Everything About PM Lee’s Press Conference After GE2020, Which Includes What’s Next

Yesterday, the People’s Action Party (PAP) were returned to power in GE2020.

They won 83 out of 93 seats and achieved not just the simple majority, but a supermajority (again) in the parliament.

Here are the SMC results:

And here are the GRC ones:

A strong mandate that PM Lee and his government have been calling for? Sure.

But the percentage of shares wasn’t what they were hoping for.

They obtained 61.24 per cent of the popular votes in GE2020, a massive drop from the 69.86 per cent in 2015 and the second-lowest percentage since independence.

The lowest is, of course, GE2011 where PAP won 60.14% of the popular votes.

Satisfied With The Results

In a press conference after the hot action of GE2020, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong took to the podium to speak about the affair.

He said that he was satisfied with the results of GE2020 although the percentage of popular votes for PAP wasn’t as high as he had hoped for.

Nonetheless, he said, this shows Singaporeans’ broad support for PAP’s plans and policies and they will now work to pull them off.

The low votes, Mr Lee says, reflects the “pain and anxiety” felt by Singaporeans during this crisis as well as Singaporeans’ need for a diversity of voices in the parliament.

It’s Now Time To Work Together

Now that GE2020 is over, PM Lee urges all Singaporeans to come together and work for a better future.

He revealed that the PAP has decided to formally recognise the opposition’s presence in parliament by designating Mr Pritam Singh, the chief of Workers’ Party, as the official Opposition Leader in parliament.

He will be given “appropriate staff support and resources to perform his duties”.

PM Lee added that moving forward, whether the “diversity of voices” will work out or not, depends not just on what the PAP does but how the Opposition perform now that they have 10 MPs in parliament.

A Significant Loss To 4G Leadership

Yesterday, the Workers’ Party upset win, even at the sample counts, heated up the late night and early morning.

The hosts at CNA‘s live results show and the two political analysts invited to the show couldn’t keep their minds and mouths off the new GRC.

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Both political analysts pointed out that Sengkang is the youngest and least experienced team the WP has fielded for GE2020, and the PAP team has three political officeholders.

And PM Lee agreed, saying in the press conference that the loss of Sengkang was a “significant loss to his government and 4G leadership”.

The team comprises

• Mr Ng Chee Meng, chief of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office
• Dr Lam Pin Min, Senior Minister of State for Health and Transport
• Mr Amrin Amin, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and Health
• Mr Raymond Lye, a new PAP candidate

He added that he has spoken to his Sengkang PAP team and asked them to serve Singapore in different ways.

They will try to win back their support and continue fighting to take back Aljunied GRC, Sengkang GRC and Hougang SMC.

Previously, on 4 July, PM Lee had also appeared at the PAP Sengkang team’s live video, asking Sengkang voters not to go for “PAP-lite” when they had the real thing.

PAP, he promised, will listen to Singaporeans and do its best to help address their concerns “whether or not they voted for PAP”.

Time To Move Beyond The Elections

If you had listened to PM Lee’s lunchtime rally at Fullerton, he painted a fairly bleak outcome for Singapore if the ruling government was not given what they wanted:

“Do we show a united Singapore…or a fractious Singapore with people who withhold support from people whom they’ve elected into government?”

He had emphasised that shaking business confidence would not end well for Singapore.

So now that the results are as it is now, how will it affect the PAP’s plan to attract new investments?

On that front, PM Lee said he and his team will continue to try and convince the business community that Singapore is “worthy of their confidence and investment”.

He added that the Opposition will have to help out and conduct itself in a way to inspire confidence in Singapore too.

“It also depends on how the Opposition conducts itself to convince them that, in fact, there is, in Singapore, responsible opposition who understand the national interest and put that before party politics.”

DPM Heng Swee Keat, Singapore’s finance minister and now infamous international meme, added that their plans to “protect jobs, save lives and create jobs” must continue.

He said that he had a “short chat” with his Workers’ Party opponents, Nicole Seah and Terence Tan, and claimed that they agreed with his sentiments and cited the need for both parties to work together as well.

TL; DR:

• PAP will deliver on what they’ve promised despite somewhat disappointing results.
• We have the cake and managed to eat it too; something the PAP said wasn’t possible during their campaigning for GE2020.

You can watch his full press conference below:

And on a side note, politicians have been talking about NCMP (Non-Constituency Member of Parliament) in recent days. So, what’s an NCMP? Do you know that it’s just like an MP but the allowance is much lower? Watch this video to find out more: