RULING PARTY TILTS FUNHOUSE MIRROR TO MAKE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SINGAPORE 000520 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MTS - M. COPPOLA NEW DELHI FOR J. EHRENDREICH E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/03/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM SN SUBJECT: RULING PARTY TILTS FUNHOUSE MIRROR TO MAKE OPPOSITION LOOK BIGGER REF: SINGAPORE 164 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Daniel Shields for reasons 1.4(b,d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong announced on May 27 plans for three reforms intended to enhance the quantity and quality of debate in Singapore's Parliament. For the next elections, due by early 2012, the government will increase the minimum number of opposition members in Parliament and will redraw the electoral map to make it slightly easier for opposition parties to contest more districts. It will also institutionalize the system of appointed non-partisan members who bring alternative points of view to the legislative body. These announcements come six months after the PM said Singapore needs continued strong government by the long-ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and would suffer under a true multi-party system. Reaction from Singapore's small, fractured opposition was mixed. A leading opposition parliamentarian told Poloff the proposed changes suit the PAP's immediate interests but may still be a positive step for the opposition in the long run. Others rejected them as theater. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Comment: The proposed changes are largely cosmetic and will not disturb the structural advantages that have helped the PAP maintain control of Singapore's government for decades. Given its continued supermajority, electoral gerrymandering, and the ability to squelch troublesome oppositionists by extra-parliamentary means like defamation lawsuits, the PAP need not worry what opposition activists or bloggers think, but it remains watchful for signs of wider popular discontent. Its decision to stage-manage a slight increase in the opposition's prominence likely results from two calculations. First, the PAP recognizes that ordinary Singaporeans, especially young adults, want more vigorous debate of national issues, and it is honoring that desire in a way that preserves PAP dominance. Second, though the changes could be a platform for the long-term electoral success of capable opponents, the PAP is reasonably confident that the opposition will remain too divided, inept, and fearful to capitalize on the chance. ¶3. (C) Comment, continued: The proposed reforms will require constitutional and statutory changes and a redrawing of voting districts before the next election. Their main short-term significance is probably as a sign that the PAP now believes it can manage the popular reaction to the economic crisis and is moving away from calling early elections (see reftel). End Comment. Planned Political Evolution Under One-Party Hegemony -------------- -------------- ¶4. (U) Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong announced plans for three structural adjustments to Singapore's Parliament in a speech delivered there on May 27. Declaring that Singaporeans "want national issues to be more fully debated and ... increasingly want to participate in this discussion," the PM said his government will increase the minimum number of opposition members in Parliament, make it easier for opposition parties to contest more electoral districts, and institutionalize the system of appointed non-partisan members who bring alternative points of view to the legislative body. ¶5. (U) Rejecting sporadic calls to move from a first-past-the-post system to proportional representation, the PM reminded voters they need a strong and decisive government to supervise Singapore's potentially fractious multiracial and multireligious society and to guide the country through its "dynamic and unpredictable" regional environment. His comments recalled a November 2008 speech in which he told cadres of the long-ruling People's Action Party (PAP) that Singapore is better off with one dominant party and that any real change will have to come from within the PAP. ¶6. (C) Diverse commentators have noted the limited reach of the reforms. Aaron Maniam, deputy director of strategic policy in the Prime Minister's Office, agreed in a conversation with Poloff that the government's plan is fairly characterized as a minor tweaking of the existing political framework. Sylvia Lim, chairman of the opposition Workers' Party, told Poloff the changes suit the PAP's immediate interests by allowing critics of the government to "vent" harmlessly. Next Parliament Will Have at Least Nine Opposition Members -------------- -------------- SINGAPORE 00000520 002 OF 003 ¶7. (U) Under the proposed reforms, the minimum number of opposition members of Parliament will increase from three to nine (just over 10% of the 84 elected seats). Since 1984, Singapore has guaranteed that at least some opposition candidates will be seated after an election: if fewer than the minimum number win at the polls, the electoral system seats the opposition candidates who garnered the highest losing vote percentages as "non-constituency" members (NCMPs). Although NCMPs can introduce and vote on ordinary bills, they cannot vote on constitutional amendments, bills relating to taxation, government borrowing, or appropriations, the annual budget, or no-confidence motions against the government. As their name suggests, NCMPs do not have constituents to whom they can render services. ¶8. (U) The potential expansion of NCMP ranks will introduce more opposition voices into