On GE 2025

Note: This piece was originally written and shared on 30 April 2025. It is the first piece of writing I ever shared publicly, and since I didn’t have this site at the time, it was published via Google Docs. For this reason, I’ve decided to include it here as the honorary first post.

This piece is for all my friends back home in Singapore who will be voting in 3 days’ time, on 3 May. I write this not from a position of neutrality to convince you to vote for the best candidate(s) running in your constituency. What I am arguing for here is the following:

If you think the opposition candidates running in your constituency are “good enough”, you should vote for them regardless of the calibre of the PAP candidates.

This is premised on the current slate of GE2025 candidates, i.e. that the majority of the opposition candidates are not what you and I would consider “good enough”. Moreover, my argument is really only consequential in constituencies where there may be opposition candidates who are “good enough”, but the PAP ones might potentially still be better.

Let me acknowledge that the PAP has done a good job governing so far, even in the last five years. We have gotten through Covid probably as well as we could have (apart from the migrant worker dorms). Most of our infrastructure, from healthcare to public transport, works remarkably well. Changes like removing exams and streaming, and introducing full subject-based banding have reduced some of the education system’s stresses. Many of the issues we face are not entirely the PAP’s fault either — the rising cost of living is as much a function of global events as it is any increase in GST, and even that probably has effects more uncertain than either side might want you to believe.

The crux of my argument lies with the fact that our political system is fundamentally not robust. The ability of the PAP to single-handedly write anything it wants into law means that for all the good it does, a single major mistake could throw us off course. Ong Ye Kung says that this is no time for political experiments. Yet the most daring experiment of all started back in 1965, when the PAP set in place the de facto one-party democracy we’ve had to this day. Thankfully for us all, this experiment has thus far proven to be a successful one. But it is also one that has not been replicable.

Cracks in the system have emerged — one need look no further than the laundry list of the PAP’s missteps provided by the opposition in their rallies. Some of these might not have affected you, but the implication is that their unchecked power means there’s always the risk of one of these mistakes affecting you one day. It’s this very risk that necessitates a larger opposition presence to counter the mass of PAP MPs, for we can’t realistically expect them to always do things correctly even if they have been very effective since the early years. Its people now are different from the ones that brought us from third world to first — it’s not the party that made its men, but rather the men who made the PAP. Their blatant displays of contempt hint at a dangerous attitude veering towards hubris, rather than one of shrewdness. Moreover, we’re now at a different stage of progress where the road forward presents many more forks compared to a straight highway towards economic success. Choosing directions to take is more important than simply preventing a crash along the way, and each direction has its merits to weigh.

So how do we judge if opposition candidates are “good enough”? This is subjective, but what I would like to argue for is this: you shouldn’t compare the opposition and the PAP by the same yardstick. The opposition is handicapped not least by electoral boundaries being arbitrarily redrawn, but also in its ability to attract candidates, since the incentive for a successful person to join them is so much lower as compared to the other way around. Even if elected, that opposition MPs are hampered by grassroots and PA mechanisms is a well-documented phenomenon. This is entirely by design and until the playing ground is levelled, it’s not fair to hold both sides to similarly high standards. As we’ve seen in the way opposition-held constituencies have been treated over the past decades, the way for a fairer system to emerge is to have more opposition MPs voted in.

Moreover, no PAP candidate is indispensable — we got by perfectly fine without George Yeo and Lim Hwee Hua — not least Gan Kim Yong, a non-member of the 4G team by his own admission, for whom the PAP surely has a succession plan. And nothing has ever stopped the PAP from letting anyone they deem worthy contribute from outside of parliament — Ng Chee Meng continued as NTUC Secretary-General, a post traditionally helmed by an MP, even after losing in Sengkang. On the flip side, having an opposition MP in parliament means, at the very least, a higher chance for the government’s policies to be vetted more stringently. Furthermore, compared to the average PAP backbencher, they will also have the ability to bring into focus issues beyond the realm of what the PAP party whip permits. You may not agree with everything Leong Mun Wai says, but considering how scarce opposition voices currently are in parliament, it’s better to have someone asking a bucketload of difficult questions in the hope that some provoke important answers that we need, rather than someone who ends up speaking little of substance at all.

Any change that happens will be gradual, but this is precisely why we should vote in a “good enough” opposition team even if the PAP slate might be better — it paves the way for even better opposition candidates in the future, in the hope that one day, both sides will be able to run on equal footing and push each other on how best to shape our country’s future. So come 3 May, I urge you to consider what I’ve said and vote in a manner that helps us evolve into a healthier and more mature democracy :)