By Elijah Tay, Lynn
Singapore’s once vibrant left and labour movement led the nation’s successful anti-colonial struggle in the 1950s and ’60s. However, dreams of an independent and socialist Singapore were betrayed by Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party (PAP), whose regime arrested hundreds of trade unionists, socialists, journalists, students and ordinary workers.
Leftist politics took a hit, but never disappeared. In the following decades, left-wing thinkers and movements resurfaced in various spaces, having to confront extreme repression each time. Now a new generation is emerging, determined to rebuild people’s power.
Nova Sobieralski, Jacob Andrewartha and Alex Salmon spoke to two Singapore left activists from this new generation for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal. They are active with Workers Make Possible, an organisation seeking to build worker power in Singapore.
Elijah Tay is a student organiser and leader of Students for Palestine, which campaigns for the government and universities to cut ties with Israel. Lynn is an anti-death penalty and labour rights activist.
Tay and Lynn were in Australia for Ecosocialism 2024, held in Boorloo/Perth at the end of June. Below they discuss the situation facing left activism and the upcoming general elections.
Considering the PAP’s determination to suppress any left and democratic opposition, what has enabled the rise of a new left in Singapore today?
Tay: One factor is the growing recognition of capitalism’s problems, especially with the rising cost of living — everyone is feeling the pinch. The government has sought to frame the issue as just a negative externality of capitalism, rather than something inherent to the system. But the terrible cost of living is making people more open to talking about issues such as class and poverty, which has allowed us to make headway. There is growing class consciousness among the people.
Lynn: The increasing encroachment on civil liberties has also shown the public how much of a façade our democracy is. It has revealed that we do not have a democracy; rather, we live under an authoritarian state. The more the state clamps down on civil disobedience, the more it exposes itself. This just reinforces how important acts of resistance are, as they expose the system and abuse of powers.
Tay: Another factor is that after the state obliterated the left, we saw the rise of professionalised activism in the late 1980s. This involved people setting up NGOs that are regulated by the state. They tend to be identity-based rather than focused on struggling with the people and resisting the common roots of capitalism, imperialism, and authoritarianism.
I used to fall into the trap of liberal, identity politics, but it always felt like something was missing. For there to be sustainable, long-term change, we need to be grounded in the material, grassroots struggles of the people, and be in solidarity with one another. These are the spaces we managed to create as we realised that navigating the existing professionalised activist spaces simply was not working out.
Lynn: It is important to note that this new left did not just happen — it took a lot of work and organising to make sure it is not just a flash in the pan. People may have ideas, leanings and concerns, but these have to be organised and linked back to the issue of class. This takes conscious effort and grassroots work. That is the kind of activism we have been slowly putting in to rebuild the left in Singapore.
What campaigns are you involved in organising?
Lynn: I am part of the Transformative Justice Collective, an abolitionist group campaigning against the prison industrial complex in Singapore. We are working on the abolition of the death penalty and prisons in Singapore.
On this issue, Singapore’s statistics are astounding: we have one of the highest death penalty rate for drug trafficking — since 2022, 20 people have been executed, including one for cannabis trafficking. A majority of these individuals come from impoverished backgrounds.
In addition, we are challenging the government’s continued encroachment of civil liberties, which they have carried out through acts such as POMFA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act), MHRA (Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act) and ISA (Internal Security Act).
A lot of the more professionalised organisations and activists have purposefully stayed away from these issues due to fear of backlash from the state. But we have very consciously chosen to stand proudly and strongly against authoritarianism, despite the risks of arrests and persecution.
Tay: My friends and I recently started reviving the student movement rooted in material struggles. We organised a group called NTU financial aid friends, which we started at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) a year ago to campaign for student financial aid. Our main focus was ensuring low-income students could pay their school fees by NTU providing them with bursaries.
Our focus group discussions and research found that even if your per-capita household income is zero, you are not necessarily guaranteed the NTU bursary. This means lots of students have to maintain three or four jobs just to pay their fees and day-to-day expenses. Some end up having to choose between paying fees or rent, and end up homeless.
