1Negative Constructive

By Li Ning, Ian Tay, Elisha Koh

Negative Case

1. There is no reason to change anything with the current electoral process. The reason the PAP has been dominant for so many years is because it has earned its respect and therefore many Singaporeans, although grudgingly, know that the PAP still is the only party that can and will uphold Singapore. After all if the public really wants more voice in parliament that just vote against the PAP.

2. Singapore is a democracy in practice as well as theory. Yes, the ruling People's Action Party has 81 out of 87 seats, and the power to rule Singapore has been kept by the PAP since the beginning of Singapore. But British parliamentary politics have heavily influenced Singapore and opposition is legal; unfortunately for them they just don't win and that explains the great ratio gap of PAP MPs and opposition MPs.

3. A natural reaction for the affirmative team to these facts is to assume massive corruption. But when you delve deeper, you'll find almost no supporting evidence for these suspicions.  Singapore gets stellar scores on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.  Even more amazingly, the World Bank's Governance Matters index gives Singapore near-perfect scores in almost every area making Singapore’s government is virtually uncorrupt.

4. Instead of looking at Singapore as a democratic country, we should compare it to democratic cities.  EX: In the United States, there are many major cities where one party wins supermajorities year after year.  In San Francisco, democratic mayors have continuously ruled longer than Singapore has been an independent country!  And although corruption strongly influences American urban politics, corruption is hardly necessary for one-party rule as the PAP shows.

5. Why is it easier for a one-party city to exist as opposed to a one-party country?  There are probably a lot of reasons, but the most obvious is that smaller polities (measured in terms of both population and land area) are less diverse.  3 million people squeezed into a few square miles might converge on a single worldview. If Singapore had a hundred times as many people as it does, it would be a lot more likely for the PAP to have multiple hard competitors.

6. From the recent election, the PAP’s win was big but fell from the last election. This drop in the supporters for PAP did not go unnoticed. Singapore’s Prime Minister said, “The PAP will analyze the results of the election, learn from what has emerged from this General Election, put right what is wrong, improve what can be made better, and also improve ourselves to serve Singaporeans better." Therefore, if the people really do not want PAP in power than VOTE against them.

7. Even if the affirmative team’s plans were instituted, there would be many disadvantages and issues with them.
   1. Their first plan was to tie electoral boundaries to townships. This seems like one of the issues affecting the “fairness” of Singapore’s voting currently but if you look closer, there is actually no need to change the government’s gerrymandering. The reason is simple. There is nothing unfair about the fact that the PAP is in power. The gerrymandering they did would not have ever made a difference if the public voted against the PAP. Therefore, if the affirmative team took this practice of the PAP away, it would not have any negative effect if all the same people still voted for the PAP.

8. Regarding the affirmative team’s plan to replace the current GRCs with SMCs. Also another issue with their plan is inherency. In the recent election, there were two SMCs running in the election so their plan has already been happening

9. Regarding the implementation of the STV, I would say that that would actually be a plan worth considering. I agree that that system of voting would be fairer on voters. However, changing the voting system would be a major task and it will only have minimal benefits opposed to the immense cost. Therefore, the only way the affirmative team can solve any of the “issues” is to vote the opposition out, and from the recent election, I believe that the majority of Singapore does not have a problem with the PAP in power.

10. The negatives “problem” with the PAP gerrymandering is not actually a problem at all. If the public sincerely does not appreciate the PAP, the can and will vote against them. Therefore, regardless of whether the PAP is or is not gerrymandering, a change with the electoral process would have little effect in making the process “fairer.”

11. What the negative team is proposing now is a change in the electoral process. Their plan has many DAs but if somehow it works, there would be a major conflict in parliament with a close power struggle. As we all know, in the past, power struggles between two parties have rarely ever ended with one side nicely being courteous and saying, “Go ahead you can be more powerful than us.” NO!!!! The more common outcome, as history can show, is political instability. This would eventually lead to economical instability and then social instability. At worst, a civil war could break out in Singapore and one day many decades later, parents would be telling stories to their kids about the Great Civil War that started just because some people thought that “more voice in parliament, which would come from more opposition, was a great idea.

12. Basically, what the affirmative team believes is that Singapore’s electoral system needs change but what we as the negative team believe is that change is not necessary. This change is change that we CANNOT believe in.