“Every election is the PAP’s to lose”: Ex-NMP Calvin Cheng on Singapore’s political scene

As GE2025 draws near, an increasing number of politicians and thought leaders have begun voicing their perspectives on Singapore’s political landscape.

In a recent episode of The Daily Ketchup, former Nominated Member of Parliament Calvin Cheng shared his insights on crucial factors shaping voter decisions and his predictions for the upcoming elections.

Here are some key takeaways from the podcast:

1) PAP’s dominance is an “anomaly” in a FPTP Westminster system

Calvin started off strong, asserting that “every election is the PAP’s to lose” from now on.

He explained that the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) current dominance—holding over 90% of the seats in Parliament—is an “anomaly” in a First Past The Post (FPTP) Westminster system, primarily due to the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew and the pioneering leaders, who transformed the nation from the third world to the first.

They brought Singapore from the third world to first, and there was still a certain cachet to that generation. But it’s an anomaly, so it’s not going to hold.

Given how Singapore’s political landscape has evolved over the years, the city-state is now in the “early days” of the rise of a second dominant party—and right now, it seems “very likely” that the Workers’ Party (WP) will fill that role.

Calvin also pointed out that once a second party becomes established, a third party would struggle to gain traction.

“If any party wants to challenge them, they need to [do it] right now, because once the second party gets into that dominant position, in the First Past The Post system, there cannot be a third—it’s almost unlikely for there to be a third party.”

He argued that it’s naive to assume opposition unity, as each party has its own “brand, manifesto, and principles.”

However, Calvin believes that the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) could stand a chance against WP, but remains skeptical about the party’s ability to “sustain” itself, as it seems “very reliant on the persona of its founder,” Dr. Tan Cheng Bock.

[PSP] is very similar to the old Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). They were so reliant on [founder] Chiam See Tong’s personality that once he left, the party fell apart, whereas [former WP chief] Low Thia Kiang has very successfully handed over the baton to a new generation.

2) What matters most to Singaporean voters

That aside, the decisive factor in elections—whether in Singapore or globally—ultimately comes down to bread and butter issues.

Bread and butter issues are always top concerns for voters, and the PAP could face challenges in future elections due to cost of living concerns, especially because voters are more likely to “remember the impact of past inflation and GST hikes, even if inflation has decreased.”

However, timing also plays a crucial role.

If you look at the American election when the Democrats were running, Biden kept saying, ‘hey, you know, inflation has come down,’ which was true—by the time they were running, inflation had come down. But that’s not what people feel, they remember what happened two or three years before that.

For instance, core inflation in Singapore dropped to 0.8% in January and further dipped to 0.6% in February, but Calvin noted that “people are not going to feel that at the moment. They’re going to remember that prices were going up, they suffered from inflation, they remember the GST increases.”

“So, in my opinion, if PAP waits longer, they’ll have better chances as Singaporeans feel the effects of lower inflation,” he shared.

Compared to economic concerns, cultural issues, such as the impact of the 377A repeal, on the other hand, play a less decisive role in Singapore’s elections.

“I don’t think we have reached a stage where these cultural issues are make or break yet. People are not going to vote on single issues,” he added.

3) Does gerrymandering work in Singapore?

On March 11, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (ERBC) announced major changes to Singapore’s electoral divisions ahead of GE2025, leaving only five Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) and four Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) unchanged from the previous election.

This has sparked criticism from the opposition, with some accusing the government of gerrymandering.

However, Calvin argued that gerrymandering is unlikely to be effective in Singapore due to the country’s lack of demographic clusters—it only works when certain groups are concentrated in specific areas, like in the US or UK, where race or class divides are prominent.

For example, in America there are black neighborhoods, there are white neighborhoods. In the UK, there are working-class neighborhoods, there are middle class neighborhoods, but in Singapore because of our very intentional policy of mixing, we do not have these demographic clusters.

[Hence], it’s almost impossible to gerrymander because you cannot draw the constituencies in a certain way where you know for sure that they are more likely to vote in a certain way because of the demographics.

Rather than gerrymandering, the key issue, in Calvin’s opinion, is the late announcement of the electoral boundaries, which hampers smaller opposition parties.

He explained that the PAP has the resources to cover the entire island, but smaller opposition parties struggle because they don’t know the boundaries in advance, making it harder for them to effectively campaign.

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In the podcast with The Daily Ketchup, Calvin has also shared his insights on the strengths of the opposition, the role of the media in politics and the reintroduction of physical rallies.

You can watch the full episode here:

Featured Image Credit: Screengrab from The Daily Ketchup, designed by Vulcan Post