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Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 01:11 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert
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The Book of Changes (Part I)
Being in the process of training myself to keep to more regular hours, I chanced upon an announcement in the papers of the launch of Voting In Change - Politics of Singapore's 2011 General Election, clearly written in double-quick time. I thought, why not?
Yah, I know this subject is a tl;dr magnet, so I'll keep it short.
Fair Warning: While the editors profess to be neutral (and most of them are academics), I personally think that the book and panel discussion lean towards the Opposition; PAP representatives were supposedly invited to participate, but none took up the offer.
Points that happen to correspond with those that I brought up a couple of weeks ago are bolded for the heck of it. Chapter Five, on the concerns of various political groupings, is worth extra attention.
Chapter One - Political Shift: Singapore's 2011 General Election
- Significant immediate effects - big cabinet reshuffle, high-profile retirements, ministerial wage review, though full scale hard to tell
- By-election strategy abandoned, almost all seats contested
- GRC loss is a significant blow - future dilemma of whether or not to risk more big names in an attempt to retake Aljunied
- Voters respond to the performance of individual candidates, unpopular ministers can drag an entire team down
- Full passing of the baton, a new zeltgeist
- Workers' Party won on discipline and centrist approach, SDP's former confrontational politics still a liability
- Rise of new media
Chapter Two - Election Issues
- Young people as a focus, with post-material aspirations
- PAP cast itself as a proven brand, but was put on the defensive
- Key issues: immigration, housing, the income gap, leadership renewal, type of political system (one or two-party)
- PAP view: Two-party not viable due to lack of talent [N.B. This is backed up by Ministers holding multiple portfolios]
- WP view: Their role as co-driver slapping the driver (cheeky...)
- Concerns that economic growth, while achieved, is not equitably distributed
- Shift in HDB from being a home to an investment
- Immigration as a sleeper issue, since no party wanted to be branded as xenophobic
Chapter Three - Legal and Constitutional Issues
- PAP: First-past-the-post and not proportional representation system, because that tends to produce weak coalition governments, unsuitable for a multi-racial and multi-religious society
- PAP: NCMPs and NMPs (written into the Constitution last year) to allow other voices
- PAP: GRCs to ensure minority representation, smaller ones are more appropriate today (later, it is noted that minority representation still does not correspond to the actual national proportions - e.g. 17.2% of seats went to minorities this time, less than the 25% they make up in the general population)
- PAP: More SMCs, at least eight at all times, 12 in future (though there were 42 in 1988, down to 21 in 1991, then 9 only)
- Note on submission deadlines (after a team submitted just 35 seconds late - but personally I think it's their own fault, and anyway they had not prepared their election deposit in time)
- Electoral Boundaries Review Committee not independent, past statements indicate that PMs have a large amount of influence on it
- Clarifications desired on by-elections
- Overall, minor constitutional changes this time
Chapter Four - Parties and Personalities: Staying Together (or Not) under Fire
- WP won on discipline and coordination (repeat point)
- RP inadvertently destabilized opposition scene, causing SPP to pull out of the SDA
- SPP is basically Mr. Chiam's vehicle
- NSP has a Chinese image, candidates more comfortable conversing in Mandarin, represent the working class and small businessmen (overlapping WP?), though now with a Malay Bureau
- Mr. Giam and Mr. Wijeysingha gave good accounts of themselves in televised Mediacorp forums
- PAP candidates relatively forgettable, with their YouTube introductions gathering only a handful of views; exception was Ms. Tin, whose various unfortunate gaffes generated huge interest, with one spoof video getting over 250000 views in one and a half months, in stark contrast with Nicole Seah
- Personal attack on SDP candidate's competence by the SM (which was harped upon in the discussion)
- Gay agenda fiasco in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC fight (Note that a straw poll of 100 people by The New Paper indicated that 76% didn't care if their MP was gay, so it may not have mattered that much)
- SDP did not have a consistent response (unlike WP) to queries on whether its philosophy had changed, which did not encourage trust
- NSP candidate scandal low-profile due to a similar one in the PAP camp
- Lack of transparency disliked by electorate, but also made it hard for the Opposition to present specific alternative plans
- PAP did manage to make a point about possibly lower property prices in Opposition constituencies [N.B. though any difference may not be significant, and anyway, whose fault would it be?]
- PAP tactics too often verge on being alarmist and patronising
- Some amusing friendly-fire incidents, for example the SM redirecting pressure from the Foreign Minister to the Home Affairs and Transport Ministers
- Difference in motivations seen in volunteers/rally attendance - both generally in plentiful supply for Opposition parties, while not so much for the PAP; elderly citizens were reportedly lured with free food and bussed to venues [N.B. This is indeed slightly sad. I recall a recent event at my local Community Centre where the MC was doggedly trying to rouse the mostly-senior citizen audience into waving and cheering for the Guest of Honour... please lah]
Chapter Five - Does Difference Matter? Particular and National Political Identities in Singapore's 2011 General Election
The groups being examined are:
- Youth, First-Time Voters (YFTV), 21-26 years old
- Elderly (70 years or above)
- Malays
- New Citizens (since 2006)
- Homosexuals (a.k.a gays)
- Evangelicals (refers to worshippers from churches in the National Council of Churches, estimated to be about 9.8% of the population) [N.B. I believe Protestant might be a more accurate label, since Catholics can certainly evangelize, while hardly all Protestants do so in practice]
Note: Probably due to the extreme time pressure in preparing the book for publication, only 25 individuals from each group (20 for new citizens) were surveyed, and furthermore the individuals were obtained by snowball sampling. This is a relatively small sample size, so redoing the study with more people might be instructive.
Some observations:
- Opposition supporters were more hesitant to profess their support (which does not mesh with my personal experience)
- Young voters more liberal and open to the opposition (as expected)
- Elderly voters favour the PAP (also expected, though it was noted that the differences were significant but not overwhelming)
- Malays were the ethnic group least likely to vote for the PAP, but also not strongly attracted by the Opposition - potential large swing bloc; some perception that Malay representatives ended up being token candidates
- New citizens strongly supported the PAP overall (again expected), indeed more than any other group, but this advantage dilutes the longer they stay
- Gays were the group least likely to support the PAP, some felt the government was openly anti-gay
- Evangelicals see PAP as known and safe choice. Also least likely to engage outside own community, concerned about non-Christian immigration
- The elderly were most satisfied with government policies, while gays and Malays were least satisfied
Next: The Book of Changes (Part II)
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