Parliament without significantly threatening the PAP's long-standing supermajority. In the current Parliament, opposition parties hold two of the 84 elected seats, with the mandatory third opposition member seated as an NCMP. If the proposed scheme had been in effect for the 2006 election, the opposition would still hold two elected seats, and the PAP would still hold the other 82, but there would be seven opposition NCMPs instead of just one. Under those circumstances, the PAP would retain its ability to manage the parliamentary calendar and debates, control all government ministries, pass legislation unchecked, and amend the constitution at will. ¶9. (C) If, as some on-line commentators have suggested, the proposed reforms are partly intended to sow more discord among the divided opposition, they may already be succeeding. The Workers' Party would now hold six out of seven NCMP seats, had the proposed system been in place in 2006. Workers' Party chairman (and the sole current NCMP) Sylvia Lim told Poloff she supports the change despite the limitations of NCMPs, because simply having more members participating in debates and functioning in the public eye will help the party publicize its positions, show organizational strength, attract public support, and perhaps win regular seats in future elections. But political blogger Ng E-Jay, previously affiliated with the Reform Party, lambasted the Workers' Party's "capitulation," arguing that the reform is a "gambit" to convince voters they can have alternative voices in Parliament without actually voting for the opposition. The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) of Chee Soon Juan came out against the plan for the same reason, calling it a "wayang exercise" in a mocking reference to the Indonesian shadow-puppet play. Slightly Lower Barriers to Entry at Next Election -------------- -------------- ¶10. (U) The reform proposals will also make marginal changes to Singapore's electoral map. There are currently nine traditional "single-member constituencies" (SMCs),where the voters send one member to Parliament, and fourteen "group representation constituencies" (GRCs),where voters choose a single-party slate of five or six members. The PM's May 27 speech announced that the number of SMCs will rise from nine to twelve, and the average size of the remaining GRCs will shrink from 5.4 to five MPs at the next election. The PM defended the fundamental concept of the GRC, which ensures minority representation in Parliament by requiring each slate to include at least one member of Singapore's Malay, Indian, or other ethnic minorities. ¶11. (U) Many observers point to the continual expansion of the GRCs as one reason for the consistently poor electoral performance of the small opposition parties, who complain of difficulty in fielding the required slates of multiple candidates. In 1988, there were 13 GRCs accounting for 39 of 81 elected MPs, and each GRC required only three candidates. Opposition parties contested 10 of those GRCs, and only 13 percent of eligible voters were in "walkover" constituencies -- i.e., constituencies where the PAP won automatically, without an election, because the opposition was unable to field a slate. By 2006, there were 14 GRCs accounting for 75 of 84 elected MPs, and each GRC required an average of 5.4 candidates. Opposition parties were able to contest only half the GRCs, and over 43 percent of eligible voters found themselves in PAP "walkover" districts and never had a chance to vote. ¶12. (U) Opposition commentators appear to agree that keeping the GRCs in any form disadvantages parties other than the PAP, but they are otherwise divided on how to respond to the SINGAPORE 00000520 003 OF 003 proposed reforms. The Workers' Party welcomed the changes as a step in the right direction. The SDP rejected the reform as inadequate, repeating its long-standing demand for complete abolition of the GRC system. The longest-serving opposition MP, Chiam See Tong of the Singapore People's Party, staked out a middle position by calling for 20 two-member GRCs, with the rest of the country reverting to single-member constituencies. Nominated MPs to Become Permanent Feature -------------- ¶13. (U) The PM's May 27 speech also announced the permanence of the "nominated member of Parliament" (NMP) system that has been in place, on a "provisional" basis, for almost 20 years. NMPs are non-partisan members intended to bring alternative viewpoints into parliamentary debate and help make up for the absence of strong opposition parties. They are appointed by the President on the advice of Parliament, serve fixed 30-month terms, and have the same voting limitations as NCMPs (see paragraph 7). Until now, each new Parliament has had to decide whether to appoint NMPs and how many to appoint. Under the announced plan, NMPs will be institutionalized so that there are always nine of them, the same number seated in the current Parliament. ¶14. (U) In addition to fixing the number of NMPs, the government will draw them from a slightly expanded candidate pool. Parliament's selection committee has traditionally accepted nominations from the general public but has also solicited them from six interest groups: culture and the arts, including sports; business and industry; the professions; social and community organizations; the labor movement; and the higher education sector. The PM announced that, starting with the NMP selection round to take place in 2011, the government will solicit nominations from civil society organizations in a bid to "encourage civil society to grow and to mature." Visit Embassy Singapore's Classified website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eap/singapore/ind ex.cfm SHIELDS