GE2020: No wipeout but another breakthrough for the Workers' Party

HELD in the midst of a "crisis of a generation", the 2020 general election saw a flight from the status quo, rather than a flight to safety. The change in voting preferences point to a generational change in how voters regard one-party dominance, particularly how it is attained and used by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP).

How the PAP government responds to voters' concerns expressed during the hustings will influence the pace of political change in Singapore. The election result was a good outcome for Singapore, noted Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in a Facebook post on July 19. He remarked that politics in Singapore have "changed permanently" following the recent election. The imperative is to "make this new balance work well for Singapore".

GE2020 may well be the breakthrough election for Singapore's leading opposition parties. The next few years offer strong growth prospects for the established Workers' Party (WP) and, to a lesser extent, the new Progress Singapore Party (PSP). Combined, the WP and PSP garnered 21 per cent of all valid votes cast, while the other eight Opposition parties polled slightly more than 17 per cent.