GE 2015 'most competitive' for ruling PAP

Singapore's 2015 General Election (GE 2015) has been described as the most competitive for the ruling People's Action Party since the republic's independence, said Ong Keng Yong, executive deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

He said this was because in the past, some of the constituencies were not contested.

"So, this is also the first time, post-Lee Kuan Yew (era) where it will be exciting elements to the whole proceedings (of the election)," Ong, who is also ambassador-at-large told Bernama.

GE 2015 will see candidates contesting in all the 89 seats in 29 electoral divisions, come polling day on Sept 11.

The electoral divisions comprise 16 Group Representation Constituencies (GRC) and 13 Single Member Constituencies (SMC).

The eight other parties contesting the general election are the Workers Party (WP), Singapore People's Party (SPP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), National Solidarity Party (NSP), Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), Reform Party (RP), Singaporeans First (SF) and People's Power Party (PPP).

Touching on the candidates, Ong said, in every GE, PAP would have about one-third of its Members of Parliament (MP) retired to pave way for the younger generation of leaders.

However, he said the questions that PAP had to look into were calibre and background of the candidates.

"Firstly, this is important because this time, PAP is facing contests in all the constituencies.

"Secondly, the calibre of the opposition candidates is also better than the previous GE.

"It is no longer comprising people with simple occupational background but the professional class, well-established professional people have now stand onto the opposition tickets," he said, adding that the calibre of the opposition candidates had gone up.

Of the 89 PAP candidates, 22 are new faces – 14 of them from the private sector, six from the public sector and two from non-governmental organisations.

"What is interesting is that there are more candidates on PAP ticket who come from the grassroots activities – those people who have been active on the ground.

"Many of them have professional jobs but they also been active working at the grassroots-level for some years and most of them have started as early as five years ago," noted Ong.