GENERAL ELECTION

Mr Chiam See Tong asked the Prime Minister whether for the next General Election he is willing to (i) release the report of the Boundaries Review Committee at least six months before the dissolution of Parliament; (ii) limit the number of candidates in a Group Representation Constituency to three or, in any case, to not more than six; (iii) reduce the election deposit from $13,000 to $3,000 for each candidate; (iv) have more than one designated rally site in a single-member constituency; and (v) increase the number of days for campaigning from eight to fourteen days.

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Wong Kan Seng) (for the Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, Sir, electoral boundaries are reviewed from time to time, following population shifts arising from housing developments. It is the practice of every Electoral Boundaries Review Committee to release its report in the form of a White Paper, as soon as it is ready and without undue delay. The date of dissolution of Parliament is not decided by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee. Parliament is dissolved by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. In any case, if the new boundaries were to be used, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee's Report has to be released before the dissolution of Parliament.

On the question of number of GRC candidates, the law already limits the number of candidates in a Group Representation Constituency to between three and six. There is no intention to change this now.

Sir, on the question of electoral deposit, the law specifies that the deposit is 8% of the total allowances payable to an elected Member of Parliament in the preceding year. This is necessary, to confine elections to serious candidates. Reducing the deposit way below an MP's monthly allowance would attract frivolous candidates who would stand for election with no serious hope of getting elected. They would try their luck as there is less to lose, and our election would end up like a lottery and be demeaned.

Sir, the 8% figure is not something that we conjured out of thin air. There is a basis for this: it is roughly the equivalent of an MP's monthly allowance. Historically, our election deposit has always been pegged to the monthly allowance of an MP. When the deposit was fixed at $500 in 1954, the monthly allowance of a Legislative Assemblyman was $500. The deposit was raised to $1,200 in 1973 and $1,500 in 1978 when the monthly allowance of an MP in 1973 and 1978 was $1,136 and $1,483, respectively.

Sir, the Parliamentary Elections Act was then amended in 1988 to provide a formula to automatically change the amount of election deposit whenever the MP's allowance is varied, without any need for periodic reviews. Nevertheless, the principle has remained the same, which is that the deposit is pegged at an MP's monthly allowance.

Any serious candidate should be able to raise this amount. In the recent general election, 35 (including the five disqualified for documentary defects) opposition and independent candidates presented themselves for nomination. This shows that raising money for the deposit was no deterrent to serious candidates. In any case, practically all candidates can reclaim their election deposit. What they have to do is to poll at least one-eighth of the electoral votes. It should not be difficult for any candidate with a serious platform to secure this minimum.

Sir, on the question of rally sites, election rally sites are selected by the police, based on law and order considerations as well as the need to avoid causing a nuisance to the residents. As Singapore has become more built-up, it is getting more and more difficult to find many sites suitable to hold election rallies, especially fields and other open areas. We may have no choice but to confine rallies to be held in enclosed areas like sports stadia in future.

It is also especially difficult to find suitable multiple sites within a single-member constituency because of its smaller geographical size. In time to come, the police may conceivably not be able to find even one rally site within some constituencies. It may then be necessary to zone electoral constituencies and have some of them share the rally sites in the area.

But on the question of number of days for campaigning, Sir, in 1960, the minimum period of election campaign was set at eight days to bring our legislation more in line with what was current in other parts of the British Commonwealth and in the United Kingdom. It was also because the Elections Department had by then gained sufficient experience and machinery to conduct an election more expeditiously. We have not varied much from this minimum period for the past general elections. Between elections, political parties are free to communicate to the population their political agenda and air their views on national policies. Unlike a large rural country, in a small but highly urbanised country like ours, fully served by roads and public transport, coupled with universal access to all manner of communications media, there is really no need for a more prolonged campaigning period.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Sir, the Minister says that the report of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee shall be published as soon as it is ready. Between elections, there is a period of about three, four or five years. Why is it that at the last election, the report was only ready one day before Parliament was dissolved? They had plenty of time. Why should they choose to release it one day before the dissolution of Parliament? Perhaps, the Minister could explain.

As regards the number of members in a GRC, the purpose of a GRC of course is to ensure that there is ethnic representation in Singapore. But I would like to ask the Minister whether or not ethnic PAP candidates are confident if they have only one non-ethnic candidate to hold their hands to get into Parliament. Or do they need two, three, four or five candidates to get them into Parliament. The number of six is more for PAP electoral purposes than to ensure ethnic representation in Singapore. Perhaps, the Minister would like to comment.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, I agree that the timing of the publication of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee Report was rather short. It was an unusual occasion because it was just after September 11 and with the economy in recession, the Government has to deal with urgent issues facing us. The Electoral Boundaries Review Committee took quite a short time - I would say about three or four weeks - to complete its report, although the officers might have done some work resulting from the changes in the population as well as the shift in the voters. Immediately after the report was ready, it was published. The Prime Minister then decided that it was necessary to go to the people to have a mandate to deal with very urgent problems confronting the country and we found out that, indeed, the decision was a correct one.