Recently, we had some small wins. After campaigning, petitioning and speaking to the media, NTU reached out to us to meet. As a result of students coming together to make our demands heard loud and clear, Singaporean students at NTU can now get a bursary.
Fellow students also recently started Students for Palestine to organize actions in response to the genocide happening right now and to demand that our universities cut ties with Israel. Similarly, we set up Students for Migrant Rights, which works closely with Migrant Workers Singapore to advocate for migrant workers’ rights and support them on the ground in Singapore.
What are some of the obstacles activists face in Singapore?
Lynn: There are too many!
One of the biggest barriers is that in every aspect of democracy, we face constant intrusions: we do not have freedom of speech, we do not have freedom of association, we do not have freedom to organise, we do not have an independent judicial system, we do not have independent media. All rights have been clamped down on in Singapore. Just associating yourself with an issue, such as the genocide in Palestine, can mean being investigated or persecuted.
Another issue that we find is that as informal groups, we end up struggling to carry out all the functions of a healthy democracy. For example, we have to do reporting ourselves because the mainstream media does not want to associate with us — most media is either state-owned or state-funded. Even then, our freedom of speech is restricted, and they are increasingly censoring online media as well. Moreover, we find that we often have to navigate much of the legal system ourselves. Few lawyers want to associate themselves with cases deemed “politically sensitive”, resulting in some —including death row prisoners —having to argue for themselves in court.
To compound that, funding is another issue: the government places limits on international solidarity by restricting funding from overseas to ensure that they remain the largest funder in Singapore. However, this means they can easily restrict funding for organisations should they not comply with their wishes.
Tay: Employment is also an issue. If you are an activist, you can lose any hope for landing a job in the public sector. Getting a job in the private sector can be tricky too. For example, I have been threatened with losing my contract if I continue speaking out on things such as the genocide in Palestine. So, there is employment precarity too.
Another obstacle is the way the state has successfully cultivated a sense of fear and repulsion towards activists. Police have investigated many students for taking action in solidarity with Palestine. When I talk to these students, often they are most worried about how their parents and family will react. This can matter for various reasons.
For example, students can find home becomes a hostile environment, yet they have no other real option except homelessness. If you are single and under 35, you do not have access to public housing, which means you are looking at paying US$1-2000 in rent in the private market for just a room. Most students work part-time and can barely afford day-to-day expenses, let alone rent. So, it is not an option for people to live outside the parent’s home.
Lynn: It is important to note how housing has been used to coerce Singaporeans into complying with certain norms. For example, you have to be a married heterosexual couple to purchase subsidised public housing below 35 years of age. Even once you gain access to public housing, you still incur so much debt that you feel you cannot lose your job because your housing is dependent on that. On top of that, many jobs in Singapore are tied to the government.
Tay: All of this means single and queer people do not have equal access to housing. But it also hurts heterosexual couples, because many end up rushing into marriage to secure housing. The first thing any straight Singaporean couple may come to ask themselves is: “Are we going to get a house together?” The question of a proposal and marriage come way later. Unsurprisingly there is a pretty high divorce rate in Singapore.
Former president Halmiah Yacob announced that addressing structural inequality was a government priority. How connected is this claim to the realities Singaporeans face?
Lynn: A lot of what the government does is to render temporary aid with a large amount of conditions tied to it. They will say: “Yes, you will get some aid.” But there are limits on it. For example, you can only get monetary aid for 3-6 months each time and must go through all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles to prove your need for this assistance. It often also comes with a lot of criterias that you need to meet, which might not be reasonable for a household that is already struggling. Or you can get access to rental housing, but only temporarily. Once your income increases, your housing subsidy decreases, penalising people for earning more.
In Singapore, there is a lot of fear mongering around the idea of social handouts. The government claims welfare leads to people becoming reliant on the state. They refuse to acknowledge that the short-term welfare they dole out does not get people out of poverty — which ultimately means people have to keep coming back. Such statistics do not get released to the public, but we know this because people who work within the system have told us how some of these programs have failed.
