There are currently two types of elections in Singapore: parliamentary and presidential elections. According to the Constitution of Singapore, general elections for Parliament must be conducted within three months of the dissolution of Parliament, which has a maximum term of five years from the first sitting of Parliament, and presidential elections are conducted every six years.
The Parliament of Singapore is unicameral with 93 seats. Since the legislative assembly election in 1959, the People's Action Party (PAP) has had an overwhelming majority, and for nearly two decades was the only political party to win any seats, and has always formed the Government of Singapore.
Parliamentary elections
From Singapore's independence in 1965, to 1981, the People's Action Party (PAP) won every single seat in every election held, forming a parliament with no elected opposition MP for almost two decades. In Singapore, opposition politicians and trade unionists were detained in prison without trial before the 1960s and early 1970s. Many such as Lim Chin Siong, Said Zahari and Lim Hock Siew were accused by the government of being involved in subversive communist struggles. Among them, Chia Thye Poh was detained the longest; he was detained for 23 years without any trial.
From 1984, opposition politicians began being elected in parliament. Two out of the 74 seats went to opposition politicians. Subsequently, in 1988, the PAP won 76 out of the 77 seats; in 1991, PAP won 77 seats out of the 81 seats. In 1997, 2001 and 2006, two opposition candidates were elected during each respective parliamentary election. In 1988, former Solicitor-General of Singapore and opposition politician, Francis Seow was also detained without trial. He was later charged with tax evasion but he fled overseas and sought asylum successfully in the United States. He was convicted of tax evasion in absentia. Workers' Party member Gopalan Nair also fled Singapore in the 1990s. Catherine Lim argues that a climate of fear hurts Singapore. Prominent opposition politicians bankrupted and/or jailed in the 20th century also include J. B. Jeyaretnam, Tang Liang Hong and Chee Soon Juan.
The campaigning time for elections in Singapore remains very short in the 21st century. The legal minimum campaign time, from when the election is announced to polling day, is nine days. This minimum campaigning time is generally used in the elections held in Singapore. The announcement of the election follows the announcement of new constituency boundaries.
Since the implementation of the Group Representation Constituency (GRC), critics have accused the governing party of gerrymandering. The electoral system reduces the chances of opposition representation in Parliament with a "winner takes all" system. As pointed by NGO group Maruah Singapore, it "creates a barrier to entry" for smaller opposition political parties to contest in the general elections as they may find it hard to field a five-member team of talents, it also allows for the "free-riding of untested candidates" who get in on the back of stronger team members, such as the PAP candidates brought in to the Tanjong Pagar GRC, which was uncontested for 14 years when helmed by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The Elections Department, in charge of redrawing electoral boundaries without the need of parliamentary approval, was established as part of the executive branch under the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), rather than as an independent body. Critics have accused it of giving the governing party the power to decide polling districts and polling sites through electoral engineering, based on poll results in previous elections. Opposition politician Sylvia Lim has stated in Parliament, “The entire electoral boundary re-drawing process is completely shrouded in secrecy, chaired by the secretary to the Cabinet. There are no public hearings, no minutes of meeting published. The revised boundaries are released weeks or even days before Nomination Day. The report makes no attempt to explain why certain single seats are retained while others are dissolved, nor why new GRCs are created or old ones re-shaped.” Cheng San GRC and Eunos GRC were examples of constituencies dissolved by the Elections Department after opposition parties gained ground in elections, with voters redistributed to other constituencies.