Singapore Election Date Set
Today the president in Singapore dissolved parliament and announced the date for the next election, which is set to take place within less than three weeks, on May 6, 2006. The upcoming election will be an important test for the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, as it will be his first election since the son of the former prime minister and founding father Lee Kuan Yew was appointed to his office in August 2004.
It is expected that the ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), will be reelected as it has been since its first election victory in 1959. This year’s election comes amid favorable economic growth, which the ruling party hopes will help it to increase its election result from 75% in the 2001 election. The ruling party hopes an increase in the election result will give Lee Hsien Loong the necessary mandate.
At the present the ruling party holds 84 of the 82 elected seats in parliament and has made it its goal to recover the two seats occupied by a candidate of the Worker’s Party and a candidate of the Singapore Democratic Alliance.
Recently, the ruling PAP has upped the stakes when former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong announced that wards, which vote for the opposition, would not be eligible to upgrades of public housing. Almost 90% of the population lives in public housing. This was accompanied by cash handouts to individual citizens, officially termed Progress Package, which marks the first time the government has directly offered money to the people before an election. In the past benefits have only been given in form of indirect benefits.
This year also marks a shift in the tactics of the political opposition. In the past opposition parties have stressed their intention of always remaining part of the opposition. This has changed this year as the opposition is more united than ever before and is furthermore expected to contest more than half of the seats. The Worker’s Party, the strongest opposition party under the new leadership of the Sylvia Lim, made this point very clearly in its most recent manifesto: “As a political party, the long-term goal of the Workers’ Party (WP) is to be an alternative government.”
Nevertheless the extremely short election period, the difficulties of the opposition of communicating with its potential voters as well as raising campaign money, and recent announcements that the government will regulate the internet more rigorously during the election will make it an uphill battle for the opposition.
It is expected that the ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), will be reelected as it has been since its first election victory in 1959. This year’s election comes amid favorable economic growth, which the ruling party hopes will help it to increase its election result from 75% in the 2001 election. The ruling party hopes an increase in the election result will give Lee Hsien Loong the necessary mandate.
At the present the ruling party holds 84 of the 82 elected seats in parliament and has made it its goal to recover the two seats occupied by a candidate of the Worker’s Party and a candidate of the Singapore Democratic Alliance.
Recently, the ruling PAP has upped the stakes when former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong announced that wards, which vote for the opposition, would not be eligible to upgrades of public housing. Almost 90% of the population lives in public housing. This was accompanied by cash handouts to individual citizens, officially termed Progress Package, which marks the first time the government has directly offered money to the people before an election. In the past benefits have only been given in form of indirect benefits.
This year also marks a shift in the tactics of the political opposition. In the past opposition parties have stressed their intention of always remaining part of the opposition. This has changed this year as the opposition is more united than ever before and is furthermore expected to contest more than half of the seats. The Worker’s Party, the strongest opposition party under the new leadership of the Sylvia Lim, made this point very clearly in its most recent manifesto: “As a political party, the long-term goal of the Workers’ Party (WP) is to be an alternative government.”
Nevertheless the extremely short election period, the difficulties of the opposition of communicating with its potential voters as well as raising campaign money, and recent announcements that the government will regulate the internet more rigorously during the election will make it an uphill battle for the opposition.
posted by Ghormax at 2:11 PM
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