The Political Opposition

From The Blue Sweater, posted 4 September 2009

Ok, before I begin, the disclaimer:

First, this essay is about politics, but aims only to reflect on the realities of political opposition in Singapore.

Second, this is NOT a Political Science essay. So for any of my PS friends reading this, please don’t take it so seriously...

Alright, now I can start... though I seriously wonder whether those disclaimers are necessary in the first place.

There has been much news about opposition parties in general recently. Japan had a historic change in its politics, when the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ended the 55-year rule of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

In Singapore, the opposition party PKMS hit the headlines (and made a fool of themselves) after fights broke out due to power struggles within the party. All these events made the discussion with a friend of mine today all the more meaningful.

A friend of mine took a module on politics in Singapore, and I was approached for ideas, as I took the same module during Special Semester.

I was given this question, which is not strictly a political science question, but nevertheless is related somewhat to the topic of Singapore politics: “I know some people who vote opposition, but when asked why, they didn’t have a real reason, other than ‘I just don’t like the PAP.’ How does it make sense?”

Well, my initial thought was that it simply doesn’t make sense. I was initially inclined to say that these voters are simply irrational, but then again, I personally felt that wasn’t really answering the question.

So I adopted a different approach to the question, that is, I wanted to address the question “Why do people vote opposition in the first place”.

I thought of three possible reasons.

First, there are people who simply do not support the PAP as it is. People might be dissatisfied with its elitism, the conservatism, or the political ideology of the party.

Second, there are people who sincerely believe that there should be more space and opportunities for the opposition. This is because of the belief that a true democracy is one in which ruling and opposition parties can compete on an equal basis, which is a situation that does not happen in Singapore. In addition, there is the desire for the greater presence of opposition in parliament, so that there is more debate and alternative voices in parliament.

Of course, one might rebut by arguing the role of the Nominated MPs in parliament, but the problem is, though NMPs are non-partisan by nature, they are screened by a PAP-dominated panel, which affects the neutrality of the NMPs.

Third, and more importantly, there are people who do not benefit, or are even marginalised by PAP policy. PAP policies and schemes might not have benefited them, and there are important structural contradictions in some of the government’s policy, such as the contradiction between cosmopolitanism and building national identity, between embracing globalisation and coping with the problems and challenges associated with it, such as the “digital divide”, which marginalises the older generation who lack the IT skills necessary in the digitised job market.

Though there are issues, it is ultimately important to note that these factors are ultimately inconsequential. Political opposition in Singapore is ultimately too weak, for a variety of reasons, to effectively challenge the PAP government (I won’t get to the reasons, one can write an entire essay out of these reasons, which I decline, having already done so just last semester). We are very unlikely, in the foreseeable future, to see the situation in Japan, when a long-ruling party is simply brought to its knees.

Nevertheless, I feel there is an important lesson for the PAP. The ineffective handling of national problems and issues can lead to public disillusionment. The PAP will not see the situation as that in Japan, but public dissatisfaction is easily manifested in the electoral swings, as evident in the PAP’s troubled years of 1980 and 1984.