Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hints at election amid coronavirus pandemic
- Speaking to local media, Lee said the island nation was ‘going into a very big storm’ and needed ‘the strongest team and mandate’
- His ruling People’s Action Party and other parties have suspended door-to-door campaigning amid tightened social distancing measures
In an interview with local media a day after the government unveiled a mammoth S$48 billion (US$33.4 billion) stimulus package, Lee described the logistical hurdles of conducting an election amid a pandemic as “solvable problems”, adding that he faced a choice between “conducting an election under abnormal circumstances against going into a storm with a mandate which is reaching the end of its term”.
The city state’s political cognoscenti have for weeks been speculating that Lee is leaning heavily towards an extraordinary plan to call elections in late April or May – well ahead of the April 2021 deadline – mindful of his long-ruling PAP’s track record of emphatic wins when polls are held close to times of crisis.
The rumours – which have gone without flat-out refutations from the government – have been partly fuelled by increasingly frequent reports in the PAP-friendly local media about prospective fresh faces in the party. Such publicity is usually accorded in the lead-up to a general election.
Such talk has also triggered criticism that the party is putting political expediency ahead of dealing with the health crisis, but insiders stress that the whole point of early elections is to secure a fresh mandate for a new government to decisively deal with the pandemic and keep the virus-stricken economy from being further ravaged.
