GE2025: One more day
Whew, one more day to go... I barely remember what non-GE life was like, but this has also gone by in a flash.
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Highlights
Snitches among friends
Andre Low, the Workers' Party candidate for Jalan Kayu SMC, has apologised for language he used in a private group chat after screenshots emerged online. He said that many of the messages had been sent during Covid, when he and his business school friends were cooped up at home and ranting to one another.
The Andre Low depicted in those screenshots (I can't find a link to them anymore because the posts I saw on Reddit and Facebook have been taken down) comes across as a sweary hothead, yes, but it's also worth noting that the screenshots look like someone had done a keyword search in the Telegram group chat for the words "fuck" and "fucking", then screenshot those messages. If someone did a search through your chat logs for all the times you swore, what might they find?
As hatchet jobs go, this one is both petty and weak. Apart from Low's penchant for dropping f-bombs, it doesn't reveal anything particularly controversial. In fact, there are some cases—like where he complains about the noise pollution of fighter jets over Sengkang, facepalms over the quality of local journalism or points out the stupidity of a coffee cup design—where people have read his comments and said, "Where's the lie?"
It's troubling and extremely below-the-belt for private group chats to be leaked like that. Who leaked it and why? As Walid Jumblatt Abdullah points out, "...these are the kinds of things that make younger people less likely to enter politics. Your comments from many years ago are scrutinised and dug up, and now, even worse, private chats are being 'leaked'."
Defining the PAP DNA
What's in the People Action Party's DNA? According to WP's Pritam Singh, it's the way they talk about "fixing the opposition", the way they have treated opposition-held constituencies unfairly.
Lawrence Wong, of course, disagrees. The PAP DNA, he says, is about forging "a national consensus" to "expand our common ground" and "bring Singaporeans together". What the PAP does, he says, is "listen to every voice".
At this point, I hurt myself rolling my eyes too hard.
My experience of engaging in activism under successive PAP governments has taught me that they don't forge consensus; they demand conformity and obedience. The party can't seem to engage on anything but their terms. They don't "listen to every voice"; instead, some voices are harassed, vilified, suppressed and punished. This is the party that detained volunteers and social workers without trial. This is the party that bankrupted J.B. Jeyaretnam. This is the party that, for many years, convinced Singaporeans that Chee Soon Juan was a psychopath. This is the party that passed laws criminalising even the mildest of solo protests, suppressed our right to freedom of expression and assembly, and undermined media freedom. People, including yours truly, have been summoned to police stations for all sorts of time-wasting investigations to do with actions ranging from posing for photos to walking as a group to deliver letters to the Prime Minister or government ministries. I could go on.
It is the PAP's DNA that has created the situation where voting for the opposition is consistently talked about as an act of courage. If we want to talk about "negative politics", there's no more experienced player in this country than the PAP. For them to pretend otherwise, for them to act as if the WP's swipes at Gan Kim Yong make him/them the victim, is so rich that the Health Promotion Board should intervene before we develop chronic diseases.
Backseat drivers?
Back in GE2011, WP told Singaporeans that they could be "co-drivers" to the PAP, making sure that the government stayed on track. Ong Ye Kung, who was part of the team that lost to WP in Aljunied GRC back then, decided to keep running with the analogy this year:
...if after this GE, the PAP loses another three, four GRCs, then I think likely the co-driver will have one hand on the steering wheel and say ‘I also want to drive’. If he’s bold enough, he says, ‘My one leg also go over. You step the accelerator, I step the brake. We drive together. It will then become very dangerous. We may be at risk of crashing.
Is it a uniquely Singaporean thing for politicians not to know how politics works? Even if the PAP loses Tampines GRC (five members), Punggol GRC (four members), East Coast GRC (five members), Tampines-Changkat SMC (one member) and Jalan Kayu SMC (one member) to the WP, that would still give WP only 26 seats in a Parliament with 97 elected seats. The PAP would still comfortably win enough seats to form a majority government, which would allow them to pass laws and amend the Constitution without trouble (as long as most of their members show up, that is—party whip better remember to check strength!) WP would simply not have enough numbers to grab the steering wheel.
Even if we one day get to a point where the opposition gains so many seats that the PAP doesn't secure a clear majority, it doesn't automatically become a disaster. It'd merely come down to the PAP's ability to play well with others and work across the aisle to secure the necessary support to pass laws. This is very common practice in many democracies—discussions, negotiations and compromises are par for the course in politics. Gridlock is not the inevitability the PAP claims it is.
Every time the PAP wrings their hands about how everything will go wrong if there were even a few more opposition legislators in Parliament, they're signalling that they can't, won't or don't know how to do cross-party work. They're basically confessing that they scorn genuine debate, that they hate being questioned, that they resent anything that doesn't let them get their way as quickly as possible. Does this sound like a good thing for Singapore?
Rally reflections: RDU in the field on Boon Lay Way
Last night I attended a rally where the secretary-general of the party crowed like a rooster during his speech, so I don't want to hear anything about how Singapore politics is dull and predictable, got it?
It was raining when we got to Chinese Garden MRT. A little distance away, a stage and lights had been set up—it all looked a little bit lonely sitting in the middle of a big field. The rally had to have a delayed start, not just because of the rain, but because there was a lightning risk warning. While Red Dot United might say they're ready to give the Lightning a run for its money on Polling Day, we definitely didn't want to actually be struck by lightning on the field, so the emcee directed us to take cover until they got the all-clear to proceed.
Red Dot United is a relatively young party; this is only their second general election. But with 15 candidates, they're one of the 'bigger' parties in the fight. I've wondered if they might have bitten off more than they can chew—would it not have been better to field fewer candidates and concentrate all their resources on maybe just one GRC?—but they've certainly been earnestly giving it their all over the past week.
The crowd grew a little over the course of the rally, as speakers shared lived experiences that'll likely resonate with working class Singaporeans, struggling PMETs and families fretting over making ends meet. There's no denying that these are people who have a vastly different perspective of Singapore from the well-heeled PAP MPs that have occupied parliamentary seats—a point of view that would be invaluable in debates about inequality and precarity in Singapore.
Special mention goes to Liyana Dhamirah, one of the hardest workers I've ever known and now a candidate for Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC. Her book, Homeless: The Untold Story of a Mother's Struggle in Crazy Rich Singapore, is worth reading to learn how people often have to struggle against the very system that claims to help them.
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