Singapore's farcical election undermines its achievements
By Michael Backman
May 3, 2006
The Age
ASIA ONLINE
ELECTIONS will be held in Singapore on Saturday. There's no doubt
that the ruling People's Action Party will win. It always does. So
do the elections matter to business, or indeed to anyone?
These elections are different. They are attracting more adverse
international media attention than usual.
And in an age when business can no longer proceed in a vacuum but
must consider the full context of its operating environment, the
degree to which the Singapore elections are free and fair does
matter.
The elections were announced on April 23. Nominations for seats
closed only last Thursday. That means candidates will have had just
nine days to explain their policies and to campaign. It's little
wonder the opposition holds only two seats in the 84-seat
parliament.
Short election campaigns favour the incumbents as they are already
known to voters. They also limit the time frame for damaging
headlines in the international media.
Election rule changes and petty administrative requirements that
have had the effect of constraining almost any legitimate
opposition to the PAP are too numerous to catalogue.
But one announced earlier this month deserves mention, if only for
its abject pettiness. Podcasting, or making audio files available
on the internet, was made illegal for the duration of the campaign,
if the files contain political messages.
Podcasting was one of the few means by which the opposition could
get its message out in a country where all media outlets are
ultimately owned by the Government.
A 2005 survey by Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore at 140
out of 167 countries in terms of press freedom worse than Russia
or Afghanistan.
Past measures have not been so petty. Opposition figure Chia Thye
Poh was detained between 1966 and 1989. Lee Kuan Yew said he was a
communist. Maybe he was. But importantly he was never tried or
charged. So we don't know.
But what we do know is that he became the world's longest-serving
political prisoner after Nelson Mandela.
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