Singapore – David Wee has lived in the same terrace house with his family in the east of Singapore his entire life.
But over more than 40 years, the Wee family have been a part of five different electoral constituencies.
Singaporean electoral boundary changes occurring shortly before every general election have led government critics to raise accusations of gerrymandering – deliberately manipulating constituency boundaries to favour a particular political party.
According to Singapore’s Elections Department, which is overseen by the Prime Minister’s Office, the latest boundary changes – the most extensive in years – were driven by voter growth and future housing developments.
Despite the criticism, Saturday’s election in Singapore – where some 2.76 million people are scheduled to vote – is set to return the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to power.
The PAP has won every election in this prosperous global financial centre since declaring independence in 1965.
While there is little danger of the PAP losing power, elections here are seen as a test of public sentiment towards the ruling party. This election is also seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over from former premier Lee Hsien Loong last year.
Voting is also compulsory in Singapore – where elections are held every five years, and though modelled after the United Kingdom’s Westminster parliamentary system, one of the quirks of Singapore is that voters are either part of a single-member voting constituency or a Group Representation Constituency (GRC).
People in a GRC, rather than vote for individual candidates, cast their ballots for teams of up to five politicians. Within each team, at least one candidate must be from a minority ethnic group.
Authorities say the team vote is to ensure minority representation in the city-state’s parliament, but critics say it is a means of parachuting new candidates into the legislature as part of a group.
The vote will see 97 members of parliament elected in 33 constituencies made up of 15 single-member constituencies and 18 GRCs. But with no opposition to contest one of the GRCs, the PAP has already scored a walkover for a five-member team, meaning just 92 seats will be contested today.
For David Wee, constituency boundaries are not really an issue.
“It’s something that can happen to anybody, especially if you live in a Single Member Constituency, which can be easily absorbed” into a GRC, he told Al Jazeera.
What is an issue though, he says, is the rising cost of living, inflation, and other concerns around life and work in one of the world’s richest nations.
“I will support whomever I think can serve the residents well,” he said, adding that Singapore’s voters are more discerning now and should not be taken for granted.
“Our voters have become more educated,” he said.
Singapore, after all, is “a developed country, not a developing country”, he added.
Singapore bling
Singapore is one of the world’s most expensive cities, with some of the highest living standards globally.
Alongside a world-class public transport system, it also has the most expensive cars in the world, thanks to a licensing system that sees owners shell out tens of thousands of dollars simply for the right to own a vehicle, alongside congestion pricing, road tax and other expenses.
“If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it,” said Lim Meng Wee, 57, a consultant in the local real estate capital field who has owned several cars over the years.
“A car is a very expensive luxury. It eats into your balance sheet and you will have to keep working harder. I know of people who bought a car, and within two to three years, they were back to public transport,” he said.
Singapore’s economic success, generally low crime and expectation of personal safety for citizens has come in tandem with a low tolerance for dissent.
That has been enforced by wide-ranging laws that allow for, among others, penalties for wounding racial and religious feelings, as well as detention without trial. Labour strikes are outlawed too, and a permit is required for demonstrations, which is strictly observed.
One prominent dissident who held up a cardboard sign with a smiley face outside the State Courts in 2020 to make a symbolic point about the administration of justice was fined for illegal assembly.
In February, six people in their 20s were questioned by police and had their electronic devices seized over a protest at a local university against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Critics and media outlets have been the subject of defamation lawsuits by government ministers, while many politicians and activists were imprisoned from the 1960s into the 1980s.
In addition, the mainstream media is solidly pro-establishment while the country is ranked 123rd in the world in terms of press freedom. All media outlets must tread carefully with a government accustomed to taking matters to court when unhappy with coverage.
Two ministers recently launched a defamation lawsuit against Bloomberg News – which is continuing – over an article about multimillion-dollar property transactions in the country.
Singapore at 60 – the social compact going strong
In August, this multicultural, multilingual island nation of about six million celebrates its 60th year of independence.
It turns 60 as an economic heavyweight, and one of the cleanest, safest, least corrupt places in the world. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 1965 was about $500. Last year, figures from the International Monetary Fund showed the figure was about $93,000.
All this has been accomplished under the PAP, which was co-founded by the country’s first premier Lee Kuan Yew, and which remains the only governing party Singaporeans have ever known.
Over those six decades, Singapore’s version of the social compact has seen its citizens accepting fewer freedoms in exchange for the PAP ensuring stable economic growth and the availability of good jobs. But that appears to be changing.
The PAP has held a parliamentary supermajority for decades, though the 10 opposition politicians elected at the last election in 2020 represented an all-time high in parliament and forced some soul-searching among the governing party’s leadership.
