SINGAPORE, July 15 — Singapore was at its "youth peak” in the recently concluded General Election (GE), with those aged between 25 and 35 forming the biggest bulge in its population pyramid in 2020, Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee pointed out.

And the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) will have to understand this group better to "win back their vote”, she said.  Chan was delivering an online lecture titled "Singapore in a Time of Flux: Optimism from the Jaws of Gloom” on Wednesday (July 15).

This was the last of her lecture series as a S R Nathan fellow with the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), a think-tank at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

 Chan started her lecture with an analysis of the GE2020 results, which saw the PAP lose another Group Representation Constituency (GRC) and garner 61.24 per cent of the popular vote —  a drop from the 69.9 per cent it achieved in GE2015 and its second lowest overall vote share since independence.

 Chan said the younger generation, which she termed the "Zoomer generation”, prefers "personal narratives and ‘I feel your pain’ connectivity, approachability and authenticity”.

She noted: "The Workers’ Party understood this and chose youthful candidates and issues for the Zoomer generation... This online digital politics is now the new retail politics. Up close and personal.”

The GE saw the WP achieve its best ever electoral showing, winning 10 seats including four in the newly-formed Sengkang GRC.

‘Millennials will continue to support diverse voices’

During a press conference held in the wee hours of Saturday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the GE results reflected a desire by younger voters for a greater opposition presence in Parliament.

In her lecture,  Chan reiterated: "Clearly this age group bought the opposition message of the need for diverse voices in Parliament and the need for checks and balances.”

She added that while it has been "conventional wisdom” that people become more conservative as they grow older, the millennials in Singapore will buck this trend as youths elsewhere have already demonstrated a "distinct and increasingly liberal outlook”.

She cited a Pew Research report which suggested that American millennials and Gen Xers are different from the Boomers and the Silent Generation, who are 56 years old and above.

"I expect our millennials will continue to support diverse voices and an opposition in Parliament as a good thing even as they age,” said  Chan.

"They will have specific personal concerns too in different phases of their lives. The incumbent party will have to understand this group better to win back their vote.”

New political culture emerging

 Chan also noted that it was evident that a new political culture is emerging.

"On the one hand is the culture of government which emphasises strong government, effectiveness, a legalistic culture, delivery of public goods and services, and a better life for the people. Critics have characterised the PAP political style as paternalistic,” she said.

"On the other hand, many Singaporeans invoke democracy and want to see Singapore evolve into a full-fledged democracy.”

Read also: GE2020: Sengkang voters hope for new brand of politics, as WP promises ‘the hard work starts tomorrow’

She noted that political commentators have asked "why the PAP is asking for a strong mandate, and why they are not more magnanimous in the treatment of opponents”.

"They would like to see rules applied to all political participants fairly, that gerrymandering be restrained,” she said.

While Singaporeans yearn for democratic competition or competitive politics, they appeared "repulsed” by the competitive mean politics of some Western democracies, she added, noting that educated and younger Singaporeans in particular "do not want to see political overkill”.

 Chan also gave her take on the issues that affected the PAP’s vote share.

These spanned the PAP’s performance as the Government in the last five years, the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the past five months, as well as the nine days of campaigning for GE2020.

She said that voters did not approve of the way the elected presidency was introduced and other policies such as the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.

On the handling of Covid-19, she noted that it was done with a lack of clarity and micromanaging of rules and protocols for businesses, amid growing fears and anxieties about jobs.

And when it came to the hustings, "it was about messaging, communicating and the online presence and savviness of the parties”.

In post-Covid world, Singapore ‘must make room for alternative views’

Following the elections and in a post-Covid world,  Chan questioned if Singapore’s governance model is adequate.

She said that Singapore "must make room for alternative views” as it looks to the future with an ambition of harnessing the new economy and finding unconventional opportunities.

"To harvest the opportunities out there, to think the unthinkable, we must expand intellectual space giving more room for expression to encourage Singaporeans, especially young Singaporeans to be bold, to think differently, think innovatively,” she said.

Adding that the country should "seriously discourage groupthink”, she said: "In a successful bureaucracy, this is even more necessary to allow out-of-the-box thinking within. If our political model needs fixing, it is how to accommodate differences and diverse views in our institutions and our country.”  — TODAY