Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) said the convincing re-election of his People’s Action Party (PAP) would help the city-state face turbulent times, as analysts said the weekend poll also showed one party emerging as the main opposition group.
The PAP’s 14th successive election victory was never in question. Instead, the focus was on the mandate voters would give Wong in his first electoral test since assuming the top job a year ago.
The PAP, which has ruled since before Singapore’s 1965 independence, won 87 of the 97 parliamentary seats up for grabs in Saturday’s vote, the election commission said.
Photo: Reuters
Wong said the PAP won 65 percent of the vote, improving on the 61 percent achieved in the 2020 contest.
“The results will put Singapore in a better position to face this turbulent world,” Wong said in the early hours of yesterday.
Unspoken was the cause of that turbulence, with US President Donald Trump’s upending of the global order and tariff regime posing a threat to Singapore, a small, open and trade-driven nation.
Australia’s Labor Party on Saturday won an increased majority in an election and Canada’s Liberal Party last week retained power with the Trump factor also cited as a key factor.
“Hence, this suggests that there is indeed a strong element of a flight to safety among voters,” said Gillian Koh, senior research fellow in governance and economy at the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore, adding that there were also local factors at play.
The 10 seats that the PAP did not win on Saturday were all won by the Workers’ Party.
“It was a very difficult fight for the Workers’ Party, as you know, any opposition party in Singapore, to make inroads into our political system, the challenges are real,” party leader Pritam Singh told reporters yesterday.
Analysts said the Workers’ Party had solidified its position as the main challenger to the PAP’s stranglehold on power.
“It is a hard, thankless slog, but they are attracting really high-quality candidates, running a tight outfit, and using these elections to give new people valuable electioneering experience,” Flinders University College of Business, Government and Law associate professor Michael Barr said.
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