Home » election
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 By

Singapore elections and walkovers

Here are snapshots of the five general elections held in Singapore since 1988 when the Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) were introduced to ensure that Malays, Indians and other ethnic minorities were represented in parliament. All the figures are from the Singapore Elections website.

Singapore electorate and those who couldn't vote

Singapore electorate and those who couldn't vote

This chart shows the total electorate and the number of voters who couldn’t vote because no opposition candidates stood for election in their constituencies.

Singapore PAP poll walkovers

Singapore PAP poll walkovers

This chart shows the number of ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) members of parliament who were elected unopposed and the number of constituencies where the PAP won a walkover since the opposition did not contest those seats. The PAP won walkovers in seven of the 14 GRCs in the last general election, in 2006; in 10 GRCs in 2001; in nine GRCs in 1997; in 10 GRCs and one single-seat ward in 1991; and in three GRCs and two single-seat wards in 1988.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Singapore Tagged With: , , , , ,
Thursday, August 26, 2010 By

The GRCs of Singapore

 

Map of Singapore's parliamentary constituencies

Singapore Elections Department map

There has never been an election contest in two of Singapore’s 23 constituencies. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has won a walkover in every election from Tanjong Pagar GRC and Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Singapore Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Thursday, July 22, 2010 By

Straits Times report on 1959 election day

The People's Action Party led by Lee Kuan Yew won the 1959 Singapore Legislative Assembly by a landslide, winning 43 of the 51 seats (see the Elections Department page and Wikipedia: total voters 586,098, voter turnout 527,919 or  92.9%). It faced a divided opposition. " No one doubts that the PAP stands to gain from the failure of the SPA and the Liberal Socialists to make common cause," said the Straits Times on the day of the election: May 30, 1959. 

st_may30_1959

The newspaper, troubled by the "ferocity of the campaigning", lamented: "Hatred has poisoned the election air, dividing the population into embittered sections — this in an island that needs a calm and sane air in which to sort out the grave economic problems that concern all, capitalist or worker."

st_may21_1959-copy

Only a few days earlier, on May 21, 1959, the Straits Times had criticized the PAP as "a threat to a free press".

It was responding to Mr Lee, who said at a Clifford Pier lunchtime rally that the PAP, if it won the election, would detain without trial under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance (PPSO) "any editor, leader writer, sub-editor or reporter" who tried to "sour up or strain" relations with Kuala Lumpur. The Straits Times wrote: "Before PAP's secretary-general takes off on yet another flight of fantasy, he might ponder the unchallengeable fact that we have always called for the closest relations between the territories, long before it became politically fashionable to set off in pursuit of merger."  Here is the link to the article,Thursday, May 21, 1959. P.A.P. And P.P.S.O.

You can read these articles on NewspaperSG, the Singapore National Library digital archive of Singapore newspapers published between 1831 and 2006.

The Straits Times Saturday, May 30, 1959 The Day of Decision.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Media, Singapore Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 By

When Lee Kuan Yew struck a chill in expat hearts

Browsing through Elections in Singapore written by Pugalenthi Sr and published in 1996, I was struck by this passage, where he writes about the 1959 elections, which brought Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew to power:

He said the citizenship laws had deliberately been made very liberal to allow Commonwealth citizens to take up citizenship after a stay of only two years here. This was aimed at providing the large number of Britons here a say in local politics. But most of these Britons had no intention of making this their homeland and would "scoot off" as soon as things "got hot here".

The book does not give any references.

But Mr Lee and his People's Action Party in those days did strike a chill in the hearts of expatriates, according to the historian Constance Mary Turnbull. In A History of Modern Singapore (1819 – 2005), she describes the aftermath of the PAP victory in the 1959 elections, when PAP won 43 of the 51 seats (see the Elections Department page and Wikipedia: total voters 586,098, voter turnout 527,919 or  92.9%). Turnbull writes:

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Books, Singapore Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 By

Game Change: Obama, Hillary, McCain

Hillary Clinton did not want to be Secretary of State when Barack Obama offered her the job — and one reason she gave was her husband,

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin in their book, Game Change, describe Obama's midnight meeting with Hillary in Washington two weeks after he won the presidential election in November 2008:

It's not going to work, an anguished Hillary said… You don't want me, you don't want all these stories about you and me. You don't want the whole circus…

Hillary, look, you're exactly right, Obama said… But the thing is, the economy is a much bigger mess than we'd ever imagined it would be, and I'm gonna be focused on that for the next two years. So I need someone as big as you to do this job… I need someone I can trust implicitly, and you're that person…

You know my husband, she said…You know I can't control him, and at some point he'll be a problem…

I know, Obama replied. But I'm prepared to take that risk…

Hillary announced her decision to be Secretary of State the next morning. The book concludes:

It was November 20. The election was sixteen days in the past. But today, Obama had pulled off the grandest game change of all. On the brink of great power and awesome responsibility, he and Clinton were on the same side.

