I have to say that despite the fact that the GE is mere months away, the opposition seems to be really lazy. Two weeks have passed since the EBRC report and Pritam Singh tries to revive it as political ammunition again, as ever calling the decisions of the commission unclear and even unfair.
Is that's how this campaign is going to go?
What's worse, when you consider what it really means you must conclude that the Workers' Party simply doesn't want to work for many of Singapore's voters.
What does "fair" and "unfair" constituency division even mean?
Singapore is just a city, where all people live next door to each other and where all political parties are expected to work in the interest of entire nation, not any particular voter group.
By complaining about shifting boundaries, Pritam Singh is effectively saying: "no, we don't want these people in our constituency because they won't vote for us".
What?
I thought the whole point of being the opposition was to convince the voters – ALL VOTERS – that you're a better alternative to incumbents.
What exactly is Pritam's expectation here? That constituencies will be carved out along demographics that specifically suit the Workers' Party, while people who do not fit in should be left out?
Would that be fair, then?
Voting patterns are there to be challenged
Opposition parties like to intimate that the PAP is controlling the EBRC to divide constituencies along past voting patterns.
Now, setting aside the difficulty of doing that, considering that hundreds of thousands of people change their place of residence during each term and another 100,000 are completely new additions to the rolls, isn't the point of competing in elections precisely to win the voters from the ruling party?
You want to talk about voting patterns? Here's one – for 60 years the PAP hasn't scored less than 60% of the popular vote, securing a comfortable mandate to govern the nation. On this basis it should, therefore, be impossible for the opposition to compete at all, if we use their logic.
If we followed those national voting patterns to divide the country up into equally representative constituencies, then PAP would win 100% of them, since it would get 60% of the votes or more in each one.
I doubt this is what the Workers' Party wants. What it does want, however, is such a configuration that would make it easier for it to win mandates, by placing more likely supporters in the constituencies it contests.
It doesn't want to serve all people – just the right ones.
Does WP have a program for Singapore or only for its electorate?
One really has to question whether WP – or any other opposition party for that matter – has a program for the nation or merely for its very specific audience.
If their ambition was to govern Singapore, improve it, reform it, then they would be busy presenting their policy proposals to everybody. The old, the young, the families, the students, the actual workers (that they have in the party name), the rich, the poor, and so on.
And in such a case they would have no complaints about competing in any constituency, because every single one would consist entirely of people they have something to offer to. But they don't.
When was the last time WP even discussed policy publicly? Opposition politicians are focused on presenting themselves as a check on the PAP, not an alternative.
They almost exclusively target those blaming the government for something, by cheering them on, instead of helping or educating them.
For that reason they abhor the idea of having to compete for other voters, because that would require building a meaningful policy platform for everything – and attempt to be better at it than the PAP, which is simply impossible with the people they have in their ranks.
It's better to campaign against the government by falsely reinforcing inaccurate sentiments on the ground – like that inflation was turbocharged in 2024 because of rising GST.
It's nuts, it's crazy, it's one of the most blatant lies ever to have come out of their mouths – but it doesn't matter, because it resonates with their target voters.
When Pritam Singh is complaining about alleged "unfairness" of the system, he's not doing it to improve it – he's doing it to win sympathy votes, even though logically speaking it should not matter who his party is campaigning to if it genuinely cares about all Singaporeans.
It's just another cynical manipulation during the election year, so we have to ask – why does Pritam not like so many of his compatriots that he wants to exchange them for others in the constituencies he wants his party to contest?
How can the Workers' Party claim to represent all Singaporeans when it doesn't even want to try to convince so many of them to support it?
