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  • Singapore in 2013The Times They are a-Changin’
  • Norman Vasu (bio)

Singapore


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Overall, 2013 was certainly annus mirabilis for Singapore owing largely to major socio-political domestic issues seizing newspaper headlines. Domestic events have been so jarring to the Singaporean soul that some have even taken to describing such events as characteristic of a nation undergoing a mid-life crisis.1 In comparison, issues related to foreign affairs were remarkably steady and tame. Moreover, discussions on economics — customarily at the forefront of Singaporeans’ minds — took a back seat to socio-political issues, with the economy doing better than expected as Gross Domestic Product grew by 3.7 per cent and median salaries increased by 3.9 per cent in real terms. With socio-political domestic issues consuming the attention of most, it is somewhat unsurprising that the year was bookended by a by-election loss for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) candidate on 27 January and Singapore’s first riot in forty years by a large group of foreign workers in Little India2 on 8 December.

Domestic Political Developments

Another By-Election Loss

In a year littered with noteworthy socio-political issues, perhaps the major socio-political event of 2013 in Singapore was PAP candidate Koh Poh Koon’s by-election loss to Workers’ Party (WP) candidate Lee Li Lian in the single-member constituency of Punggol East. The constituency had become vacant owing to the resignation of its MP and Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer after revelations of an extra-marital affair in late 2012. Through her victory in [End Page 277] a by-election that also saw the Reform Party and the Singapore Democratic Alliance field candidates, Lee became the first female opposition member to win a single-member constituency since Singapore achieved political independence in 1965. The WP win was the PAP’s second consecutive by-election loss in twelve months.

Many viewed the result as heralding the first signs of a cataclysmic change in the Singapore political scene. One political commentator even described the result of the Punggol by-election as “devastating” for the PAP and said that they should interpret the results as “more than a wake-up call” as their “efforts to win over the electorate are not working”.3 By and large, the result of the by-election was significant for three reasons. Firstly, the sizable (nearly 11 per cent) winning margin between the top two candidates in a four-corner fight may indicate how the WP is, from the electorate’s perspective, becoming an increasingly credible check to a PAP-dominated Parliament. Secondly, as the demographics of Punggol East voters are mainly post-independence young families with young children, this suggests the PAP may have future trouble garnering support from younger voters who are less enamoured of the PAP than the older generation. Finally, the by-election result cannot be viewed in isolation. When analysed alongside two other significant events — namely the 2011 General Election (GE) where the PAP lost for the first time a Group Representation Constituency and saw its total vote share fall from 64.6 per cent in the 2006 elections to 60.14 per cent as well as the loss of the by-election of the single member constituency of Hougang in 2012 — the Punggol East event points to the possibility that the overall voting ground island-wide may be shifting in favour of alternative political parties rather than the incumbent PAP. It is evident from these developments that a significant number of the electorate is unhappy with the PAP. Now, the PAP must rise to the challenge of unearthing the source/s of this unhappiness by the next GE, which has to be called by January 2017.

The Population White Paper

Undeniably, it did not take long for the government to discover one of the major sources of unhappiness. A White Paper on population and immigration policy drawn up as a population policy road map for “a sustainable population for a dynamic Singapore” was released on 29 January 2013 by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) of the Prime Minister’s Office...

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