PAP admits upgrading link swung
vote in GE
Straits Times. Jan 12, 1998
LINKING the upgrading programme to electoral support was the "single
most important" factor in the vote swing to the People's Action Party
in the last general election, said party secretary general Goh Chok Tong
yesterday.
Outlining four key lessons from the GE, Mr Goh, who is also prime minister said: "It was decisive in tipping the floating voters in our favour.
"By linking the priority of upgrading to electoral support, we focus the minds of voters on the link between upgrading and the people whose policies make it possible. This has the desired result."
He was giving his fullest assessment, so far, of what the party learnt from the January 1997 polls, in which it swept 65 per cent of the valid votes, up from 61 per cent in 1991.
The need to package programmes so that people felt "directly rewarded", he said, was especially important for floating voters, in particular, the young and first-timers.
He rejected what he called the "naive" view that it was wrong to link national programmes to votes, saying that in a democracy, most people cared for narrow self-interests.
It was also in the national interest to rejuvenate older estates, as it made them more pleasant to live in, increased their value and encouraged people to "stay put" and not move to newer estates.
It was "natural" for the PAP to garner self-interests for national interests. "This way, we use self-interests to advance national interests, and vice versa."
He highlighted three other lessons from the GE:
Potentially hot issues, such as health-care costs, ministerial salaries and rising property prices were debated openly early enough.
"By the time the GE arrived, they were no more hot issues. There was nothing new which the opposition parties could tell the voters. The rice had been fried and re-fried and gone cold," he said.
The PAP worked closely with MPs to tackle ground problems, ranging from lack of wet markets to parking woes, way before the GE. Each MP also drew up a list of local projects, which he promised to deliver if elected.
This, he said, was "most crucial". An anchorman in the form of a Minister in Group Representation Constituencies acted like "a magnet" for votes, as "voters generally want to have a minister in their constituency".
He said the enlargement of some GRCs from five to six MPs each helped the party, but only because there were strong ministers and good candidates.
In fact, a GRC could cut both ways, as seen from the hot contest for Cheng San GRC.
"Determined campaigning by the opposition can produce an upset," he warned.