Weighing up what's success at the polls

Singapore

PARTIES would have to do as well as - or better than - their last outing in 2015 for their campaign in the coming general election (GE) to be judged as a success, political watchers say.

Another measure of success would be performance in key or hotly-contested constituencies, rather than overall vote share, they added.

For the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), GE2020 comes after it clinched 69.9 per cent of the overall vote in 2015, up from its record low of 60.1 per cent in 2011.

The unprecedented coronavirus crisis this year could create a voter "flight to safety" to the incumbent PAP, observers noted.

Calling the pandemic a "fear factor", Alan Chong, associate professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said it could have a similar effect as the death of elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew in 2015.

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"I think the PAP would look to reprising the percentage they obtained in 2015, if Covid-19 works in their favour," he told The Business Times.

Covid-19 makes this a "crisis election", a situation in which the PAP traditionally does "pretty well", agreed political analyst Felix Tan, associate lecturer at SIM Global Education. He cited earlier highs such as its 75.3 per cent win in 2001, after the September 11 terror attacks.

Gillian Koh, deputy director of research at the Institute of Policy Studies said a strong mandate for the PAP would be around 70 per cent, based on factors such as the government's massive S$93 billion Covid-19 rescue packages.

Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University (SMU), told BT that winning at least 65 per cent of the popular vote would make for a credible PAP performance.

To Prof Chong, the popular vote may be "quite irrelevant" in certain cases, with success defined by how parties fare in make-or-break constituency battles. For the opposition, a more meaningful yardstick could be how many seats are wrested away from the PAP, added Dr Koh.

Top of the watch list is Aljunied GRC, which the Workers' Party (WP) narrowly won with 50.95 per cent in 2015. The WP must keep it, and Hougang SMC, to stay credible, SMU's Prof Tan said, while Prof Chong believes "the WP needs to prove that they can make further inroads" by winning at least one SMC, if not a GRC.

Prof Chong added: "The PAP obviously wants to keep everything, and if possible take back Aljunied. Hougang is an acceptable loss... I doubt that they'll be able to take it back.

"But if the PAP retains everything, it's already a respectable showing."

Yet opposition parties would still be seen to have put up a good show if they manage to bag at least 40 per cent to 45 per cent of the vote in any contested constituency, said Dr Tan at SIM.

"If they do lose by a very slim margin, then they will be going into Parliament via the NCMP route, and it will give them some form of recognition."

Indeed, the margins by which candidates win or lose in a constituency have picked up extra significance in this election, after the minimum number of opposition MPs in the House was raised from nine to 12 in 2016. That minimum threshold includes seats for Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) - the best-performing losing opposition candidates, who have full voting rights.

With that, it is looking almost likely that all seats will be contested, observers believe, with more seats up for grabs by the opposition.

The prize of such seats now offers "more to fight for among the opposition", even for smaller or newer parties, said Dr Koh, calling the stakes for parties "no longer win or lose" as "there is a prize for the best losers".

But she noted that "the field is crowded and any task of crafting a coherent strategy far more complex", so parties may consider "a quality rather than quantity approach" to be ideal.

Still, SIM's Dr Tan said: "With 13 political parties in the mix, I don't think there will be a likelihood of any walkovers."

Should a full contest come to pass this year, it would be Singapore's second straight general election without walkovers, and the second such vote since independence.

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