Singaporean voters could be forgiven for feeling the same after yet another seemingly inexplicable carving up of political districts, ahead of the next general election (GE). To understand what might be peak geopolitical absurdity in the six-decade long, SimCity-like machinations of a paranoid ruling party, we need to contemplate the latest bout of gerrymandering not only through the lens of electoral tactics, but also public housing. (Note: Chan Chun Sing, education minister, has said it’s up to the public to decide if there’s gerrymandering in Singapore; in our view the evidence is overwhelming.)

Let’s start with the main takeaways from this week’s report by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC). The number of electoral districts has risen from 31 to 33, with a corresponding increase in parliamentary seats from 93 to 97. As many analysts expected, the EBRC has significantly redrawn the boundaries of districts that the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) almost lost at the last election, notably the West Coast group representation constituency (GRC) and the East Coast GRC. Similarly, the Bukit Batok single member constituency (SMC), keenly contested by Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) at GE2020, has vanished from the map, as has Yuhua SMC, both absorbed into adjacent GRCs. A video of Pritam Singh, leader of the Workers’ Party (WP), describing in Parliament the regularity with which closely fought SMCs have been dissolved throughout history, went viral this week. 

Other notable developments include the fact that Jurong GRC, helmed by Tharman Shanmugaratnam before he successfully ran for president in 2023, has been completely sliced up—skeptical voters might conclude that the loss of the PAP’s talisman is the only reason for doing this to a 24-year-old district. Meanwhile, electoral nomenclature also veers towards the absurd. West Coast-Jurong West GRC and Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC are the two new mouthfuls created from the dismemberment of Lord Tharman’s body politic; and after years of hearing voters complain about the outrageous expansion of Marine Parade GRC from its beachside roots to the central heartlands, the EBRC has decided to simply expand its name. Thus was born Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC. (The PAP’s team there will likely be led by Edwin Tong, a minister who’s himself a collector of names.) So ludicrous are these new electoral shapes and names that they rival the satirical ones dreamt up by Alfian Sa’at in his play, “Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC)”.

Opposition parties, including the SDP, WP and the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), which almost won the West Coast GRC in GE2020, have expressed varying levels of disgruntlement with all this. But they can’t be that surprised. Unlike in many democracies, the Elections Department (ELD) here is not an independent body, but one that reports to the prime minister’s office. The PAP recently insisted that the EBRC is “insulated from party politics”, despite clear evidence from 1997 that the prime minister can exercise power over it, seemingly in response to party politics. More recent examples of gerrymandering include, ahead of the 2011 election, carving out (presumably liberal) Holland Village from its own eponymous district, Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, and lumping it into Tanjong Pagar GRC, the then Lee Kuan Yew-led stronghold. This time round it’s bits of West Coast GRC that have been chomped up by the dependable Tanjong Pagar GRC. “There are concerns that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee relies on block-level polling data in its boundary analysis,” I had written in 2015, in a piece in Mothership.

Opposition-held districts, like Aljunied, Hougang, and Sengkang, are often largely untouched by the EBRC, in keeping with classical gerrymandering. “Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn’t to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats,” wrote Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post. “Rather, it’s to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably.” (The WP has expressed disappointment that three polling districts were carved out of Aljunied this time, though it’s still a relative sliver.)

There is one defensible reason to redraw boundaries, which is to ensure so-called “proportionality”: each parliamentarian representing a somewhat equal number of voters. But even if we assume that this is the EBRC’s motive, it has a long way to go. At the lower end, SMCs like Kebun Baru and Mountbatten have under 23,000 voters per parliamentarian; while on the upper, the likes of Ang Mo Kio GRC and Bukit Panjang SMC have well over 32,000, or some 40 percent more.  (Jom has compiled every district’s voter numbers here.)

The other tenet being challenged, albeit more obliquely, is the importance of rootedness, of belonging, of cultivating a strong sense of being Singaporean. How can an individual ever form an attachment to a neighbourhood if they keep getting tossed from one district and representative to another? Social media was rife with sarcastic takes on this instrumentalist reduction of a person to their ballot number, including the observation by “Detective-Raichu” that one can cross into three separate electoral districts just by circling the junction at Woodlands 888 Plaza.

“For 30 years, my home has been as stationary as a big rain tree rooted to the ground,” said lawyer and former opposition politician Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss, in a note this week about being moved between three different districts in ten years. “By a magic wand spun from lightning bolts, I have been swayed from place to place, each place a different neighbourhood, with different news and newsletters to keep up with.”

In order to live a financially sustainable life, it appears like middle-class Singaporeans are expected to engage in a relentless property merry-go-round: upsizing in the early part of their lives as their incomes rise, and then downsizing in the latter half as their incomes fall and their property leases decay further. The PAP’s housing model thus benefits the rich in two ways: enabling them to better preserve family wealth, but also allowing them to simply stay put, to feel rooted to this earth that we all supposedly share.

Gerrymandering is the political instrument through which the rich, ruling elite tosses individuals around; and plain housing affordability is the financial force that compels the not-so-rich to uproot and move. Dissonance in one’s sense of place in this world appears like a negligible cost to the powers that be.

The narrative of “Once in a lifetime” isn’t altogether bleak. Byrne’s sermon-like message is that humans do not have to groggily, absent-mindedly, live a life pre-determined by forces beyond our comprehension. Though things may appear the “same as it ever was”, life is fleeting, we’re here but “once”. There is a certain liberation in recognising our condition, and being aware of our agency to act.

Sudhir Vadaketh is Jom’s editor-in-chief.

Letters in response to this piece can be sent to sudhir@jom.media. All will be considered for publication on our “Letters to the editor” page.

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