Singapore's PAP needs 'strong mandate' as power transition, global uncertainty loom, leaders say

Singapore's top two leaders on Sunday pressed their case for citizens to continue giving strong support to the long-ruling People's Action Party (PAP) despite their desire for more checks and balances, warning that the bleak external climate required the government to have a strong mandate.

Speaking at the PAP's annual conference, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong highlighted unabating US-China tensions, the rising temperature over the Taiwan Strait and a possible recession in the West as key risks to the city state in the near term.

In light of the troubled state of geopolitics and a looming transition of power within the city state, it was all the more important for citizens to continue to give the PAP broad support as they have done for decades, the leaders suggested.

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Still they acknowledged that the main opposition Workers' Party (WP) would pose a stiff challenge in the next general election due by 2025 amid citizens' hopes for diversity in a parliament dominated by the PAP.

The PAP has won every election since 1959, but suffered a setback in a 2020 pandemic-time election when its vote share dropped to 61.2 per cent, a sharp decline from the 69.9 per cent seen in the 2015 election.

While it retained its decades-long legislative supermajority by winning 83 of 93 seats, the Workers' Party secured 10 seats - making it the most successful opposition party in the country's post-independence era.

Lee said the PAP's strong 2020 mandate - its 15th general election victory on the trot - gave it an upper hand in dealing decisively with the Covid-19 pandemic and tricky external affairs.

"You just look at other countries, and you will know how different it can be, not very far away" Lee said. "A Singapore ruled by a government hanging on to power by its fingernails is bound to be pushed from pillar to post by other countries."

Wong, who was named the leader of the PAP's "fourth generation" in April - signalling he is Lee's designated successor - also emphasised the need for the party to govern with a clear mandate as the country faced a more dangerous world "where conflicts or war cannot be ruled out even in our region ...[and] growth will be slower and it will be harder to create opportunities for all people".

Wong said in recent months he had been frequently asked by PAP members about the timing of the next polls and when Lee, 70, would hand power to him.

Both leaders have not offered a definitive timeline on the power transition, saying only that it will take place before or after the next polls.

"We know the election must take place by 2025. Whether it happens before or in 2025, we already know that it will be a tough battle," Wong said. "So the real questions to ask are not when the succession or when the election will take place, but how we can prepare ourselves to put up the strongest fight [and] how we can win the confidence and trust of Singaporeans."

Wong said a postmortem after the 2020 polls showed "a stronger desire for checks and balances [and] for diversity in parliament is here to stay", adding that the WP "is now an established political force".

While Wong in his remarks urged PAP members not to downplay the rising potency of the WP, Lee, in his nearly 50-minute speech offered scathing criticism of the alternative parties.

He took aim at the opposition for supporting the "pleasant things which the government does ... but [opposing] harder moves that are sometimes not avoidable".

He raised the government's plan to repeal a colonial-era law banning consensual male gay sex - a divisive issue that required extensive consultations between competing groups.

The PAP government's plan is to repeal the dormant law - a long time bugbear of the gay community - while also amending the constitution to maintain the status quo definition of marriage as a way to address the concerns of social conservatives.

"Do they support or oppose what the government is doing? Are they offering alternative proposals? None of the above. The opposition is missing in action," Lee said, without naming the WP.

Apart from the Workers' Party (WP), the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) - a fairly new group - has two representatives in parliament. The group occupies two unelected seats that were awarded through a scheme that rewards the best performing losing parties in general elections.

PSP lawmaker Leong Mun Wai has been in the cross hairs of PAP leaders in recent months over his persistent questioning and requests relating to the country's foreign population.

PAP officials have said Leong's parliamentary questions were aimed at sowing discord within the population, by highlighting differences between citizens and permanent residents, and between new and old citizens.

Lee in his speech appeared to take aim at Leong too, though he did not name him. "Of biggest concern are those politicians and parties who stir up resentment in order to gain political advantage. They tear relentlessly at fault lines," Lee said. "We've got to get Singaporeans to recognise such rabble rousing for what it's worth and repudiated," he added, saying the PAP would "never hesitate to fight rabble rousers and charlatans".

Political observers said the speeches by the two leaders on Sunday put on display the PAP entering a war footing despite polls unlikely to be held any time soon.

Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, an assistant professor of public policy and global affairs with the Nanyang Technological University, said the leaders were seeking to "lower expectations" of the PAP given their realisation the political landscape was set to be more contested in the next polls.

On Wong's warning in his speech that a PAP victory at the next polls and consequently his ascension to prime minister were not guaranteed, Abdullah said the prime minister-in-waiting was reducing "expectations so that he will be judged not according to the standards of the past".

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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