Mr Chiam asked why do we need three, four or five non-minority candidates to be in the GRC. Is that the question?

Mr Chiam See Tong: To bring them into Parliament.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: The purpose of the GRC is to ensure that Parliament has the representation of all our communities, including the Malays, Indians and other minority communities. So we have in the provision of the law, a minimum of three candidates in a GRC, but no more than six. That has been the practice all along.

Mr Chiam See Tong: That is the purpose behind the law.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: That is right. So we have that, and we have achieved the purpose. I do not understand the purpose of his question.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, if I understand the Minister correctly, the delay of the publication of the report of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee was due to September 11. Can he explain what has September 11 got to do with the preparation of the report of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee?

My point about the GRC is that you want to ensure minority candidates. The rationale behind it is that if you have a Chinese candidate and a non-Chinese candidate in a single-seat constituency, the PAP thinks that the Chinese candidate will win against a non-Chinese candidate. So to ensure that the PAP ethnic candidate gets into Parliament, they must have some non-ethnic candidates to come along with them, to bring them into Parliament. My point is: why do you need five other non-ethnic candidates to get the ethnic candidates into Parliament? I think one is enough.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: That is where I am confused by Mr Chiam's question. Firstly, he did not hear me correctly. I did not say that the publication was due to the September 11 incident.

Mr Chiam See Tong: You mentioned it.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Please check the record. I will repeat it here again for his benefit. What I have said was that the Committee was already doing its work and when it had finished, the report was published. Because of the September 11 incident as well as the urgency to deal with the economic problems we were facing, the Prime Minister decided on a quick election. That is what I said. The results bore themselves out that the decision was correct and the people gave the PAP a very strong mandate to ensure that we would deal with the problems we are facing now.

On the question of minority candidates, we all know that in all our constituencies, the racial distribution is quite even. We have explained before that the purpose of the GRC is to ensure that we have minority representation in Parliament and that is why we decided to have GRCs. It has served our purpose that we now have minority candidates in Parliament. Whether we need three, four or five others, it depends on the configuration of the constituency. In some areas, it may be more convenient to group them in three, some maybe four, some maybe five, and some maybe six. From experience, this has borne out to be correct.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, as regards the election deposits, the rationale is that the Government wants to keep out frivolous candidates. The average thinking of Singaporeans is that $13,000 is definitely too high a figure. The non-PAP candidates, most of them, are not well off. In fact, personally, I know that many serious candidates who are in the opposition would have stood for the elections, but for this $13,000. It is not only the candidate himself who has to worry about the $13,000 ---

Mr Speaker: Mr Chiam, could you ask your supplementary question?

Mr Chiam See Tong: I am coming to it. The candidate will also have to discuss, being Asians, with members of their family, their wives, and most of them feel that $13,000 is too much, and they do not allow the serious opposition candidate to take part. The other rationale is that the deposit is pegged to the MP's allowance. Why do we not have two categories then? For incumbent Members who want to stand again, they can take this standard of one month's allowance. But those who are coming in for the first time and who are not MPs, we can reduce it to $3,000. I wonder whether the Minister will allow two categories of deposits.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, I do not know about the average thinking of Singaporeans. That is what Mr Chiam said. I am just quoting him. I know of the thinking of average Singaporeans.

If the candidates think that $13,000 is too much and fear losing their deposit, then they really do not have the confidence that they can even get the support of 1/8 of the voters and they should seriously think again whether they should contest. There are examples of this. Dr Tan Cheng Bock will probably know. The voters there hardly saw that opposition candidate who lost his deposit. Mr Tan Kim Chuang probably did not appeal to the voters in Bukit Timah and, therefore, also lost his deposit. But any serious candidate, anyone with a good platform, should have no problem convincing 1/8 of the electorate to vote for him.

The idea of two categories of candidates is, I think, a very amazing one. I cannot see the logic behind this suggestion: that new candidates pay less and incumbent candidates or MPs who have retired and want to contest again pay more. Why do we discriminate between different types of candidates? They are all candidates. After all, if he is an elected MP, he is an elected MP. There are no differentials in rights for the MPs if they are elected. So why does the hon. Member want to have different classes of MPs and different classes of candidates?

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): Sir, the Minister, in his main answer on the question of rally sites, says that law and order is the main consideration as to why the number of rally sites is reduced and why some rally sites are not even within the constituencies themselves. Does the Minister agree that public rallies during elections are probably the only links that the Opposition could reach out to the voters effectively? Thus, by reducing the number of rally sites or moving the rally site far away from the constituency itself will reduce the influence that the Opposition could have to persuade the voters to vote for them. Does he also agree that the same argument of law and order applies, ie, would there be a day when we have elections but have no public rallies, because law and order is a concern? And would there then be that, somehow, elections will cause some problem of law and order and, thereby, there shall be no elections because of law and order?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: I think Mr Low is trying to string A + B = C, which need not necessarily be so in his last question, ie, that because we could have law and order problems, and therefore better not have rallies. I think that is a stretch of the imagination.

