110,000 or 5% MORE VOTERS (New Shityzens?) AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

THERE WILL BE 110,000 MORE VOTERS AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION

Post date:
23 Apr 2015 - 11:42am








The number of eligible Singaporean voters have increased by nearly 5 percent since the last general election.

The Elections Department said on April 7 that there are a total of 2,460,484 electors in the registers.

As compared to a year ago, since February 2014, this means that there is an addition of 49,296 eligible Singapore voters in just one year.

In comparison, 2011 had 2,350,873 voters. This means that there is an increase of 109,611 voters since the last general election.

What this also means is that the number of electors have actually increased by 4.7 percent, or nearly 5 percent.

According to the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD), since the last general election, there were 20,693 and 20,572 Singaporean citizenship granted to foreigners. If we include the new citizens that would have been added in 2014 and 2015, there would most likely have been an increase of 80,000 to 100,000 new citizens since the last general election.

In addition, when taking into account the low fertility rate among Singaporeans and also the new citizens who were previously below 21 years of age and who have since come of age to vote, it would be expected that the majority of the new additional voters would be new citizens.

However, how would the addition of voters who are new citizens affect the voting pattern in Singapore?

In 2014, of the new citizenship granted, 55.2 percent of the new citizens were originally from Southeast Asian countries and 38.5 percent from other Asian countries. As such, 93.7 percent came from Asian countries.
There are no breakdowns given to the proportion of new citizens who come from developing countries but it is clear that the majority of them do so. If so, are they more likely to vote for the People's Action Party (PAP) or would they be more discerning with their votes?







On one hand, some commenters have said that the new citizens might perceive Singapore as being better from their home countries and would thus vote for the PAP but some others have remarked that there are new citizens whom after becoming new citizens, realise the pitfalls of Singapore's system and might thus be inclined to vote against the PAP.

For example, they might realise that when it comes to healthcare, they will not be covered adequately financially and for retirement, the CPF does not provide adequate coverage.
Moreover, there is still the time factor where after being citizens in the country for a longer duration, the older new citizens would have become more knowledgeable and exposed to the system and with the realisation of the pitfalls, might also vote against the PAP.

At the last general election, there was an increase in 191,152 voters or an increase of 8.9 percent. There was also a drop in 6.5 percent of the PAP's vote share.

How much of the increase of 8.9 percent of the votes actually helped to save the drop in the PAP's vote share? This is, of course, difficult to estimate without fuller information.
But one interesting point to note is that of the 109,611 additional voters, 45 percent of them actually came from the last one year. Why was there a sudden surge in 2014?

Assuming that the PAP is worried that the vote share will continue falling and they would hope to bring in enough new voters to stump the tide, might they want to bring in close to 200,000 new voters again, as they did at the last election?

This would be difficult as the PAP has bowed to public pressure to not increase the numbers of new citizens but the numbers might be hard to verify.

In any case, the swell in the number of voters is a concern and will have an impact on the voting pattern. How the votes will swing will be seen at the next general election, which is expected by some to be held soon.


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