“All that we see here in Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew’s (generation) delivered,” political analyst and former newspaper editor PN Balji said.
“He was a great statesman,” he told Al Jazeera.
However, increasingly, Singaporean voters want a greater say in governance and eschew the “fist in velvet glove” approach to government, along with the authorities’ willingness to intervene in citizens’ lives, leading to the label of “nanny state”.
An example of the PAP’s gloved-fist approach was social housing, said Balji.
For years, the PAP openly told voters that their residential public housing properties would not be prioritised for upgrading if they voted for the opposition.
“All these policies were introduced at a time when the leadership’s mentality was, ‘we’ll just push it through’. You don’t vote PAP, you don’t get upgrading? Let them try this now,” Balji said.
Social media has emboldened Singaporeans to the point where the “fear factor” no longer exists, he said.
Bread-and-butter issues, along with the longstanding argument that more opposition voices are needed in Singapore, are also dominating in high-tech Singapore.
Cost-of-living concerns, exacerbated by a two-step rise in a goods and services tax (GST) – now at 9 percent – since 2023, have dominated the political debate.
In addition to previous handouts, authorities have already earmarked just under $1bn in handouts and rebates to help defray the cost of daily expenses, in the wake of a $4.9bn fiscal surplus for 2024.
But the larger-than-expected surplus led many to question the government’s need for the GST hike, with the main opposition Workers’ Party (WP) asserting that it had “turbocharged” inflation.
United States-imposed tariffs have also heightened economic unease.
Former WP lawmaker Leon Perera noted that with slowing economic growth in recent years, the claim of Singaporean exceptionalism is being cited less by the PAP.
“Three generations of Singaporeans grew up with an exceptional leadership that delivered outcomes of a higher standard than other developed countries,” Perera said.
“Now, increasingly, the narrative is that other developed countries are facing the same problems we have, be it inflation, sluggish real wage growth or high levels of inequality,” he said.
“The PAP is at an inflection point because it is the transition to the new prime minister that I think is a catalyst for voters,” he added.
Former PAP lawmaker Inderjit Singh, who served for almost two decades in parliament, said previously people “saw their lives improve tremendously”, and, therefore, “people were willing to allow the government to play a dominant role” in their lives.
But Singh acknowledged that the cracks have been showing, with a cross-section of Singaporeans who feel they are “sliding backwards” in terms of the cost of living and the affordability of public housing.
“The younger Singaporeans have had a good life, and they see the future as tougher than the present,” Singh said.
He also pointed to the “huge surge” of new immigrants at a rapid pace that has diluted national identity.
“The fact that Singapore has remained a cohesive and prosperous nation should be a matter of pride for all Singaporeans,” he noted.
Singapore’s ‘4G’ generation v the founding fathers
Neophyte Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who came to power last May, is part of the current fourth generation of leaders, dubbed the “4G” leadership, which still lives under the shadow of the late, great Lee Kuan Yew.
“One of the biggest issues for Singapore at 60 is leadership,” said Balji, who believes the current PAP leaders cannot be compared with Lee’s generation.
Judging by online chatter, many Singaporeans appear to agree.
A long-running public dispute between Lee’s children, including Wong’s predecessor as PM Lee Hsien Loong, also continues to divide Singaporeans and generate international headlines. A high-profile corruption case that saw a former transport minister jailed has not helped matters.
Another point of contention for many: Singapore has the highest-paid ministers in the world, thanks to the PAP’s insistence that competitive salaries were essential for guarding against corruption.
At almost $1.69m per annum, Wong himself is the best-paid world leader. A junior minister gets about $845,000 while a backbencher is paid about $148,000.
Wong, who is also finance minister but was not the PAP’s first choice to succeed Lee, made his name as co-chair of the government’s COVID task force.
While the 52-year-old has enjoyed high approval ratings and there is little danger of the PAP losing power in this election, he is expected to improve on or maintain the party’s vote share of more than 61 percent from the last election in 2020 – which was one of its worst performances ever.
The PAP is also facing a resurgent opposition with a slate of young, highly credentialled WP candidates, and the governing party has looked rattled and vulnerable during the campaign.
The former PAP lawmaker Singh said that while Singapore’s management of the COVID pandemic was exemplary compared with many other countries, the jury is still out on Wong and his peers.
“I think the 4G leaders have yet to show that they can handle these issues to the satisfaction of Singaporeans. Some of the trust in the PAP has eroded in the last 10 years or so,” he said.
“Just saying ‘believe me’ will not be enough – showing a convincing plan that people can believe will be key,” he said.
“If the PAP can do it, they should be able to win a good mandate. If not, we can expect further erosion of votes.”
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