Rallies are not the only ways that candidates reach out to their voters. On that I disagree with him. Rallies are just one of the ways for candidates to reach out to the voters. In fact, if he says that because the rally sites are far away from residents and therefore may affect the voters' decision to vote for a particular candidate, the results will bear themselves out. One would find it quite strange that very few people attended the PAP rallies and yet thousands of them turned up at the Opposition rallies. Those who have attended rallies would know that. So I would say that as far as rally sites are concerned, it is no deterrent to people who want to attend a rally. In the case of Mr Chiam, for example, on his last evening at the Lavender Street rally site, he had 13,000 people turning up, with quite a few hundred of them spilling onto the streets. So I do not quite agree with this argument that because rally sites are far away and therefore voters would not turn up. In fact, they will turn up if they think that there is a show. Some consider this to be a show because they like to be entertained, and we are not good entertainers.

Mr Steve Chia Kiah Hong: The Minister has agreed that the short period given in the last election is unusual. Can the Minister give the assurance that this kind of short one-day notice between the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee Report and the dissolution of Parliament would not happen in future?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, I cannot guarantee that it would not happen but I would say that we will try not to do it.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Why not the Government call the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee to review the boundaries much earlier, way before an election? Why wait until so late and then suddenly decide to call an election only one day after its Report is released?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: There is not much use if the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee is convened two years before an intended date of election because between then and the time of the calling of the election, there will be a lot of population shifts. In fact, many thousands of people do change addresses every month and if we have an electoral boundary fixed on a particular day and yet the election is held, say, two years or a year, or even six months after that, many voters would be inconvenienced to have to go back to the place where they stayed to vote.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, the Minister mentioned Mr Tan Kim Chuang. Is he saying that Mr Tan Kim Chuang is not a serious candidate? I am very certain that he is a serious candidate, although he lost his deposit in the process. So I do not know what his rationale is in mentioning Mr Tan Kim Chuang.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, I think Mr Chiam did not quite hear me correctly. I said the opposition candidate in Ayer Rajah did not seem quite serious because he did not even bother to turn up and, in the case of Bukit Timah, the voters did not find Mr Tan Kim Chuang's platform appealing.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, as regards the report of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee, I think releasing its report six months earlier is definitely not too early. Even assuming there are changes of addresses within the six months, and normally there are, and even if you look at the Electoral Register, there is always that yellow section where you will find all the persons who have moved within the last three, four, five or six months. So this can be done. I cannot understand why the Minister is mentioning that six months is too long. I just want to remind the Minister that I am not asking for two years or one year. I am only asking for six months for the results of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee to be announced before the dissolution of Parliament. In case he has forgotten my request, it is six months, not two years.

As regards the deposit, I do not see any discrimination if there is a two-tier deposit. I wonder whether the Minister is willing to rethink and give us an answer or, at least, say that he will consider and not brush it off.

As regards the increase in the number of days for campaigning, increasing it from eight to 14 days is very reasonable, and I hope the Minister will at least say he will consider, because this is definitely in line with the remaking of Singapore. If we want to have more vibrancy and ideas, the longer the election period, the more ideas will be thrown up. It is not a show. Let us get on with what we are going to do for Singapore. So will he also reconsider this 8-14 days request?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, one cannot really say whether there will be a minimum period of six months before the publication of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee Report and the dissolution of Parliament. That decision has to be taken later by the Prime Minister, and I would not want to encumber him by telling Members that that would be the case. But I am sure the Prime Minister will take all factors into consideration when deciding on the date of the election.

I cannot find any logic to the argument to provide for a two-tier deposit for different types of candidates. They are all candidates, they should all be paying one rate of deposit. If not, then I think we could quite rightfully say that we are discriminating against the old candidates.

On the days of campaigning, I cannot make the connection between how this ties up with the Remaking of Singapore and the throwing up of ideas. Ideas should always be thrown up if they are good ideas, and they should be communicated to the people and, at least, they should try to convince the people that these are good ideas for acceptance.

I think I should let the House know too, Sir, that in the UK, for example, they used to have a time of not later than nine days between Nomination Day and Polling Day. Then, in 1981, they amended it to no later than 10 days, in other words, between Nomination Day and Polling Day, it must be no later than 10 days, and the reason then was that Saturday was no longer a working day for election officials and the period was extended by a day. And in 1985 they changed it to 11 days because they wanted to give more time for the postal ballots to come in. So even in a large country like the United Kingdom, the campaigning period after Nomination Day is only no more than 11 days.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, the Minister has cited the UK example. If I am not mistaken, normally, in England, before an election is held, they give at least one month's notice that an election will be held on a certain day, at least one month. So there is a preparation period. At least people can go around and do their campaigning one month before the election is held. But, in Singapore, nobody knows when the election is going to be held. It is such a good secret, state secret, that not even, I think, their own PAP members know of it, except the Prime Minister himself.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, we do better than that. We give people a 5-year notice period, that immediately after the election is over, please prepare for the next election.