Keeping fear and loathing out of Singapore's politics

The coming election season is a good moment to acknowledge Singapore's civil political culture — and to redouble efforts to keep it that way.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

In 2008, while campaigning against Mr Barack Obama in the United States presidential election, Republican candidate John McCain felt compelled to take the microphone from a supporter who claimed she couldn't trust his Democratic rival because he was "an Arab".

The late Mr McCain's response was one to remember: "No ma'am... He's a decent family man, a citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with."

It was a rare high point in the brutal arena of US presidential campaigns. Mr McCain could have sidestepped the racist remark or even exploited it. Instead, he confronted it head-on — making it clear that, in his view, race-based innuendo crosses a line no decent politician should touch. Fast forward to today, and the contrast is striking.

As society has fractured along partisan lines, public discourse in the US and many Western democracies has descended into a toxic spiral of mutual contempt.

Here in Singapore, with election season looming, any clear-eyed observer — regardless of their political sympathies — must acknowledge that our political climate remains comparatively healthy.

Nobody's painting this as some political utopia, but we are mercifully free from the visceral hatred that now defines politics elsewhere.

While our voting patterns have followed expected lines — with a clear majority backing the People's Action Party (PAP) over the last six decades, alongside a growing minority supporting opposition parties like the Workers' Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party — these divisions among voters have remained largely political rather than tribal.

Our Westminster system naturally creates some political separation — you can't vote for everyone, after all. But crucially, these divisions haven't morphed into the kind of toxic tribalism where political affiliation becomes a core part of personal identity, or where citizens view those who vote differently as fundamentally suspect or morally deficient.