Clear mandate needed by the PAP to keep Singapore exceptional: SM Lee

As Singapore navigates trade wars and a new world order, it needs the strongest possible team to head off these unprecedented challenges, said Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

- Hariz Baharudin

"We need a government with a clear mandate, to act effectively on your behalf to secure your interests," he added, calling on Singaporeans to vote for the PAP to keep the Government and the country exceptional.

Speaking on May 1 at a rally for Tampines GRC in Temasek Junior College, he said the general election and its results are being watched very closely by investors and foreign leaders, and will have a big impact on Singapore.

"Therefore, please make sure that we send the right signal internationally," he said, adding that the country's political stability and the "exceptional state of affairs" here is its superpower.

Opposition parties are asking for more alternative voices to be voted in, SM Lee noted, saying that opposition MPs will, for the foreseeable future, be in Parliament.

The PAP welcomes alternative voices, listens to all views and adopts policies that make sense, regardless of where they come from, he said on the final day of the hustings.

"But if we become an ordinary country, an ordinary democracy, then our performance, I can tell you, will become ordinary. And you have to be prepared for that," he said.

The quality of education, housing, healthcare, leadership, and even the nation's international standing would no longer be what Singaporeans have come to expect, he said.

SM Lee noted that there are no lack of examples around the world of how things can go wrong in ordinary democracies.

Having more opposition MPs does not automatically make a country better governed, SM Lee said. In fact, more things can go wrong with divisions, factions forming, constant leadership turnover and policies flipping back and forth.

Citing the example of international climate agreements, he said one government may join a treaty, the next may pull out, and another may rejoin—making it hard to plan or maintain continuity.