[photo credit: The Economist]
The opposition has a 50-50 chance of forming government at the next general election. This also means that the PAP has a 50 percent chance of falling out of favour with Singaporeans.
Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong is right when he said on Sunday that the next general election is a "deadly serious" fight and that it is about who forms government.
The three general elections since 2001 give Singaporeans a guide as to how the results at the next general election might be shaped.
From the 2001 to 2006 general election, the PAP saw its vote share dropped from 75.3 percent to 66.6 percent.
From 2006 to 2011, this fell from 66.6 percent to 60.1 percent.
In the 2006 general election, for the constituencies which did not see major boundary changes, the PAP saw an average swing of 10 percent of the votes away from it, from the 2001 general election.
The swing ranged from 13.1 percent in the Nee Soon Central SMC to 5.2 percent at the Jalan Besar GRC that the PAP lost.
The average vote swing in the 2006 general election of 10 percent in these constituencies also coincided with the roughly 10 percent swing that the PAP garnered on a national level.
In 2006, the PAP did not change the boundaries of the constituencies drastically. And if the PAP took away any lesson, it was that if they did not gerrymander, the vote swing will drop drastically as well, and clearly reflect the people's voting behaviour.
As such, in the 2011 general election, PAP changed many of the boundaries of the constituencies. They did not want to repeat the same "accident" where votes fell dramatically.
Boundary changes were then implemented on a wider scale again to create confusion among the voters, so that the vote swing will be lesser.
But one thing that remained the same was that there was still an average of a 10 percent swing of votes away from the PAP in constituencies that remained largely the same.
For example, there was a 9.1 percent swing away from the PAP in the East Coast GRC and a 11.3 percent swing in the Tampines GRC.
However, on a national level, the swing of votes from the PAP was only 6.5 percent. The gerrymandering and the changing of the boundaries might have allowed the PAP to preserve some percentage points.
Thus if a clear lesson can be learnt from the 2001 to 2006 and to the 2011 general elections, it is that the PAP has continuously seen a 10 percent swing in votes away from it at each subsequent election.
As such, it is likely that the PAP will also see a 10 percent vote swing away from it at the next general election.
In the 2011 general election, PAP only garnered 60.1 percent nationwide. If the trend continues, the PAP might only see itself getting only 50 percent of the votes, with the opposition getting the other half.
This would give the opposition a clear chance of being able to form the government, to bring Singapore into the a new future.
However, this is bearing any gerrymandering. Knowing how the PAP operates, it will gerrymander at the next general election which will allow it to take some points back.
However, this is where Singaporeans come in. The 2011 swing in votes showed more consistency as to the 2006 swing, where Singaporeans were more consistent across the country to vote away from the PAP. This reflected the general rise in sentiment against the PAP, as the cost of living increased, healthcare costs increased, housing prices remain unaffordable while wages remained stagnant, leading to a drop in confidence with the PAP nationwide.
Thus Mr Lee is right to say that "Every seat, every GRC, every SMC will be contested. Every seat, every contest will be a national contest, not a local one."
There is enough anger on the ground that the voting sentiment will be shared similarly across every voter, meaning Singaporeans are likely to vote in unison.
If so, there is every chance that the opposition will be able to form government - and for this to happen, will depend on the consistency of the Singaporean voter to hold firm and not sway for a new beginning to rise in Singapore.
Roland Wong
TRS Contributor