Singapore eyes July or September to hold general elections

Heng Swee Keat speaking with  some of start-ups and venture capitalists on Friday (Facebook)

By Ivan Lim
Former AJA President, Contributor to AsiaN

SINGAPORE: General elections as early as in July, or latest in September. This is what Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) appears to have set its mind on as it sees the Covid pandemic outbreak in the Republic as stabilising, with restrictions on movement of people and running of shops and businesses being relaxed.

It is in no mood to let go a much-sought opportunity to get a new mandate from the people as early as possible. On June 8, another 383 Covid-19 cases brought the overall total to 37,910, but fatalities remain at 25 or 0.06 percent – one of the world’s lowest.

A hint of the polls timeline was given by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, who is also the PAP’s assistant secretary-general, during a May 27 press interview.

“The earlier (the better) we can rally everybody together to deal with these very significant challenges ahead,” he said.

The up-and- coming PAP leader also alluded to South Korea’s success in holding its National Assembly elections on April 15 amid the Covid-19 crisis that saw President Moon Jae-in winning a big victory, considered a reward for having brought the raging pandemic under control after a faltering start.

Indeed, the first shots of the yet-to-be-declared election season were fired on Sunday evening when PAP Secretary General Lee Hsien Loong kicked off a series of six ministerial broadcasts on the government’s plans to take the city-state of 5.8 million people into the brave new post-Covid-19 world.

“It will be a less prosperous world, and also a more troubled one,’ he said in a confidence-boosting speech.

“(But) Singapore will not falter in its onward march.”

The televised broadcasts in four official languages to reach out to the Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian or others communities will give the incumbent a head start over the opposition parties, which lack such a facility and could have to rely largely on social media to make their case.

The political rhetoric from the PAP is that a strong new mandate from the people would enable it to focus on the key task of re-building the economy battered by the pandemic and the United States-China trade tensions.

Forecasts put Singapore’s economy shrinking by 4-7 per cent this year and unemployment rising to 3.3 per cent. Registering minus growth, up to 12 per cent of the workforce faced retrenchment in the Republic’s worst recession since independence in 1965.

Strategically, the party is keen to capitalise on a generous annual budget and the supplementary relief and rescue packages totalling almost $100 billion or 20 Per cent of Singapore’s gross domestic product in helping businesses get back on their feet and employees returning to their jobs, as well as transforming the economy.

The government has had to draw $52 billion from the country’s past reserves.  Like the annual Unity Budget unveiled on Feb 18 by Mr Heng, also the Finance Minister, supplementary financial packages in the wake of the pandemicare dubbed Resilience, Unity and Fortitude -intended to inculcate moral courage in the face of the Covid-19 onslaught.

It did not escape political observers’ notice that the goodie bags were not stretched out over several months, instead offered at one go, to create a bigger impact even as the GE apparently timed for just after the earlier Budget announcement had to be push back owing to the virus.

Even then, the government continued with its election planning, enacting legislation in Parliament to allow for contingencies, such as enabling voters on stay-home orders to cast their ballots as well as enabling candidates who are sick to file nomination papers through their representatives.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Workers’ Party has called on the government to ensure a level playing field by announcing the grounds for elections during the Covid period. One of their concerns is that social distancing rules would prevent the opposition from drawing peak crowds to the traditional open-air rallies that, in the past, overshadowed those of the PAP.

“This put the opposition at an even greater disadvantage,” said the Singapore Democratic Party. The SDP also wanted know if campaigning were to be shifted online what would be the rules for video streaming as well for as radio and TV airtime.

The PAP is gearing to go into the hustings as it wants to test the mettle of its team of fourth generation (4G) leaders headed by Mr Heng who is at the forefront of the coming electioneering.

He had been anointed by the party Old Guard and his peers to don the mantle of party leader when PM Lee Hsien Loong steps down in a year or two. If he fares well during the coming GE, Mr Heng will be on course to be Singapore’s next Prime Minister.

Mr Heng, 59, a Singapore Police Force scholar who earned a masters in economics from Cambridge University in Britain, is the product of rigorous government grooming. His sterling performance in the administrative service and the Ministry of Education was capped by his stint (1997-2001) as principal private secretary to Lee Kuan Yew when the patriarch was Senior Minister.

Lee Kuan Yew’s rating of Mr Heng as “the best principal private secretary I ever had” was to stand him in good stead when the party began its search for a potential successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Mr Heng was fast-tracked up the ranks when, soon after his election as a PAP candidate in the May 7, 2011 general elections, he was appointed Minister of Education.

According to the party, the soft-spoken Mr Heng was endorsed by his 4G peers as their leader. The runner-up in the leadership race is the vocal Mr Chan Chun Sing, 51, Minister for Trade and Industry, who is the PAP second assistant secretary-general. A government scholar, he graduated with first class honours in economics from Cambridge University.

Mr Chan holds the rank of major-general and was chief of the army which he left in 2011 to enter politics.