September 23, 2015

The General Election 2015 saw the People’s Action Party (PAP) securing close to 70% of the total votes cast and 82 out of 89 seats in the Parliament, reversing its relatively poor electoral performance in 2011. On the other hand, not only did the Opposition as a whole fare more poorly, but the main opposition party the Worker’s Party also lost one of its parliamentary seats and saw its vote share decline.

In an article contribution for Today, Associate Professor Hussin Mutalib (Department of Political Science) argues that the electoral future of the Opposition is not necessarily Sisyphean in spite of various challenges, not least the PAP’s wide resources, experience and continuing grip of the key political institutions of the state. Instead, if it is able to offer alternative but feasible ideologies and party platforms, recruit successful individuals with credentials and adopt centre-left politics to match the PAP’s recent bent, then it will still be able to make inroads into Singapore’s political system.