Editorial
The country needs the PAP to introspect and renew itself.
While the unexpectedly comfortable win for the opposition Worker’s Party (WP) in the Punggol East by-election of 26th January has rightly been hailed as a significant political development, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has so far reacted to it with a conspicuous lack of introspection. Ministers and party leaders have publicly played down the loss as an outlier that does not presage a wider loss of affection for the PAP or its long-term agenda. That is disappointing, because it is likely that the fiasco came about less through the growth of the WP than by the missteps of the PAP itself.
Make no mistake, the WP deserves a great deal of the credit for a convincing win in what had been deemed to be a safe seat for the PAP. Since it won Aljunied in a famous upset in 2011, it has built on its image as a fairly safe pair of hands for managing the town councils under its charge. Having more MPs in Parliament has also helped to increase the party’s visibility. A MP caught in a sex scandal last year was ruthlessly handled, with the fallout scarcely affecting the party in the ensuing by-election. Behind the scenes, the party has developed a considerable grassroots and volunteer following, which it impressively mobilised for the last two by-elections.
But the party’s growth has been aided in good measure by the ruling PAP’s stumbles, which are beginning to appear with worrying frequency. The key one is that the party’s feel for the ground seems to have slipped markedly since the third generation of leaders took over in the early 2000s. Unhappiness over immigration and housing prices has festered because the PAP appears to presume a consensus over its economic agenda that may no longer hold. The government has not been able to come up with policy solutions to these vexing issues convincing enough for the electorate because fewer and fewer Singaporeans are wedded to the party’s growth-first approach.
The problem here is that the PAP’s organisation is essentially a fossilised relic of the 1960s. Power is concentrated exclusively in the hands of the central committee, with the rest of the party essentially hollowed out. That is the very thing that prevents the party from renewing itself properly. Talent does not rise through the ranks – instead, the party is dependent on “parachute” candidates identified by the leadership. It does not help that the party’s grassroots organisation is nominally detached from the party – it is in reality a statutory board under the government – and the enthusiasm gap between it and the WP’s growing following only seems to be widening.
Furthermore, the overly centralised party structure compromises diversity. Voters have difficulty differentiating between the various PAP candidates, most of whom seem interchangeable with one another. That also makes it difficult for the party to reform itself: all the so-called next generation leaders brought in in 2011 are impeccable members of the establishment that have shown little inclination to question party doctrine.
The PAP’s woes reflect those faced at the national level. The idea that Singapore needs an overwhelmingly dominant party in order to be governed effectively has been undermined over the past few years not only by growing discontent over government policies but by various scandals involving establishment figures. Sex scandals are likely to be interpreted as a sign of moral decadence, but the ruckus over the AIM affair (regarding possible irregularities in the sale of town council software developed with public funds to a PAP-related company) is something more worrying. For a party long thought to be above the taint of being self-serving, it could confirm the resentment of some that the establishment is taking advantage of its privileged position for its own ends.
It is not too late for the party to change. The PAP may never be as dominant as it was a decade ago, but it can stabilise its standing among the electorate by renewing itself in the spirit that first captured national prominence in the 1950s. Opening up the party to more diverse candidates, encouraging internal party democracy and nurturing a neglected grassroots organisation would go a long way towards restoring some of the party’s appeal. Things have to change in order to stay the same. But by doing so, it would also bring Singapore closer to a freer and more open system that is the norm in other democracies worthy of the name.