Another example: the cost of water and other utilities has been rising for the past few years. The government’s response has been to provide a one-time subsidy because the elections are coming up this year. But in the long term, working class families are still penalised through the increased cost of basic amenities and regressive taxes, which always benefit the rich.
The government continues to implement stopgap measures to pacify people and the increasing unhappiness around the cost of living. In this way, they hope to avoid mass disapproval or movements.
Could you outline some of the undemocratic features of Singapore’s electoral system?
Lynn: The elections department in Singapore, which determines things such as electoral boundaries, are run under the direction of the Prime Minister’s office, with advice from the president. This essentially means the ruling party gets to decide the electoral boundaries each election — and every time the boundaries are different. After each election, they look at the statistics from each electorate and redraw the boundaries in their favour.
The end result is that, despite a decreasing share of the vote [from 69.86% in 2015 to 61.23% in 2020], the PAP held onto the same number of seats [83] at the last elections. PAP continues to have a supermajority, with which it can pass laws without any checks and balances.
There are also important undemocratic limits on financing and the availability of spaces for rallying and organising. Often, only the ruling party is allowed to use certain spaces. Furthermore, no political campaigning is permitted until 9-11 days before the elections. Of course, this does not stop ruling party candidates from putting their faces up on posters or running grassroots events and saying: “Hi, I’m part of the ruling party, this is the event we are running for Gaza”. Opposition parties, on the other hand, cannot easily do this.
Tay: Another obstacle opposition parties face is having less funds than the incumbents. Funding affects us in terms of how many posters we can put up, affording a proper social media team, hiring media people for promotion and publicity, etc.
Lynn: The media point is important: when you open a newspaper during election times, the difference is stark: nine pages dedicated to the ruling party, only one dedicated for all opposition parties — and obviously even that small coverage is unfavourable to the opposition. That means we have to create our own media, otherwise how else can we reach the people?
What can you tell us about the People’s Manifesto that has been launched for the elections?
Lynn: We have been working on this for quite a while. What we found was often people only declare their views during elections. But we feel this should be ongoing. In a healthy democracy, topics that affect basic rights, such as access to services, should be in constant discussion. So, we felt it was important that the people — and not just political parties — comment on these issues.
We made sure to consult different organisations, NGOs and activist groups to bring together a whole slew of concerns: healthcare, cost of living, housing, pensions, civil liberties, democratic rights. It is a long document, over 50 pages long, that we have released and hope to get people to read, think about and sign onto before deciding who they vote for in the coming elections
Singapore’s grassroots groups launch ‘The People’s Manifesto’ (plus full text of manifesto)
First published at Green Left.
A 250-strong “Town Hall” meeting in Singapore publicly launched “The People’s Manifesto”, on August 3. Green Left’s Peter Boyle spoke to Adi R, a member of Workers Make Possible and Nanyang Technical University (NTU) Financial Aid Friends, two of the grassroots organisations that initiated the manifesto project.
Workers Make Possible aims to build worker power in Singapore. It is part of a collective of several worker groups, such as Sick and Tired (collective of healthcare workers), SG Bus Drivers, SG Riders (platform delivery workers) and Makan Minum Workers (food and beverage workers). Its slogan is: “For workers, by workers!”
NTU Financial Aid Friends is a group of students campaigning to improve NTU’s financial aid system and reduce barriers to education. Made up of working-class students who are deeply inspired by Singapore's rich history of student movements, it recently won its key demands for better financial aid after a year-long campaign.
Who initiated the People’s Manifesto and what was its objective?
The People's Manifesto was the initiative of a collective of grassroots organisations, workers, students, community groups, researchers, artists, environmentalists and more from various walks of life in Singapore. We wanted to engage with the upcoming general elections [widely expected this year] — when all the political parties put forward their own manifestos — on our terms, by putting forward the key reforms, policies and issues which are the most urgent and alive for the ordinary people of Singapore.
Singapore's increasingly stifling restrictions on free speech, public protest, freedom of information, and press freedom have pushed the people of Singapore out of any participation in the creation or discussion of the policies which dictate our daily struggles and livelihoods.
