🇵🇱🇸🇬Election Round-Up: Poland and Singapore
🇵🇱🇸🇬Election Round-Up: Poland and Singapore
Hello! Happy Wednesday and welcome to another election edition of Inside The Newsroom, where we’ll dissect what went down in Poland and Singapore over the past week. In Poland, Andrzej Duda’s re-election as president means the country is set to become even more authoritarian over the next three years, while democracy in Singapore could increase as the country’s opposition made important gains. Below we go into far more detail on what happened as well as what’s next for each nation. Last week I promised you a podcast with legendary behavioural scientist Cass Sunstein. We recorded the episode on Friday, but I moved into my own apartment over the weekend (yay me) and I underestimated (natural human tendency which I get into with Cass) the time it took, so I PROMISE to give you Cass Sunstein next week. Until then, enjoy and see you on Friday for this week’s Picks of the Week. 🤓✊
2020 Elections So Far
July: Mongolia, Iceland🇲🇳🇮🇸 and Croatia, Dominican Republic🇭🇷🇩🇴
June: Serbia, Kiribati and Malawi🇷🇸🇰🇮🇲🇼
April: South Korea🇰🇷
March: Israel, Slovakia and Tajikistan🇮🇱🇸🇰🇹🇯
February: Cameroon, Ireland, Azerbaijan🇨🇲🇮🇪🇦🇿 and Iran, Togo🇮🇷🇹🇬
Job Corner
Deadlines this week include CBC, Michigan Radio, the San Antonio Express News and the City NY. Spread the word. 🤜🤛
Poland Set For Extended Authoritarian Rule
We’ll lead things off this week with the closest Polish presidential race since the end of communism in 1989. Sunday’s run-off was called after no candidate secured more than 50 percent in the first round of results two weeks ago. Incumbent president Andrzej Duda, who’s closely aligned to the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), beat mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski from the liberal-conservative Civic Platform (PO) party, 51.2 to 48.8 percent of the votes.
However, further counting might be needed as the PO said they were gathering intelligence on voting irregularities, including reports of expats abroad not receiving their voting slips in time to vote. Warsaw University political scientist Anna Materska-Sosnowska told the AFP there’ll be electoral protest that’ll ultimately end up in the Supreme Court.
What next for Poland?
Duda’s victory essentially means PiS, whose policies are largely influenced by Catholicism, can continue their socially conservative agenda until 2023, when the next parliamentary election is due to be held. Back in June, for example, Duda told a campaign rally that the LGBT “ideology” was more destructive than communism. PiS currently hold a slim majority of just four seats, so Poland as a whole remains incredibly split despite right-wing control of both parliament and the presidency.
To make things worse for Poland’s centre and left-wing parties, leaving the European Union is now a real threat, according to the country’s Supreme Court. PiS are attempting to reform the country’s judicial system, which they say would rid the state of corruption, but it would come at the cost of allowing judges to be dismissed if they question the government’s policies, something that’s in direct contradiction of EU law. Since PiS took over in 2015, the country’s democracy has rapidly decreased.
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
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Singapore: A Small Crack Emerges
Moving to Singapore now as the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) won 83 of the 93 parliamentary seats, holding onto power they’ve held since 1965 (!!!). But in an election that was widely seen as a referendum on the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, the PAP’s vote share fell nine points from 2015 to 61 percent, a sign many Singaporeans aren’t happy. And they have a right to be peeved: Of all the countries in the Far East, Singapore has seen almost 30 times the number of cases per million people than the next highest. Fortunately, total confirmed deaths have been limited to just 27, one of the lowest counts across the globe.
What next for Singapore?
Before anything else, the PAP must do a better job relative to its geographical peers of suppressing Covid-19. With daily cases still at an alarmingly high rate, Singapore is poorly positioned for the inevitable spate of second, third and fourth waves that are about to hit the shores of many countries.
Source: Worldometer
To make things worse, the country has been hit by a significant outbreak of the mosquito-borne dengue disease, whose rise has been linked to more people staying at home in increasingly warm and wet weather. Already this year there’s been almost 20,000 cases of dengue, more than the 15,998 cases recorded last year. And according to the Singapore National Environment Agency, this year’s outbreak is expected to be the largest on record.
Source: Singapore National Environment Agency
Weekly cases of dengue disease in Singapore, 2016-2020
Looking ahead and Singapore has its largest opposition presence in parliament since 1966, suggesting a crack has formed in the PAP’s long-running rule. With unemployment, healthcare, financial and social equality, and climate change the most important issues among Singaporeans, the PAP will need to address the concerns of its people if it doesn’t want the crack to widen. On top of that, the Covid-19 recession that’s set to hit most, if not all, countries has already started to take shape in Singapore: A 41 percent GDP contraction this quarter leaves the country in deep economic trouble. And also like many other countries, Singapore likely has worse problems to come.