Singapore’s ruling party lost
a by- election in the opposition-controlled northeastern Hougang district,
failing to prove it can recoup support after winning last year’s national vote
with the smallest ever margin.
Png Eng
Huat, a 50-year-old businessman from the Workers’ Party, yesterday defeated ruling People’s Action Party candidate
Desmond Choo, 34, a trade union official. Png won 62.1 percent of valid votes
for the seat left vacant after Yaw Shin Leong was expelled by the Workers’
Party in February for “indiscretions in his private life.”
Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong's People’s Action Party, or PAP, has
struggled to reinvent itself since returning to power in May last year with the
smallest victory since independence in 1965. After yesterday’s vote Lee
reiterated a pledge to change the way the party governs a population that
opinion surveys show is most concerned with issues such as high living costs
and an influx of foreign residents.
“The
PAP government has done its best to address important national issues like
housing and transportation, immigration and population, economic upgrading and
workers’ incomes,” Lee said in a statement after yesterday’s vote. “We have
made progress, but there is much more to be done.”
While
candidates campaigned for the by-election on local issues such as improving
public housing, a survey of 50 residents by Today newspaper this month showed a
majority of residents are concerned with national policies, including the cost of
living and the influx of foreigners.
‘Shelf
Life’
“There
may be a need to revisit issues and policies with an out-of-the-box approach,”
Eugene Tan, an assistant law professor at the Singapore
Management University and a member of parliament who has no voting rights, said by
phone today of the PAP. “The Hougang voters, the way they voted may indicate
that policy tweaks are not enough.”
About
23,000 people, or 1 percent of the electorate, were eligible to vote in the
Hougang district. Png got 13,447 out of 21,951 ballots cast, of which 294 were
considered spoiled votes, Returning Officer Yam Ah Mee said in a national
broadcast. Choo received 8,210 votes.
“It is
a very good result given the circumstances,” Workers’ Party Secretary-General
Low Thia Khiang said late yesterday at a press conference that was broadcast
nationally. “We value every vote,” he said.
While
yesterday’s poll was a barometer of support for government policies, Lee’s
party still controls parliament with 81 of the 87 seats. The PAP has
governed the country since 1959.
Immigration
Policies
The
government is under pressure to placate voters without disrupting the arrival
of talent and labor that helped forge the only advanced economy in Southeast Asia. In the
past year, Lee’s government has implemented stricter immigration policies and
cut ministerial pay.
The
administration has raised property taxes for non- Singaporeans and accelerated
construction of housing. Lee also made permanent a program to provide cash,
utility rebates and medical funds for the elderly and low-income households.
The government is subsidizing bus companies’ purchases of new vehicles to
reduce crowding on public transport and adding hospital beds.
More
than a third of Singapore’s 5.2 million population is made up of foreigners and
expatriate permanent residents, and efforts to reduce the inflow of workers
since 2010 have had little effect. The foreign workforce has grown 7.5 percent
annually over the last two years, Finance Minister Tharman
Shanmugaratnam said in February as he imposed new rules on the percentage
of overseas labor that companies are allowed.
To
contact the reporters on this story: Shamim Adam in Singapore at sadam2@bloomberg.net;
Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net
To
contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net
Bloomberg
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