Trade tensions help Singapore’s prime minister to a big win

Lawrence Wong was not expected to win big in his first general election since becoming Singapore’s prime minister. Members of the People’s Action Party, which has governed the city-state since before independence in 1965, measure their leader by how well he preserves its share of the popular vote. The last two men to lead Singapore presided over dips in support of 2% and 9% in their first elections after taking over. Many observers thought the country’s latest leader might do worse.

In fact Mr Wong bucked this trend at the election held on May 3rd, increasing the PAP’s share of the vote from 61% to 66%. In Singapore’s unusual electoral system, which is dominated by winner-take-all, multi-member constituencies, that share translates into 90% of elected seats in parliament. The party successfully defended every seat that opposition politicians had been seeking to flip.

Ian Chong of the National University of Singapore calls it a “flight to familiarity”. Mr Wong campaigned on the need to maintain stability amid the upheaval of Donald Trump’s trade war. The former colonial entrepôt’s trade-to-GDP ratio, exceeding 300%, is among the highest in the world. Mr Wong urged Singaporeans to hand him a strong mandate and “the best possible team” to steer the country through the storm. The party sent the head of the task force dealing with the trade war to stand in one of the island’s most hotly contested constituencies, daring voters to oust him. The gambit worked; the party kept the constituency’s four seats.

The PAP benefited, too, from some long-standing structural advantages. As in past years, a short nine-day campaign limited the opportunities its opponents had to get their message out. The PAP’s large party machinery quickly adjusted to a redistricting of constituencies that was completed less than two months before the polls. The new boundaries upended the ground games of opposition parties, which make do with fewer resources.

But the election also strengthened the main opposition, the Workers’ Party (WP). It attracts voters who think that there needs to be at least some alternative voices in parliament, though its policies are not radically different from those the government promotes (the party is sometimes considered “PAP-lite”). It contested only 26 of 97 seats. But it successfully defended the ten seats it held before the election, and will receive two more under a scheme that rewards the best-performing losing candidates. Indeed, the WP received more votes overall than the PAP in the constituencies in which it stood.

One question for the Workers’ Party is whether it is ready to start going after votes in parts of the city that smaller, chronically unsuccessful opposition parties (derisively labelled “mosquito parties” by one observer) have long thought of as their own. It has been cautious about growing too fast. It fears that Singaporeans would think twice about voting for it, if it ran enough candidates to form a majority government. It also worries about making sure all the candidates it fields are up to scratch.

“Voters returned the government out of caution, not conviction” says Kenneth Paul Tan, an expert on Singapore’s politics. The victory will nonetheless enhance Mr Wong’s authority within the PAP. His predecessor as prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who held office for nearly two decades, remains in the cabinet as senior minister. So, probably, will two former rivals for the top job. But if there were any doubts about Mr Wong’s ability to put his own stamp on the government, they have been put to rest. It is Mr Wong’s team now, come what may. ■