8/5/11 4am: PAP did somewhat poorer than I expected; whether Aljunid will repent for 5 years will be interesting to see. (I fell asleep shortly after 1am and only just woke up - obviously not born for politics) I assume George Yeo will be appointed ambassador to UN or US, while Lim Hwee Hwa will go to Temasek and later become Ho Ching's successor (they even look a bit alike).

8/5/11 00.55am PAP only manage 55% in Marine Parade - frightening number; it used to go PAP at nearly 80%. Tin Pei Ling really hurt them - not sure how much Nicole Seah helped NSP - she would not have affected my vote but I dont know about others. Hougang was announced just as I was posting; WP riding high; it shows Low can pass his voters to a fellow party member, and WP is a genuine brand rather than a one man show..

8/5/11 00.45am Yee Jenn Jong did extremely well in Joo Chiat; no doubt he was helped by the PAP throwing out its former member Chen (who is still in his 50s and not old), bringing in a new candidate that's slightly older, but WP's rising tide brought up his boat, and his campaign speeches looked down to earth and must have appealed to some.

8/5/11 00.30am Four declared so far, and PAP averaged about 65%; this is probably close to the eventual national average

6/5/11 no campaigning on election eve day though blogs and news reporters remain busy; however, the messages are looking old and tired by now. There appears to be no shift in mood, and I dont think there will be surprises tomorrow.

Despite the prevailing comments, I dont think the new media have changed people's thinking. The opposition parties are able to get their messages out to those interested,  particularly important for raising money, which is why so many candidates can find the cash to put down as election deposits this time - the legally prescribed size makes this quite an obstacle, and the reason Tanjong Pagar has no opposition candidates running was by the time they raised the money, they were pressed for time and ultimately could not get all the documentation ready by the deadline, missing it by.37 seconds! But once the campaign itself was under way, the web no longer displayed a coherent function, merely adding to the background buzz.

I believe this will be the last election in which LKY will stand as a candidate, and PAP as well as the people will need to learn to face the post-LKY era. Even though there have been 21 years, 4 election campaigns (including the current one) and two prime minsters (including the current one) since his retirement as PM, Singapore is unprepared.

5/5/11 after a week's campaigning and two days before election day, some general comments

1.PAP started on a low note, its candidate introduction process leading up to the announcement looked old and shop worn, and some of the youth renewal choices looked doubtful; however, with several electorates under serious threat from strong opposition challenges, PAP supporters seem to have mobilized to counter it, and its rallies look better attended that in 2006

2. there have been no major slip ups on either side; some of the LKY comments might be blunt and GCT made some blur speeches, but people are used to that; LHL's humble admission of mistakes might be unexpected, but they are likely to go down well; overall things are pretty much the same as a week ago

3. I continue to believe WP will retain Hougang and have a fighting chance of winning Aljunid though probably will lose it marginally - in 2006 PAP vote there was harmed by George Yeo harping on James Gomez's minority form episode; this is absent now, but WP is fielding a strong team and there are various bread-butter grievances so its vote ought to rise a little; Potong Pasir looks borderline too, but will probably be retained by SPP by a nose, so that the new parliament is likely to have 2 opposition seats as before; though Low Thia Khiang says he will not be an NCMP, he can send his colleagues in so WP presence will be strong

4. since many electorates are voting that used to have walkovers because PAP was strong there, and new immigrant citizens are government leaning, we might see just a small drop in PAP's vote %.

1/5/11

from his Radin Mas campaign event - he looks more frail than previous press photos

in the mean time, I read in one political blog a comment criticizing opposition campaigning for its lack of a sexy message along the line of Obama’s campaign of hope and change. Actually the equivalent of “hope and change” is there in the opposition stance: it is “check and balance”, i.e., you need opposition MPs so stop PAP being too powerful; like “hope and change”, “check and balance” sounds nice and is agreeable to almost everyone; providing details of how to perform this “check and balance”, like obama delivering on “hope and change”, is a lot more difficult, but so far voters have been lenient towards the opposition parties, and consider any party that manages to stay in parliament to be successful in providing “check and balance” without expecting much more



27/4/11  11.45am

it is official that Low will take his chance in Aljunid, along with Silvia Lim and Chen Show Mao, the all star team; PAP will have to counter this by making big inducements to the voters there
> 
WP will probably keep Hougang despite the lack of star power; on the other hand, my former student Yee Jeng Jong does not stand much chance of getting in; bur at least he gets his 15 minutes of fame, in contrast to the PAP headhunting process where opportunity drops down from above on you, with other parties you will can offer yourself from bottom up.