If the ending seems star-struck, the book is anything but…

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Saturday, April 17, 2010 By

Immigration: Britain, Singapore, America

Immigrant-weary Singaporeans have nothing on Messrs Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, as their first election debate showed. They all want to curb immigration.

Brown wants no unskilled workers from outside the European Union, Cameron wants caps on immigration to bring numbers down to "tens of thousands" from "hundreds of thousands", Clegg wants immigrants to be sent only to those areas where they are needed. He called for regional work permits which will allow immigrants to work only in a certain part of the country. (See the second video towards the end of this post.)

It was considerably duller than the American presidential debates. Here's prize-winning Daily Mail columnist Quentin Letts' irreverent take on it. But it's worth viewing because it shows where the leaders stand.

Watch Cameron in the ninth minute. He talks about meeting a 40-year-old black man in Plymouth who said he had served in the Royal Navy for 30 years. That means he joined the navy when he was 10 years old!

Immigration is the biggest election issue after the economy, reports Reuters. It adds:

According to a London School of Economics (LSE) pre-election report, 10.2 per cent of Britain's population is foreign-born (based on OECD 2007 figures).

Contrast that with Singapore, where foreigners make up nearly a third of the population.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: World Today Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Saturday, January 2, 2010 By

Downturns and elections in Singapore

The next elections coming after a recession will break the trend in Singapore. Three of the past downturns struck just a year after a general election and one came in an election year.

Thank you, Paul, for pointing that out in your comment on my previous post.

There were elections in 1963, 1984, 1997 and 2001 — and the economy shrank in 1964, 1985, 1998 and 2001.

This is also the first time Singapore has suffered two bad years in a row, with the economy growing only 1.1 per cent in 2008 before shrinking 2.1 per cent in 2009.

All four previous downturns were preceded and followed by good years, according to Singapore Statistics records dating back to 1960.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Singapore Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
Thursday, October 15, 2009 By

Singapore polls used to be in September or December under Lee Kuan Yew

Two MPs, both ministers, were spotted near my neighbourhood recently. The prime minister has been visiting his constituents. Was it all part of the mid-autumn festivities? Or is it the beginning of the end of Singapore's 11th parliament?

The government does not have to call elections until November 2011 since parliament did not meet until six months after the last general election in May 2006.

But here's what makes me think the government is preparing to go to the polls:

  • The Jobs Credit scheme, under which the government pays part of the employers' wage bills to keep workers employed, has been extended until the middle of next year.
  • The Ministry of Trade and Industry's advance estimate that the economy grew by 0.8 percent between July and September compared with the same period last year: it's the first such growth in more than a year.
  • The Singapore Department of Statistics' recent Household Sector Balance Sheet 2008 report, which said that Singapore household net wealth had gone up last year despite the recession and that Singaporeans were now better off than Americans. This was in startling contrast to the department's previous report in January this year that only 39 percent of the employed households earned Singapore's average monthly household income of 7,000 Singapore dollars (about $5000). The latest report did not mention household incomes at all.

The positive spin in the latest household report, the positive advance estimate of economic growth and the positive step taken by the government to save jobs, all suggest the government is getting ready to face the voters. 

I wouldn't dare forecast an election date.

The Singapore government is too smart to be second-guessed by the likes of me.

But Singapore used go to the polls either in September or in December when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's father was the prime minister.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew fought six general elections as prime minister — and except for the first one, in April 1968, they were all held in either September or December.

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, as prime minister, was the first to call a general election in August, in 1991 — and then again faced the voters in January 1997 and November 2001.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the first to call a general election in May, in 2006. Will he wait again till next May or even longer? We will see.

Here are the dates of the past Singapore general elections.

Continue Reading

Filed Under: Singapore Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 By

The BBC’s India Election Train


Soutik – our blogger
Originally uploaded by bbcworldservice

The BBC has long had a thing about railways. One recalls The Great Railway Journeys and Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar, which was broadcast on the BBC.

And now there's the BBC India Election Train running across India, covering
the general election. It's starting a bit late. As this Wall Street Journal
graphic shows, almost half the 543 parliamentary constituencies had already gone
to the polls by the time the train pulled out of New Delhi at the weekend.

WSJIndianpolldates

But the BBC's Soutik Biswas (see picture) is doing a nice job giving a chatty, picturesque
account on his India Election Train Blog. The accompanying interactive map is a gem too. I am reminded of the BBC's Talking
America blog which covered the presidential election last year. But while
the BBC used a bus to cover the US election, in India it can afford a luxury
train.

