GE 2015

GE 2015 refers to Singapore's general election which takes place tomorrow; Friday 11th September. Since the date for the election was announced on August 25th and parliament was dissolved by the President Tony Tan the local newspapers, television and radio programmes have been full of political canvassing and debates. 

Tomorrow has been declared a public holiday, friends tell me that local citizens will not however take advantage of this to plan a long weekend away as voting is mandatory and if a citizen fails to vote (without an accepted valid reason) their name will be removed from the voting register for the next election. 

As an expat and UK national it has been interesting observing how the Singaporean political parties conduct their campaigns and in general I would say they do this in a much calmer and more respectful manner than their UK counterparts. There seems to be very little 'back stabbing', digging up 'of dirt' and mocking of their opponents opinions and policies which the UK political parties seem to delight in.

This year's election; the 17th in Singapore and the 12th since Independence, sees the governing People's Action Party (PAP) hoping to secure their 14th consecutive term since 1959 and all seats are being contested. There are 8 opposition parties challenging the ruling party-PAP which currently holds 81 seats. The next biggest party is the Workers Party with 7 seats and then the Singapore People's Party with 1 NCMP seat, which apparently stands for Non-constituency Member of Parliament and 6 more parties that do not currently hold any seats.

Today, the day before Polling Day is called "Cooling Off Day". This means that campaigning is not allowed nor election advertising this allows voters time to reflect on the various issues before going to the polls- I think this is a great idea.

One party's slogan has made me; as an expat feel a little uncomfortable, the Singaporeans First party makes no secret of the fact that they do not want so many foreign workers to be given S passes (work permits) but on the other hand I admire the way Singapore looks after 'it's own'

Well whatever the result, it should prove interesting, but I'm not sure that I will be watching the TV into the wee small hours to see the results unfold.

GENERAL ELECTION UPDATE

On Saturday morning, it was results day and we woke up to see the news headlines; "PAP Landslide".

The ruling party had not only retained it's position but had increased it's share of the vote since the previous election in 2011. 

 The Peoples Action Party (PAP) received 69.86% of all votes, the Workers Party (WP)12.48%, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) 3.76% and the remaining 8 parties shared the remaining votes.

PAP won 83 of the 89 parliamentary seats with WP taking the remaining 6 seats-truly a landslide.

Out of interest the voting turnout was 93.56%- a very impressive figure.