




Click on below for all you need to know about the basics of General Elections in Singapore. Some of these are external links to unaffiliated resources.
See the Elections Department (ELD) for additional, official resources on voting basics!
Understanding Singapore’s unique electoral environment
With a ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) that has dominated Singapore’s political landscape1 for its entire 60-year history as an independent nation, our electoral system has unique quirks that work for our society and sometimes do not. This makes understanding how democracy works in Singapore difficult, given the lack of public understanding and civic literacy. Our resources below seek to provide a digestible bite-sized explainers and analysis for voters.
What are voters actually voting for?
Unlike other democracies where voters tend to vote along a left-right policy split, Singaporean voter behaviour can be different due to the unique nature of our country’s politics:
- We have a dominant party system: The PAP is one of the longest-ruling political parties in the world, and Singapore has had the same ruling party since even before Independence.2 The PAP also retains a 90% supermajority in Parliament.
- The PAP wants opposition candidates who lost elections to get represented in Parliament.3
- Meanwhile, the main opposition party, the Workers’ Party, has reassured voters that it does not want to win an Election. 4
Click on the following tabs to understand some types of voters in Singapore. Voting behaviours might consist of a combination of these voting patterns.
The Singapore Story voter
The Don’t Rock the Boat voter
The Left-of-Centre voter
The Check and Balance voter
The Single Issue voter
The Party Loyalist
The Don’t-Punish-Me voter
How can we do elections better in Singapore?
Click on the following mini-pages to explore thematic issues and flaws in our electoral system. Some of these issues contribute to criticisms of Singapore’s elections as “free but not fair”. 17
Mega List of Useful GE Resources
Consolidating educational resources across the internet by other citizens, academics, and groups. Click on the arrows to expand!
Basic Voter Information
- Elections Department (ELD) of Singapore: Voter Education resources
- Data.gov.sg’s Interactive Map of Constituencies: You can track constituency changes over time.
- Constituencies’ Background and Demographics: Concise breakdown of last 2 elections’ and demographic profiles
- Comic on different MP schemes and what they do by @illobyangee
More GE Explainers
General:
- Fair or Foul? Electoral Democracy and Boundaries in Singapore – AcademiaSG: Webinar on Electoral Boundaries with NUS Legal Scholar Assoc. Prof. Kevin YL Tan
- What is mandate? (explainer by Academia.SG)
- Bilveer Singh on why it is difficult for Opposition to challenge the PAP’s electoral dominance
- Prof. Netina Tan’s research on how Singapore manipulates the electoral system to “manufacture” its legislative supermajority
- New Naratif article on Singapore’s electoral system and its various issues
- Academic paper exploring the concept of a credibility gap among Opposition parties by Dr. Elvin Ong.
Great general resources
- AcademiaSG: Extensive, free-to-access essays, analysis, commentaries by academics and scholars writing on Singaporean political and civic issues
Further articles and discussion
- More coming soon!
Cause-Specific GE Resources & Scorecards
- Singapore Climate Rally’s Greenwatch Climate Justice Scorecard
- The People’s Manifesto – A manifesto penned by a collection of civil society organisations in Singapore in 2024
- More coming soon!
On-Ground Coverage
- Coming soon!
Party Resources
Released Party Manifestos
All Party Manifestoes (compiled by We The Citizens)
- People’s Action Party (PAP) Manifesto
- Worker’s Party Manifesto (WP)
- Progress Singapore Party (PSP) Manifesto
- People’s Power Party (PPP) Manifesto
- Singapore People’s Party (SPP) Manifesto
- People’s Alliance for Reform Manifesto
- Singapore United Party (SUP) Manifesto
Party Telegram Channels
- Coming soon!
References
- Oliver & Ostwald 2018 ↩︎
- Oliver & Ostwald 2018 ↩︎
- Lee Min Kok, 2016, Straits Times ↩︎
- Ilyda Chua 2024 Mothership ↩︎
- Morganbesser 2017, p. 210 ↩︎
- Barr 2014 ↩︎
- Chua, 2017. p. 173 ↩︎
- Abdullah 2018, p. 476 and Oliver & Ostwald 2018 ↩︎
- Cheang & Choy 2024 ↩︎
- Oliver & Ostwald 2018, p. 7 ↩︎
- Abdullah 2018, p. 480 ↩︎
- https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/ips/st_voters-is-a-freak-election-likely_011114.pdf ↩︎
- Tan & Grofman 2018, p. 280 ↩︎
- Tan & Grofman 2018, p. 283 ↩︎
- https://sg.news.yahoo.com/aljunied-voters-will-regret-choosing-wp–mm-lee.html ↩︎
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2023.2191191?src=&journalCode=fdem20 ↩︎
- Tan, Netina. “Manipulating electoral laws in Singapore.” Electoral studies 32.4 (2013): 632-643. ↩︎