Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

All necessary precautions will be taken if GE is held before Covid-19 pandemic ends: PM Lee

SINGAPORE — Pointing out that there is no telling when the Covid-19 pandemic will end, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spelt out the scenarios with regard to when the next General Election (GE) should be held.
And if the polls were to be held before the pandemic is over, all the necessary precautions will be taken, “so that parties can campaign effectively, and people can vote safely”, Mr Lee said on Facebook on Saturday (March 14).

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at a dialogue with grassroots leaders on Saturday (March 14). Photo: MCI

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at a dialogue with grassroots leaders on Saturday (March 14). Photo: MCI

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — Pointing out that there is no telling when the Covid-19 pandemic will end, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spelt out the scenarios with regard to when the next General Election (GE) should be held. 

And if the polls were to be held before the pandemic is over, all the necessary precautions will be taken, “so that parties can campaign effectively, and people can vote safely”, Mr Lee said on Facebook on Saturday (March 14).

The GE must take place before April 21 next year, and Mr Lee noted that the polls can only be called after the electoral registers are updated. “This will take about a month,” he said.

On Friday, hours after the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) released its report, the Elections Department announced that the lists of Singaporeans eligible to vote at the next GE have been prepared and are open for public inspection from Saturday to March 27.

Mr Lee said: “At stake are jobs, businesses and lives. Which way to go, and the elections date, will depend on what will best see Singapore through this major crisis.”

He added: “Covid-19 may well turn out to be the crisis that defines this generation of Singaporeans. We must gird ourselves to overcome this together, and show the world what Singapore can do.” 

The release of the EBRC report came about seven months after the committee was formed. It marks the penultimate step before Parliament can be dissolved for the GE, which must be called before April next year.

On when to hold the elections, Mr Lee said on Saturday that it “depends on the situation, and the outlook”. 

He spelt out the two choices: “Either hope and pray that things will stabilise before the end of the term so that we can hold elections under more normal circumstances — but we have no certainty of that.

“Or else call elections early, knowing that we are going into a hurricane, to elect a new government with a fresh mandate and a full term ahead of it, which can work with Singaporeans on the critical tasks at hand.”

Mr Lee said he held a dialogue on Saturday morning with grassroots leaders on Covid-19 and what lies ahead for Singapore. This was after he gave a televised update on the situation on Thursday. 

He said: “Fighting Covid-19 is difficult enough. But we also need to deal with Covid-19’s enormous impact on our economy.

He added: “We can’t tell when the pandemic will end, but it will likely last at least this year, and quite possibly longer.

The economic hit will likely be more serious than the Global Financial Crisis, and longer-lasting too, even beyond the end of the pandemic. I fully expect things to get more serious before they start getting better.”

Related topics

SGVotes2020 Covid-19 coronavirus General Election GE Lee Hsien Loong

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.