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‘No better window’: will Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong call elections in July?
- With six months left before the government’s term ends, analysts are predicting that elections will be called in July, as soon as the second phase of the economy’s reopening kicks in
- But there are questions over whether voters will accept the PAP’s urgency to call the vote, and the opposition wants more clarity on pandemic-era campaigning
Reading Time:6 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
It is not just Singapore’s businesses that could be coming out of hibernation in the coming weeks, going by what the city state’s political soothsayers are saying.
Doing the rounds in the chattering classes this week were predictions that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may be eyeing holding a much-awaited general election in July – well ahead of earlier forecasts that he would do so only after the country’s National Day celebrations in August.
But with the real risk of a future wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and job losses worsening, the conventional wisdom now is that the prime minister – whose government’s term ends in January – will seek to dissolve parliament at the earliest opportunity.
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Over the last few days, that window of opportunity has been sketched out by local media and political commentators to be mid or late July.
The Straits Times on Saturday suggested polling day could fall on July 11, after the dissolution of parliament on June 24 and a nine-day campaigning period beginning July 1. It said July 25-26 was an alternative window for the election.
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By that point, Singapore would have entered the second phase of the government’s three-phased plan to fully reopen the economy following the coronavirus-linked partial lockdown in place since April 7. Phase one of the reopening begins on Tuesday.
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