Election is not a game — nation's future at stake: PM

SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong today (Sept 1) set the stage for the hustings, saying he expected a tough fight before Singaporeans go to the polls in 10 days, and issuing a pointed reminder to voters that this election is “not a game”, but one in which the future direction of the country is at stake.

With all 89 seats set to be contested for the first time since Independence, Mr Lee, who is also secretary-general of the People’s Action Party (PAP), said the party is taking people’s concerns seriously, as well as their outlook in a ‘new world’, and that it will take every fight seriously.

In fact, said Mr Lee, he told the PAP’s candidates yesterday: “If you are in a PAP ward, fight as if you can lose. If you are in an opposition ward, fight with the conviction that you can win.”

Speaking at a party press conference held at PAP headquarters in New Upper Changi Road this evening, Mr Lee was joined by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim, Senior Minister of State (Transport and Finance) Josephine Teo and Senior Minister of State (Law and Education) Indranee Rajah.

Returning to a theme he and other party leaders have touched on often in recent weeks, Mr Lee said that voters will be choosing Singapore’s next team of leaders, as well as the nation’s future direction, when they head to polling centres on Sept 11. This, he said, is a task that “gets more urgent every day” as he and his team grow older.

Singapore, which been special since its birth 50 years ago, is now at a turning point, Mr Lee said, “It’s been an upward journey, an exhilarating trip, but where do we go now? Continue up, level off, or go down? And this is the election at the turning point which I have called to get a mandate to get to decide with Singaporeans how we want to take the country forward. And naturally, our view is the country will go up and onwards to SG100. Therefore, it’s an election where there’s a lot at stake.”

There are many who are watching to see if it remains on an upward trajectory, he said, including foreign powers, neighbours, investors or analysts,

He added: “The government, leadership team and direction that we take - those three things are how we continue, and those three things are what we are asking voters to think about.”

Referring to a recent report which had likened Singapore to a unicorn - one-of-a-kind, miraculous, and with unique solutions - he said the question is whether it will remain one, or whether it will “become ordinary, just like everyone else”.

That possibility, Mr Lee said, is not beyond the realm of belief. Singapore is not a different kind of being, neither is it immortal, he said, and it faces the same problems that other countries are grappling with, such as income inequality, problems with immigration, and anxieties about population and of the middle class.

“It is not at all inconceivable that we can become quite ordinary like any other country, and this election will show which way we are going,” he said.

In taking questions from the press, which ranged from whether the PAP’s repeated questions on the finances of the Workers’ Party-run Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council would backfire to what younger voters expect, the Prime Minister would not be drawn into commenting on what he would consider a good result come dawn on Sept 12.

He declined to put up a number on what he would consider a good mandate, and when asked whether retaining the status quo would be deemed positive, said: “I don’t think it is at all productive at the beginning of a campaign to try to define what is a good win and what is not a good win. We go in to do the best that we can, and to convince Singaporeans that we deserve their trust and that they ought to give us their support.”

Mrs Teo, who took the question on younger voters, said they are not that different from their parents, with the majority wanting the same things as their parents’ generation - a better life for themselves. “If we are able to capture their aspirations and to help them find ways to fulfil it, then I think this Government remains relevant to the younger generation of voters,” she said, adding that programmes such as SkillsFuture would help in this regard.

Nevertheless, to better meet the demands of younger voters, the PAP has been updating its outreach efforts, such as consulting Singaporeans when it comes to policy formulation and reaching out to younger Singaporeans on platforms they are more familiar with, such as social media, she said.

GE2015 will be the first time those who were born after 1965 will make up the majority of the electorate.

On its manifesto, titled “With You, For You and For Singapore”, which was released on Saturday, Ms Indranee noted that the PAP is the only party that has both a national manifesto as well as local manifestos at each GRC and SMC level.

The party’s national manifesto is also a people’s manifesto, she said, pointing out that feedback during the Our Singapore Conversation can be found in “some shape or form in what has been done in the past five years”, and the vision going forward was drawn from what Singaporeans said to the Government.

“The last five years have really been the work of the PAP with the people,” she concluded.