Biswas in his airconditioned coach is definitely enjoying greater luxury than
Theroux or Gandhi, who travelled third class. Gandhi's railway journey across
India was memorably depicted in Sir Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi, which won
as many Oscars in its time as Slumdog Millionaire. Unfortunately I couldn't find
any videoclip on YouTube to show the exhilarating railway journey. It was one of
the highlights of the movie.

So was the BBC's India Election Train inspired by Gandhi or Theroux's The
Great Railway Bazaar? (Theroux has retraced the journey in Ghost Train To The Eastern Star.)

The "election train" shows how India has opened up, allowing the foreign
media to cover the elections in a special train.

Indira Gandhi used to see the foreign hand behind every problem. Now the
foreign hand is everywhere from telecoms – Bharti is partly owned by Singapore's
SingTel – to banks: ICICI Bank's stakeholders include the Singapore sovereign
wealth funds Temasek Holdings and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation
(GIC).

Few could possibly better describe the change than the BBC's former India
correspondent, Mark Tully, who can still be heard on the World Service. More
than 60 years have passed since India became independent in 1947. But few cover
India better yet than the BBC.

Filed Under: India, Media Tagged With: , ,
Friday, April 17, 2009 By

India polls: BBC beats Twitter, Indian sites; turnout 58-62%

I tried following the Indian elections on Twitter yesterday, searching both "India" and "Indian elections" for election news. News came fast from various sources. But the BBC was the best, providing live coverage, interactive maps as well as in-depth analysis.

Analysis and perspective have become more valuable than ever because breaking news is so easy to get.

That's why I wasn't tempted to post a video of the slipper hurled at the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani, who wants to be India's next prime minister. (Videos here in Hindi and in English.)

Interestingly, almost half the eligible voters voted in Jammu and Kashmir — and more than half in Arunachal Pradesh, which is claimed by China – according to the Hindu. Here's how Jammu and Kashmir was covered by the Chinese news agency, Xinhua. Thousands voted in Jammu, said another Xinhua report.

It was the Maoist rebels who waged a violent campaign to disrupt the polls, killing 16 people, including eight policemen, yesterday deep in the Indian countryside, reported The Times of India. Isn't that ironic? The worst-hit were the Maoist strongholds in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. The Maoists want revolution, not democracy.

The Hindu reports 58 to 62 percent turnout:

65 percent in Andhra Pradesh which includes the IT hub, Hyderabad; 62 percent in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam; 60 percent in Kerala; 50 percent in Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state whose chief minister, Mayawati, wants to be the next prime minister; 48 percent in Jammu and Kashmir; and 46 percent in Bihar. Parts of Bihar are inside what the BBC calls the Red Corridor – controlled by the Maoists.

Curiously, the Election Commission of India is not giving polling percentages in the publicly accessible sections — maybe because the elections don't end till May 13. Elections were held only in 124 of the 543 constituencies yesterday.

Apart from the BBC, the other go-to site is Rediff's India Votes 2009. The Hindustan Times has the most interactive features among the Indian newspaper sites.

The bad news:

  • An Indian Justice Party election candidate was found hanging from a banyan tree, allegedy killed by a rival candidate. The 35-year-old Bahadur Sonkar, who was seeking election from Jaunpur near the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, had been under pressure to withdraw from the contest and support the state's ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), reported the BBC. The BSP is headed by wannabe prime minister Mayawati.
  • A BSP election candidate was arrested in the neighbouring state of Bihar last month for allegedly killing 10 policemen. Another BSP legislator was arrested last year for allegedly killing a government engineer for refusing to contribute money for Mayawati's birthday celebrations.
  • The National Election Watch reports 222 election candidates — 16 percent of the 1,425 people standing for election — have criminal records. Congress is fielding 24, the BJP 23 and the BSP 17 candidates with criminal records.

Incidentally, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which opposes America and supports China, wants a weaker Indian government. "We favour a truly federal structure in a country as vast as India," the Marxist leader Prakash Karat told the BBC. He wants more power for the states, three of which — West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura — have Marxist governments.

The CPI (M) has formed a Third Front with Mayawati and her BSP, the former Tamil film star Jayalalitha who leads the AIADMK strong in Tamil Nadu, and the Telugu Desam Party leader Chandra Babu Naidu who claims credit for the technology boom in Hyderabad. They make up the Third Front fighting the outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party as well as the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Meanwhile. the Times of India website leads with the news: Heed India, young and affluent wake up to vote. The young and the rich are voting like never before, it reports from Hyderabad. Elections in the other big cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore – will be held later.

This Google map of India is useful, showing the places in the news as the elections continue.

Filed Under: India Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts
%d bloggers like this: