Deep Dive Podcast: GE2025 results - A closer look at the strong PAP mandate and the opposition strategy
Voters gave the People's Action Party and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong a clear mandate in GE2025. What accounted for the result and why couldn't the opposition parties make good on gains from the last election?
Steven Chia and Otelli Edwards speak to Associate Professor Eugene Tan from the Singapore Management University and Dr Reuben Ng from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation:
Otelli Edwards, host:
So the common perception is that 30 per cent of people would vote for the opposition no matter who is fielded. Do you think then this election has put that theory to the grave? The smaller parties lost their election deposits ... So should they merge, pack up and call it a day, or try again?
Dr Reuben Ng, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy:
I think we need to rethink what a protest vote is, because the protest vote used to be a vote for the opposition, but I don't think it is (now). Because if you look at the numbers in 2020 compared to 2025, there was actually a 50 per cent increase in voters who either did not vote or spoiled their vote.
So I'm really, really worried about that, because that's very insidious. Is that the new protest vote? And the new protest vote is not voting or spoiling your vote. So that worries me very much.
I think it is important for opposition parties maybe to focus on these potentially disillusioned or apathetic voters, because it's probably easier to convert them to support opposition parties than to convert existing PAP supporters. But this is something that we really need to watch, because it chips away at Singapore's political exceptionalism.
Associate Professor Eugene Tan, Singapore Management University:
You look at the small parties, did they really disrupt things? They became the subject of memes. You know, they provided (comedy). The whole air of the elections would be very different without the smaller parties but it raises questions about whether, in a very crowded and fragmented opposition landscape, whether these smaller parties serve any real purpose.
I increasingly find them to be irrelevant. Even if they were not to contest in the next general election, you wouldn't feel the loss.
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Straits Times
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Straits Times
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