19 April 2025: Manifesto fever

I might have got a little over-excited. It was like a switch went off in my brain the moment they dissolved Parliament and suddenly I wanted to do everything all at once and send out a newsletter every day until 3 May. But don’t worry, I’ve calmed down after remembering it’ll be no use to anyone if I burn out before Polling Day! I’m taking a little more time to write some special issues that’ll be with you when they’re good and ready (and not because I’ve stayed up all night with intense hyper-focus!)

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I’ve spent most of today on a deep dive into party manifestos. I’ve already mentioned a few times in this newsletter that I maintain a spreadsheet for party manifestos as a one-stop shop for everyone’s convenience… Well, I was trying on Thursday to update that Google Sheet with PAP and Workers' Party's manifestos when it hit me that this could be so much better, so I ditched the sheet and started building something new. About 6–8 hours of eye-watering work later, I present to you the zhng-ed GE2025 Manifesto Database 🥳 🥳 🥳

I think it’s much more user friendly—no more squinting at a cramped spreadsheet!—and contains more information because I can now include excerpts from the manifestos rather than just the proposal headings. This is the TinyURL if you’d like to share it on Instagram/TikTok/those places that need shortened URLs: https://tinyurl.com/SGGE2025Manifestos

I find reading manifestos to be a much more interesting exercise than trying to keep track of all the "humble upbringing" candidates being introduced these days. Regardless of how much they proclaim to have a "heart for the people" or "desire to serve", these candidates ultimately have to stand by their party manifestos and support these party positions. We rarely have parliamentarians vote against their own party, so these manifestos lay out what exactly is on the table for voters.

Manifestos also give us a sense of what each party prioritises and how deeply they've thought about the issues Singapore faces and what they're proposing. To me, PAP's manifesto is basically "we think we've done pretty good and we're going to do more the same", sketching things out in rather broad strokes. WP's manifesto, on the other hand, is a hefty document covering a wide range of areas and going into some detail. Most party manifestos I've seen so far don't go very much into areas like foreign policy, but WP's GE2025 manifesto includes things like supporting Myanmar's return to stability and recognising the state of Palestine. Progress Singapore Party, meanwhile, has dug a bit into things like land cost and housing. So far pretty much everyone except the PAP wants to exempt essential goods from the GST, and there are multiple calls for a Freedom of Information Act and lowering the voting age to 18.

Not all the manifestos are out yet, though, so I have more hours of database work ahead of me. That's okay; I was once the fastest data entry test taker at my university student job centre (but still didn't get the job, for some reason)—I'm ready 😎😎😎

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Do you feel like you might need some help to get to grips with the election? SG Climate Rally will be holding their third voter education workshop on 26 April:

SGCR has also launched Greenwatch 2025 to scrutinise party positions on climate-just policies and issues. Check out their site.

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The people’s Labour Day Rally is being postponed. Since 1 May now falls within the election campaigning period, Hong Lim Park is closed for (civil society) business, forcing organisers to postpone this year’s grassroots Labour Day Rally. The rally will now be held on 25 May from 4pm–7pm at Hong Lim Park, so mark your calendars!

It hasn’t escaped attention that NTUC’s May Day Rally is still going ahead with Lawrence Wong scheduled to give the keynote speech. It’ll be Cooling-Off Day the day after, when all political campaigning is supposed to cease and political parties have to go quiet, but will the mainstream media be plastered with May Day/Lawrence Wong speech coverage 2 May because that’s ostensibly not political campaigning? Doesn’t seem fair, doesn’t it? 🤨

Around the region

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