26/4/11 so it is now official that my former student Yee Yenn Yong

(photo show him making a presentation at a school about his comapny's product)

will run as a WP candidate; maybe in his winning speech he would thank me for the insight and inspiration about singapore politics my writings gave him...

this election is indeed very different - there are actually discussions about specific policy issues; so far, the opposition has not put up convincing implementable proposals, but the PAP also has not put in effective blows against these; similarly, its attempts to cast shadow on some of the candidates for living overseas or gay advocacy, have fallen flat too; interesting, but so far not impressive. I believe Vivian Balakrishinan is overexposing himself without getting much traction - I guess he is anxious to perform after the history of YOG and casinos; while the casinos might be financial successes, there will be those who kept criticisizing them on other grounds, and one day someone might decide the get rid of the focus by shuffling personnel. In other words, someone might do a Lim Boon Heng on him. (assuming this occurs, an expression I invented for it is "terminal vivianization" - to vivianize is to accommodate yourself to the system you joined, and if it turns out to be ultimately impossible, then it goes terminal)

19/4/11 election has been called for 7 May, nomination day is 29 April; the interesting issue is whether Low Thia Kiang will run in Aljunid and whether the PAP team there is strong enough to overcome even him; if he does, we might actually see PAP winning back both Potong Pasir and Hougang with weaker opponents running there, while both Low and Chiam lose in their attempts to win a GRC, so that for once after almost 30 years PAP gets a clean sweep, and achieves this despite a significant loss in overall vote percentage; in any case, I expect Low, Silvia Lim and Chen Show Mao to be in the new Parliament one way or another; even if PAP wins all seats, they will be among the highest vote losing candidates and will enter as NCMPs

12/4/11

Now that PAP has completed the introduction of new candidates, the election will have to be soon. I expect the PAP vote % to drop due to a number of factors

1. the dissatisfaction over immigration, housing, transport, flooding, etc; are the conditions really that poor? I dont think so, but they fell short of expectations

2. the more effective opposition publicity efforts due to the web; the phenomenon was beginning to show in 2006, and the 5 years since then have made the change very significant

3. the loss of a number of experienced PAP MPs in the age 50+ bracket; some of them were not doing much in their electorates, but a few have built up some personal support

4. some of the PAP candidates are not politically experienced and do not have a history of party work; the impact is two fold: they would have little to contribute to ground level campaigning (even though they might be OK giving prepared speeches) and some party activities might be discouraged by the preference shown to newcomers

However, politics is local; Potong Pasir, for example, might well go back to PAP after 27 years under Chiam See Tong; I also dont rate highly his chance of winning a GRC; Workers Party, with Silvia Lim, Chen Show Mao (and maybe my ex-student Yee Jenn Jong) in a team, has a better shot, but if this does not come off, opposition might be down to just Hougang, so PAP can claim it did better despite loss in vote %

18/4/11

The PAP election manifesto, released yesterday at its PAP Youth Wing anniversary event, seems to be well thought out, and addresses a number of the current popular concerns

I assume the Workers Party is busily headscratching trying to decide whether Low Thia Kiang should remain in Hougang or move to a GRC; his party has more chance of winning Aljunid if he goes there, but might end up losing both Hougang and Aljunid. My own guess is that if Silvia Lim runs in Hougang in his stead, her chance of being elected is good, and even if Low does not win at Aljunid, he would still get back into parliament as an NCMP; comparing with his retaining Hougang and Lim going back as NCMP, he would look courageous and WP might do better overall as result.

Lim, one of the MPs not standing in the next election, is the PAP party chairman and the photo shows him breaking down in public while answering a question on whether PAP suffers from groupthink, in some way the question cut him in the raw given him present circumstance.

The announcement of his retirement was unexpected; at age 63, he was not considered old within the party top echelorn; for a brief moment there was speculation that he would be running for the Presidency, but this was quickly denied; hence, something happened to make it necessary for him to leave

my own guess is he was upse because he felt he got unfairly blamed for other people's mistakes

quasipaps

someone has said that the workers' party is beginning to look like PAP; certainly in some of the candidate selection procedures, and in the way things are valued, they are following the PAP playbook

in another sense, though in the case of WP less so, the opposition parties are led by authoritarian figures who do not know how to run organizations democratically and build consensus, so that whenever disagreements arise, they disagreements are inevitable, their groups break up. Chiam See Tong, for example, had two major break ups, and despite its short history, Kenneth Jeyaratnam's (yes, JBJ's son) Reform Party has already undergone one.

I say WP is something of an exception in this - I see others members besides Low getting some chance to be publicly voicing views  and do not see Low Thia Kiang monopolizing all opportunities to present the party's public face.

do the public distinguish between quasipaps and non-quasipaps? the voting percentages might tell a story; if any opposition party wins a GRC, I would expect it to be WP.