GE2025: Strongest possible team, clear mandate needed to keep Singapore exceptional, says SM Lee
SINGAPORE - 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.
'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 forseeable 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.
If a small country with no natural resources like Singapore functioned like this, it would be in big trouble, SM Lee said.
Singapore would have performed very differently over the past 60 years and not have made it to where it is today.
SM Lee also pushed back against opposition arguments that having more alternative voices in Parliament would lead to better governance.
'All the parties make the same pitch: 'PAP is good. PAP should form the government. But please give me just a few more seats so we can check them harder, make them even better',' he said.
Some Singaporeans have bought into this argument, he noted. But the election, he stressed, is not simply about whether the PAP wins with a few fewer seats or a few more.
Losing even a few more GRCs could mean the loss of several experienced ministers or potential office-holders, which would send the wrong signal to foreign counterparts and investors, SM Lee said.
'What would happen to our chances of seeing through these troubles safely? How would this help us to protect jobs, secure fresh investments, make better plans, build a brighter future for ourselves?' he said.
SM Lee said Singapore's ability to deliver strong outcomes over the decades, from education and housing to social security and healthcare, was not by chance.
It was made possible by an 'exceptional brand of politics', defined by honest, capable leadership, a trusted rapport between the government and people, and a deep sense of national unity.
He pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as a test of this system, and outlined two key factors behind Singapore's successful response: having a capable and committed leadership team, and the trust Singaporeans placed in the Government.
Singapore's hospitals were not overwhelmed and the country had one of the lowest death rates in the world, said SM Lee. He also held up how its economy bounced back quickly and its society emerged stronger and more resilient.
SM Lee credited the multi-ministry task force – led by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong who was then-Finance Minister, alongside Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong – for steering the country through the crisis.
Other ministers, he said, also played crucial roles in protecting jobs and securing essential supplies.
Foreign investors and global leaders will be watching the outcome of the election closely, SM Lee said. He noted that multinational corporations will ask whether the government is stable, how much support it has, and how capable the ministers are.
On the diplomatic front, SM Lee said international leaders also scrutinising Singapore's political developments. When leaders meet at global forums, they assess one another not just through formal briefings but by reading between the lines.
SM Lee noted that each side comes prepared, with political briefings that flag whether a leader is under pressure. If foreign leaders believe the Prime Minister of Singapore cannot deliver, then there would be little point engaging seriously with him.
In his Chinese speech, SM Lee said the PAP Government has implemented wide-ranging policies to help Singaporeans cope with cost of living pressures and other challenges.
These include cash payouts, MediSave top-ups, U-Save rebates and rebates for their service and conservancy charges, and support for families, seniors, and workers.
He highlighted efforts to speed up housing supply, expand childcare options, and improve healthcare coverage and long-term care subsidies, while also supporting SMEs and preparing for global economic disruptions through the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce, which is chaired by DPM Gan.
SM Lee said such support requires sufficient resources, especially with an ageing population and rising healthcare spending. That is why the Government decided, after careful consideration, to raise the goods and services tax (GST), alongside permanent offsets to help households.
In closing his English speech, SM Lee said that for 40 years, ever since he entered politics, he has done his best to keep Singapore exceptional.
The PAP, he said, had kept the faith, done right by Singaporeans, and brought the country to where it is today.
But keeping Singapore exceptional, he added, would always require honest, capable and committed people. This includes not just a strong Prime Minister and key ministers, but a whole team that works well together.
Ultimately, he said, the vote on May 3 is about whether Singapore can keep its progress going for future generations.
'Help us to do this, just as our predecessors and our forebears worked together to do this, so that our children and our grandchildren can inherit a much better Singapore than we have been able to have,' said SM Lee.
''Let them take our nation forward for many years to come.'
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It was only with increasing democratisation, and a growing disenfranchisement at the chasm between the top and the rest, that elitism has become a byword for undeserved privilege and gross injustice. This brief trip back in time is not to rehabilitate elitism, but to show that the current period against it – or at least one that pays lip service to not believing in an elite class – may be an aberrant one. In the West, this has been taken to extremes, manifesting in a debilitating disregard fo r e xperts and fatal results during the Covid-19 pandemic against the advice of doctors to vaccinate. In Singapore, it is the elite schools that are targeted, in the idealistic slogan that every school is a good school. Though, for perplexing reasons, this scepticism has not yet been extended to the natural reverence the majority of Singaporeans harbour for lawyers and doctors. Their expertise is assumed to be universally applicable – a mentality that has narrowed parents and students' conception of what success looks like. In any case, the ills of elitism have been thoroughly aired, including the type of entitled, discompassionate divas that it ends up producing. The very consensus of who deserves to be elite has also fractured. I wonder, though, if this enmity has led to some unexpected side effects. This is a train of thought sparked by recent reactions to the Government's SG Culture Pass initiative set out during the Budget statement in 2025. Self-sabotage Under the scheme, $100 would be given t o Si ngaporeans aged 18 and above for the consumption of the local arts, redeemable from September. One would expect rejoicing, but there was uproar from a group of vocal naysayers. They accused the credits of being the very thing it counteracted: elitism. Why? Because the money could be better spent on support for groceries. This, I thought, was a case of anti-elitism as self-sabotage. Central to this worldview was that the arts is an elitist activity patronised only by the rich and the hyper-educated aesthete, when one type of activity for the elite and one for the others is exactly the sort of segregation and self-limiting mentality that perpetuates divides. There was no sense that this $100 in credits was a way of making the perceived barrier more permeable. To put it in context, the Government also announced $800 in CDC vouchers. This was bread for all, and roses too. Yet another potentially problematic by-product is that the word 'elite' has since been tainted by association. No one dares lay claim to the word 'elite', or acknowledge that someone else may be elite in his or her field. The rare exemption is perhaps in sports, where athletes accept the cut-throat nature of their competition, and where non-athletes are so tangibly outside their league that there is no point in pretending otherwise. This is not in itself a problem – elite is after all just a word – though I find no easy replacement term that can immediately convey excellence to the same degree. But it incidentally comes at a time when there is a general reluctance to impose any kind of objective standard, supplemented by that compassionate but useless invention: the consolation prize. This applies to things: Is no one taste now better than another? As well as people, where so many takes on social media are considered equally valid, measured just by virality. It is the kind of ChatGPT mentality where how often something is repeated or the number of clicks on a website can influence results, with no regard to its truth value. The war against elitism may have come at the expense of standards and good sense. 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It is a lifelong dusting off of mediocrity, and it begins with first recognising what is good. Hear Me Out is a new series where young journalists (over)share on topics ranging from navigating friendships to self-loathing, and the occasional intrusive thought. Check out the Headstart chatbot for answers to your questions on careers and work trends.
