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Singapore Polls Open in Election Seen as Referendum on Ruling Party Singapore Voters Give Ruling Party a Resounding Victory
(about 4 hours later)
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Millions of Singaporeans flocked to the polls on Friday for the country’s first general election in four years, in a vote that analysts say is a referendum on the performance of the governing People’s Action Party. JAKARTA — Voters in Singapore delivered a resounding mandate on Friday to the governing party, which had been working to overcome its worst showing ever in an election four years ago.
In 2011, the party, which has governed continuously since 1965, won 60 percent of the popular vote, its worst showing ever. And though it still won 81 of 87 contested seats in Parliament, its vote tally was seen as a rebuke from voters angry about a number of issues, including the high cost of living, inefficient public transportation and an immense influx of highly skilled foreign workers perceived to be taking jobs from Singaporeans. The governing People’s Action Party of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s modern founder who died in March, won 83 of 89 contested seats in Parliament and captured nearly 70 percent of the vote. It was the best performance since 1991 for the party, which has governed continuously since the island state became independent in 1965. In 2011, the party won about 60 percent of the popular vote.
The party put into place a series of policies aimed at mollifying voters. While analysts said it was expected to win again, a recapture of the lost seats — or the loss of even more — will show whether voters want it to maintain its dominance in politics or give opposition parties more of a voice. “It was a good result for the P.A.P., but an excellent result for Singapore,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, a son of the founder, said after results were officially announced early Saturday. “The results are also an endorsement of the policies and the performance of the P.A.P. government.”
The election has generated huge excitement among the public. The vote is the first since the death of modern Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, in March, and the first in which all the seats in Parliament, currently numbering 89, are being contested. The country’s main political opposition, the Workers’ Party, retained five seats in the Northeastern district of Aljunied and picked up another, but it also lost one seat, leaving it with six members in Parliament, the same number it had won in the 2011 election.
The election also comes during yearlong public celebrations honoring the island state’s 50th anniversary of independence in August. “I am satisfied with the performance of the worker’s party,” Low Thia Khiang, the de facto opposition leader in Parliament and head of the Workers’ Party, said early Saturday. “I want to remind the P.A.P. it is important to build trust between the people and the national institutions.”
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mr. Lee’s son, called on voters during the eight-day campaign that ended on Wednesday to give the governing party “your mandate.” He repeatedly cited the government’s track record, and often invoked the name of his father, whose leadership and force of will turned Singapore from an impoverished former British colonial outpost into a global financial center. Although in 2011 the governing party won 81 of 87 contested seats, the popular vote was viewed as a rebuke from voters who were angry about the cost of living, inefficient public transportation and an influx of skilled foreign workers, who were perceived to be taking jobs from Singaporeans.
However, Low Thia Khiang, the head of the opposition Workers’ Party, which won six seats in Parliament in 2011, implored voters to give the party more seats io act as a check on the government, saying state policies were often a reflection of the ruling party’s “whims and fancies” and not for the benefit of the population. The party enacted a series of measures, including subsidized health care and efforts to make home-buying easier, in the hope of mollifying voters. While analysts had predicted that the P.A.P. was highly likely to win again this time, its ability to recapture seats it had lost was considered the ultimate benchmark of whether voters wished for it to maintain its dominance in the country’s politics. The party regained one seat and picked up a newly contested one.
Eight opposition parties are contesting the elections, but analysts said only one or two stood a chance of winning a seat. Leaders of some opposition parties that did not win any seats in Parliament responded dismissively to the ruling party’s victory. “All this is, is a mandate for authoritarianism and brainwashing,” said Kenneth Jeyaretnam, secretary general of the Reform Party. “It shows what you do when you control everybody’s housing, you control their savings, you control their jobs because you’re the major employer, you control all the media and there’s no independent elections department.”
Andrew Low, founder of The Online Citizen, an independent news outlet, said the margin of the People’s Action Party’s inevitable win, both in seats and the popular vote, would be a measure of the public’s mood. The election had generated huge public excitement. It was the first election since the death of Lee Kuan Yew, who was 91. It was also the first in which all the seats in Parliament, currently 89, were contested. The election also came during yearlong public celebrations honoring the nation’s 50th anniversary of independence.
“I would like to see a more diverse Parliament,” he said. “If the P.A.P. wins more seats, the government will feel a sense of vindication that what they are doing is right.” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had called on voters during the eight-day campaign that ended on Wednesday to give the governing party “your mandate.” He repeatedly cited the government’s track record and often invoked his father, whose leadership turned Singapore from an impoverished former British colonial outpost into a global financial center.
Voting is compulsory, so turnout among the nearly 2.5 million voters is expected to be high, despite air quality listed in the “unhealthy” range on Friday because of forest fires in neighboring Indonesia that have blanketed Singapore in a thick haze. Mr. Low of the Workers’ Party, however, had implored voters to give his party more seats so that it could serve as a check on the government. He had argued that government policies were often a reflection of the governing party’s “whims and fancies” and not intended to benefit the entire population.
Singaporeans who cast their ballot shortly after polls opened at 8 a.m. local time reported waiting less than 20 minutes. Karim Raslan, a political commentator and columnist based in Southeast Asia, said the governing party’s election strategies had clearly proved successful. “There’s no getting away from the fact that they were running a ‘people first’ agenda, with an emphasis on government services, property prices, excluding foreign workers,” he said. “I think it’s been a very important lesson for the P.A.P. on who votes for you.”