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Snap poll in Singapore

P. S. Suryanarayana

The May 6 election is viewed as an exercise in the politics of stability.

IT IS now virtually a season of "democratic renewal" across much of southeast Asia, except notably in military-ruled Myanmar. And, Singapore's snap general election, scheduled for May 6, acquires unusual importance in this ambience.

An experiment with democracy in the region's most populous country, Indonesia, has not run into any fresh wave of rough weather, with the first directly-elected President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, staying the course of representative politics at this point. In Thailand and the Philippines, the continuing "people power" campaigns are redefining democratic will in ways that are yet to stabilise.

Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not being allowed to take her reign at the helm for granted. Aside from the swirling rumours of coup plots from within the Philippines' military, her political opponents and public interest groups have not given up plans to oust her on the ground that she had usurped power through an alleged electoral fraud.

Thaksin Shinwatra has quit the centre stage in Thailand, acknowledging the message of a massive protest.

At one level, the moves by sections of people to take the `democratic process' into their hands in both the Philippines and Thailand are adding a new dimension to "people power." Viewed from a different perspective, though, the "people-power" protagonists have even sought to de-legitimise and destabilise elective politics in these two democracies.

It is against this background that the May 6 election in Singapore, called by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong well ahead of the due date, can be seen as an exercise in the politics of stability. Singapore is well known for eschewing what its long-reigning People's Action Party (PAP) sees as political extravagance that could undermine the small country's strong economy and delicate social balances.

Significantly, a campaign theme for this poll has had something to do with Singapore's strategies to ride the economic waves being caused by China's undoubted dynamism in this sphere and by the prospects flowing from the `rise' of India too. Mr. Lee has sought to emphasise that the three Opposition entities in the fray — Workers' Party (WP), Singapore Democratic Alliance, and Singapore Democratic Party — have not addressed serious issues such as international terrorism, a key concern in the `global' city-State, and strategies to benefit from, instead of being swept aside by, the rise of China and India.

While India has figured in multiracial Singapore's electoral battle in this fashion, the political system in the world's largest democracy, which is also a major multicultural society, does not attract much attention in the city-state as a worthy model. Whatever the reasons for this, despite the praise that India has received from the high priests of generic democracy in the West, the city-state's political quest is "uniquely Singaporean," a functional phrase that is often in vogue in the economic sphere.

Bearing repetition is the description of Singapore by Michael Leifer, the late guru of southeast Asian studies, as an "exceptional state" that is not constrained by its tiny size. Not surprisingly now, the current election campaign in the city-state is as much about "First World politics" as any economic issue.

The Opposition, which has revived itself after a particularly bad drubbing in the 2001 general election, has now succeeded in forcing a contest for 47 of the 84 parliamentary seats at stake. Of the total seats, nine will be filled from single-member constituencies. The remainder of Parliament will be formed on the basis of results in multi-member GRCs (group representation constituencies).

Mr. Lee, 54, is being challenged in one of these GRCs, with a young woman, Glenda Han, being prominent among the WP's slate. However, the farthest aim of the PAP's opponents, as outlined by a WP leader, is to emerge as a "First World opposition."

The PAP's uninterrupted hold over power for several decades is sometimes likened to the prolonged rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, except for a short spell of less than a year, in Japan, a "First World" country. But, the comparison must end there.

A powerful reality is that the GRCs ensure parliamentary representation for the minorities, Malays, and ethnic Indians, in a political landscape that could, otherwise, be dominated overwhelmingly by the majority population of ethnic Chinese.

Now, while some in the Opposition want the GRCs to go, alternatives such as the Indian electoral way of accommodating the interests of huge minorities, have not had political resonance in the city-state.

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