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Even though Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has announced that the circuit breaker to choke off the spread of the coronavirus will be extended by another month to June 1, and that existing measures will be tightened until May 4, preparations for the General Elections (GE) are still underway.
Yesterday (Apr 28), the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) announced that the first two online Counting and Polling Agents training public webinar was made available for registration.
The party called for netizens and followers on its party Facebook page to join two training sessions to be held on April 30.
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Similarly, that very day, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), helmed by Secretary-general Dr Chee Soon Juan, released a video detailing the focus of their campaign for the GE.
The SDP called it the ‘4Y1N GE campaign’, which entailed saying “Yes to suspending GST”, “Yes to retrenchment benefits”, “Yes to income for retirees”, “Yes to responsible governance”, and “No to a 10 million population”.
In responding to TISG’s queries, Mr Goh Meng Seng, Chief of the People’s Power Party said that PPP’s plans were: “We move as an alliance”.
“But I don’t think GE will be called that soon”, he added.
The next general election must be held before 21 April 2021. On March 14, PM Lee said in a Facebook post that the date of the next general election will “depend on the (COVID-19) situation, and the outlook.”
He predicted that the pandemic will likely last for a year or more, and that its economic impact is expected to be “more serious than the global financial crisis and longer-lasting too, even beyond the end of the pandemic.”
“We have two choices. Either hope and pray that things will stabilise before the end of the term so that we can hold elections under more normal circumstances — but we have no certainty of that.
Or else call elections early, knowing that we are going into a hurricane, to elect a new government with a fresh mandate and a full term ahead of it, which can work with Singaporeans on the critical tasks at hand”, PM Lee said.
“If we have to hold elections before COVID-19 is over, we will take all the precautions necessary, so that parties can campaign effectively and people can vote safely”, he added.
On March 13, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) released the electoral boundaries report, which signals that elections are imminent.
In previous elections, the timing between the release of the report and the dissolution of Parliament has ranged from one day to one month and 26 days. The election must be held within three months from the date Parliament is dissolved.
TISG has reached out to the Workers’ Party for comment. /TISG
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