Often, it is the people in power who set the terms for discussion — through feedback sessions, consultations, and so on. Very often, we have no idea how our feedback is considered in the final policy decision. Our intention was to return power to the people, by engaging with the policy space on our terms, by penning the Manifesto collectively as the grassroots organisations which intimately know the issues everyday people face. We then invited all major political parties to engage with the manifesto.
What is Workers Make Possible’s assessment of the response to it and the launch on Aug 3?
As one of the signatories, and a group which brought together many workers and community members to contribute to the Manifesto, we are delighted at the outpouring of support the Manifesto has received. On August 3, audience members could speak about the issues in the Manifesto to discuss and debate their ideas.
In our political climate, it is difficult to find large enough affordable indoor venues that can pack more than 200 people. To our surprise, more than 250 people packed the room and the town hall was a fantastic demonstration of the exact values the Manifesto espoused: that there is so much wisdom that comes from the commons, and when the people of Singapore are given some space and freedom to speak, incredibly generative and revolutionary possibilities spring forth!
What are the next steps?
This first iteration of The People’s Manifesto is a modest effort, focusing on the most urgent issues that are alive for a wide cross-section of Singapore’s communities. In the years to come, the Manifesto will continue to expand and evolve, through the collective efforts of even more communities and practitioners, and cover areas such as education, law and justice, and international relations.
We hope to continue efforts to communicate the ideas in this year's Manifesto more accessibly through an explainer video series, so that everyone can understand and feel ownership over the process of building onto this collective effort through critique and collaboration!
We want to encourage more grassroots groups and individuals to join The People's Manifesto Team for future iterations, and are excited to help widen the space we have for participation in and ownership over our democracy together.
We are also hoping to engage with political parties in Singapore and engage them in sessions to discuss their responses to the Manifesto. We feel this is a rare opportunity for the people to engage these political parties on our terms, and to see where they stand on the issues closest to our hearts, minds and rice bowls.
Most importantly, we want to keep the spirit and aims of the Manifesto alive. We want to keep building on efforts that return power back to the people and keep pushing for more space for the ordinary people of Singapore to have a say in our democracy, instead of keeping it only to the control of the ruling technocrats and corporate interests.
The People’s Manifesto
What is The People’s Manifesto?
Healthcare workers, students, community organisers, researchers, social workers, writers, artists, environmentalists and others from different walks of life in Singapore have come together in 2024, ahead of the General Election, to pen the first ever People’s Manifesto, highlighting the key reforms we believe are the most urgent for a more socially and economically just Singapore which neglects no one, and where all our diverse communities can thrive.
The People’s Manifesto (2024) puts forward exciting and practical ideas across seven areas, as a start: (1) rebuilding a democratic society, (2) arresting the rising cost of living, (3) improving working conditions for all workers, (4) providing public housing for all, (5) ensuring retirement adequacy, (6) making healthcare affordable and accessible, and (7) tackling the climate crisis. These ideas come from the lived experience and wisdom of ordinary people, and are validated through rigorous research by practitioners in each area.
This first iteration of The People’s Manifesto is a modest effort, focusing on the most urgent issues that are alive for a wide cross-section of Singapore’s communities. In the years to come, the Manifesto will continue to expand and evolve, through the collective efforts of even more communities and practitioners, and cover areas such as education, law and justice, and international relations.
The People’s Manifesto is committed to holding up a mirror to all of us who call Singapore home, reflecting our pain, our struggles, our values, hopes and dreams. As Singapore’s political landscape evolves, this Manifesto is an intervention that underscores the possibilities and desires for a different social compact between the state and citizens - one where the people come together to debate and generate policy ideas that will better serve us, and can expect political leaders to learn from us with sincerity, openness and humility.
Citizens deserve a much stronger voice in shaping Singapore’s future, and to participate in this process on our own terms, not just those set by the government. Existing and aspiring political representatives must take the lead from the people as experts of our own lives, and stewards of our shared futures. This Manifesto is a testament to the political maturity and sophisticated ideas that ordinary people have to bring about more well-being, justice and progress for everyone in Singapore.
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