Further in his speech, Goh said,

Ideally, our political system should facilitate the emergence of a strong, effective government after every election and a responsible, constructive opposition.

-- ibid

Well, the system signally works in an opposite way. It tends to produce an arrogant government, complacent in its huge parliamentary majority and a starved opposition without the resources to be truly constructive, let alone be a possible alternative government.

He thought differently, however. Arguing that the PAP is aware that fortunes can turn anytime, Goh said, 

If the PAP fails to perform or if it loses the trust of the people, it will also suddenly lose big. That is why the PAP government has never taken its large majority in Parliament for granted, and has always responded robustly to any allegations of impropriety.

-- ibid

The last sentence I find revealing. It suggests firstly, a certain defensiveness about the way it pummels critics, and secondly, the party's true thinking: If the system now produces an undeservedly large  parliamentary majority in their favour, then the response shall be to ensure that the Opposition must never come near to putting that majority in jeopardy, rather than change the system to a fairer one.

 
GRCs widely unpopular

Goh's reference to Singapore's electoral system as "Westminister" (bold above) struck me as a joke. He is conveniently ignoring the perverse effects of the Group Representation Constituencies, a feature quite unknown in Britain.

The GRC cancer has three perverse effects:

Firstly, it makes it even harder than in the case of single-member constituencies, for an opposition party to win. See the data in The mathematics of elections 2. The averaging effect of a large constituency deprives interest minorities of effective representation.

Secondly, when the chances of ever winning a GRC are so low, it discourages opposition parties from putting up candidates in them.

Thirdly, when opposition parties do not even contest GRCs, large numbers of Singaporeans do not even get a chance to vote.

As the Straits Times recounted in yesterday's story:

As larger GRCs took shape, the share of constituencies where the PAP enjoyed walkovers also rose, from 13.6 per cent in 1988 to a whopping 64.7 per cent in 2001.

In that year's general election, only 33 per cent of eligible voters had a chance to cast their ballots.

-- Straits Times, 2 August 2008, GRCs: 20 years on

In the same story, the newspaper pointed out how unpopular the GRC system is:

GRC critics like them could make up close to half of the voting population, going by an Insight straw poll of 100 Singaporeans of voting age carried out this week.

If given a choice, they would opt for smaller GRCs or more single-seat wards.

-- ibid

The fact that there was a two-page spread in the Straits Times was interesting. The newspaper, always attuned to sotto voce messages within government speeches, seemed to read significance into Goh's statement:

But as our society evolves and the needs of the electorate change, our political system must continue to move in step. The status quo cannot last forever. 

-- Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister, 26 July 2008, speech at Hougang constituency National Day dinner

The newspaper asked whether GRCs might morph again, reporting that Goh had "sparked speculation" with his speech.

 
What if the Workers' Party loses people's faith?

Straits Times editor Paul Jacob, in his commentary, noted that based on online comments, the Worker's Party, which inspired quite a lot of enthusiasm in the 2006 general election, is coming in for flak for its "muted performance" in Parliament since,

While the People's Action Party (PAP) has so far been comfortable with mild opposition politicians like Singapore Democratic Alliance's Chiam See Tong, now getting on in years, and the Workers' Party's Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim, this situation may not last. If the electorate sees them as too restrained, the Worker's Party may lose support the next time around.

This means that the likely beneficiary of this disappointed crowd is the likes of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and some of those in its leadership, like Dr Chee Soon Juan -- notwithstanding his bankruptcy and the legal action against him.

I don't expect that this situation sits well with the PAP.

-- Straits Times, 26 July 2008, Watching, waiting for a second awakening, by Paul Jacob

Indeed, history has many examples of such trends. In any political system, when moderate dissenters make no headway, whether because the dominant power still chooses to crush them, or whether they get co-opted, then the dissatisfied will begin to see the attractiveness of more radical, combative leaders and ideology.

Does the PAP really read things this way? It's impossible to say. If the government is really thinking about twisting the electoral system again, which way will it go? Someone suggested to me last night that it may be sized up to eight-member GRCs. I'm not sure where he got that idea.

Possibly, GRCs may be sized back down to three- or four-member groupings like they were in the early years, thus going some way towards meeting the complaints of opposition parties and large numbers of voters.

It is extremely unlikely, I will concede, that they will be abandoned altogether, though it's what I have consistently argued for through the years. You can sense this when you look at the (flimsy) justifications put out by PAP Members of Parliament that the Straits Times interviewed.

"Until we are 110 per cent sure that we are truly race-blind, that compensation, to ensure the minority does not feel sidelined, is very necessary." -- Michael Palmer

"[R]acial or religious-based politics can rear its ugly head in that critical short span of time" -- Masagos Zulkifli.

 
Aren't GRCs essential for minority-race representation?

Even if we believe that minority-race representation is important in the legislature (and I myself do), we are intellectual morons when we talk as if the GRC system is the only means to that end. For example, in a proportional voting system, which I have for years been advocating as an add-on to our political system, a provision can also be made for minority-race representation.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with what proportional representation (PR) is, let me explain briefly:

It is a system where political parties put up lists of candidates for the country as a whole. Voters in the entire country choose the party in the election, not the individual candidate, and the number of seats awarded to any particular party will be based on the percentage of votes that the party gets.

For example, if there are 90 seats available in a PR system, and Party A wins 60% of the vote, then Party A gets 54 seats (60% of 90 seats available) based on the first 54 candidates in its party list. If Party B gets 22% of the votes, then the first 23% of Party B's list gets into parliament (21 members).

The best thing about a PR system, particularly with respect to the Singapore experience, is that everybody now gets a chance to vote and the distribution of seats in Parliament resembles the distribution of preferences in an electorate.

However, I have never argued for Singapore to be 100% PR, because it has been argued that PR does not tend to produce stable majorities therefore making effective government difficult. Although I'm not aware of any good studies that prove this point -- in fact New Zealand and Israel are two countries with PR and they don't strike me as unstable in any way -– it may be prudent to allow for the possibility.

For this reason, I have argued that Singapore should have half the seats in parliament elected Westminster-style in single-member constituencies, and half by PR. In my 1999 article, I suggested 50 single-member constituencies plus 50 seats allocated through proportional representation. More lately, I have argued for keeping all 84 existing constituencies (but as single-member ones), adding another 84 PR seats, making a total of 168 MPs.

But how would we ensure minority-race representation through PR?

Simple. We could require all parties putting up candidate lists to ensure that for every consecutive set of 5 candidates, one of them must be minority-race. Then, party lists may look like this (all names are fictional):

We shouldn't be fooled into thinking that GRCs are the only way to be sensitive to minority-race citizens. It's only one of many possible ways, but also, it's one with very deleterious effects on the health of a democracy.

© Yawning Bread