached a standstill.
Truth is, there are signs of hope for a livelier political race in the near future.
This election’s two independent candidates, Darryl Lo and Jeremy Tan, each secured significant electoral results despite losing in their respective SMCs, earning over 23% and 36% of the votes respectively. In Radin Mas SMC, Lo earned over three times more votes than PAR’s Kumar Appavoo. Meanwhile, Tan scored the highest vote share for an independent candidate since Ng Teng Kian garnered over 41% of votes in Punggol in the 1972 general election.
In practice, his means that Singaporeans are open to new ideas, and are in fact not bound by parties, but will want to assess individual candidates on their merits and manifestos.
Singapore’s first four-way contest in Tampines GRC is also a significant development, showing that more opposition parties and voices are willing to step up to contest key constituencies, despite the rather low vote shares of NSP and PPP.
Additionally, WP’s consolidate vote shares in the three constituencies it had held since 2020, namely Aljunied GRC, Sengkang GRC, and Hougang SMC, is indicative that the opposition is here to stay. Singapore’s PAP often draws comparisons to Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), a dominant party consistently securing electoral dominance in an overall democratic system — WP’s Jamus Lim himself echoed this point in his vision of what the WP can achieve in parliament.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it’s equally important for WP and Singapore as a whole that the opposition cements its foundations before winning over new constituencies.
Political newcomers such as Lo, Tan, and Sha all garnered a sizeable support base online, with many expressing hope they would make a comeback in 2030. Welcoming and encouraging new faces is yet another sign that Singaporeans are embracing a more pluralistic democracy, with hopes for newer voices to coexist in parliament alongside seasoned political advocates such as Chee.
Singapore’s democracy is still in its infancy — after all, the little Red Dot is only turning 60 this year. The immediate post-independence era was characterized by PAP’s iron-fisted governance which saw immense restrictions on political freedoms and opposition. In this sense, it’s quite remarkable to notice such advances in such a short period of time. Whether PAP admits it or not, it’s time they make peace with the opposition being a steadfast force in parliament.