Editor's Note: This post was taken off a blog, Article 14. Please see the source for the full article.
Note to readers: This survey is unrepresentative of voting patterns. The intention is to understand if there is a pessimism among opposition voters and not to see how many would vote opposition (which would be an impossible task in an online survey).
“90% of those polled say they will vote for opposition”. That’s the kind of sensational headline that will grab the attention of the reader. That’s what my unrepresentative poll results indicate. Hopefully, you have, by now, picked yourself up after falling off your chair.
I had carried out an online poll that attracted 135 persons to vote. It is a small sample and hardly indicative of the actual voting pattern in the country. My readers are, quite obviously, largely opposition voters. So, the 90% vote in favour of the opposition is indicative of the profile of my readers rather than being indicative of how Singaporeans are likely to vote. From the outset, I had no intention to find out about the level of support for PAP.
My little survey was motivated by a recent research finding released by Blackbox Research that indicated that 80% of Singaporeans felt that PAP would either perform better or the same as the last elections if elections are to be held now. Blackbox went on to conclude that “the PAP are now in the box seat to improve on their 2011 election result”.
I was a little skeptical about the conclusion. My gut instinct is that there is a general perception right now that either PAP will perform better or the same as the last elections and this perception is largely a result of pessimism among individuals that would themselves vote for the opposition anyway.
Poll results that indicate that there is a perception as to how PAP will perform are not at all indicative of how those that were polled would themselves vote. So, Blackbox Research’s findings are neither here nor there.
My conversations with friends (who are largely opposition voters) after the passing of LKY has provided me with anecdotal evidence that there is a high degree of pessimism in the opposition camp. Three factors loom large in the assessment of many opposition voters:
1. LKY’s death and the propaganda overdose following that
2. SG50 celebrations and the feel good factor that is likely to be generated (with taxpayers footing the bill)
3. WP’s continuing legal troubles with Town Council management.
It stands to reason that middle ground voters may veer back to the PAP (as it happened in 1997) or there may be a stalemate and we may not see any change between 2011 and 2015 in terms of the popular vote.