Modelling the 2025 General Election: Was it right to apply Dunleavy to Singapore?

Almost a full month before Nomination Day, we at Illusio used Dunleavy’s dominant party system framework to drive our predictions for the outcome of the general election. We made 3 predictions, only of which  was correct: that the People’s Action Party (PAP) would maintain its dominance due to its perceived competence. No reasonable person would've gotten this wrong, with or without a model. The others landed somewhat off the mark. Yes, WP picked up ZERO new wards but they did not lose a GRC. To quote the Black Knight: Let's call this a draw.  No, the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) did not pick up a GRC in the west. That one was a total dud.

Do the outcomes mean Dunleavy's framework has finally broken down and is not applicable to Singapore? Or do the outcomes mean there's something else going on, which complictes but doesn't invalidate Dunleavy?

Did Blackbox survey show voters can't make up their minds?

Blackbox conducted a survey just before Cooling Off Day, where its respondents overwhelmingly cited PAP’s as a vote for "stability, certainty, and leadership continuity". These are buzzwords more deserving from a PR company than a pollster, but they're just a stand-in for our old friend from Dunleavy's model, the Perceived Competence of a Dominant Ruling Party. But wait, there's a contradiction here! If the respondents were so hot for competence, why did the outcome suggest actual voters did not penalise PAP and WP for perceived and publicly visible incompetence?

The extra-marital affairs of Leon Perera, Nicole Seah, Tan Chuan Jin, Cheng Li Hui; the Rajahs of Ridout controversy and investigation that exonerated both ministers; the Raeesah Khan lie in Parliament that was abetted by Pritam Singh, who in turn lied about his role to the parliamentary committee of privileges; the internal chaos of WP in dealing with the fallout (was their own CEC inquiry stacked? did WP value blind loyalty over moral criticism of Prof. Daniel Goh?)—these are moral and governance lapses comparable to those which voters readily punished both the PAP and other opposition parties in the past.

Let's assume that the survey respondents weren't lying, and that they were indeed a representative sample of the voters? Then for this election, voters prioritised stability but shockingly, against all voting history in Singapore, did not punish competence lapses at the ballot box.

We at Illusio deployed a Dunleavean snapshot before the election; the model emphasises structural factors over campaign effects. But something significant did happen during the campaign period.

What really happened during the campaign period?

If both parties had stuck to a “mutually assured destruction of competence perception” strategy (MADCAP), the result would've been exactly as we predicted originally. PSP would complete its path from NCMPs to full parliamentarians. But what actually happened? Both the PAP and WP abstained from aggressive attacks on each other’s competence, preserving an aura of mutual credibility. PAP did not mention the affairs and scandals of WP. WP did not mention the affairs and scandals of PAP.

It is entirely possible that there were no backchannel communications and hence no active collusion between the two parties. Both parties may have conducted pre-election polling to confirm the extreme likelihood of was originally predicted here at Illusio, and independently converged on a Tacit Electoral Truce as their best self-preservation strategy. But how would two non-colluding and formally antagonistic players signal their preference for a truce? Perhaps WP would signal its offer on Nomination Day by abandoning its contest for Marine Parade-Braddell Heights, and the PAP could signal its acceptance by refusing to attack this abandonment as WP's lack of competence...

The campaign narratives were telling: PAP presented a vision of a suddenly far dangerous world, where its competence would be needed. WP presented itself as a "loyal oposition" who had delivered on checks and balances, conferring on itself a level of competence. Both parties did not challenge each other's narratives, hence preseving their aura of mutual credibility.

Instead, PAP and WP proxies launched an offensive on all other parties, dubbing them "mosquito parties".  Now they are the ones who are manifestly incompetent, not WP or PAP. This third narrative was not recognised by independent media, commentators, or even party leaders as an attempt to impose a narrative frame and manufacture consensus during the campaign. Now, if these parties are so insignificant, why expend energy and effort to remind people they're insignificant? It only makes sense if both parties already had prior knowledge that it is a mosquito that will benefit from the MADCAP scenario. Instead, the mosquito label betrays this anxiety of influence.

This effectively turned a multiplayer contest into a two-player game. Voters, as the collective referee, were in effect persuaded by both players to ignore the existence of all other teams, and also the fouls the two players had committed, by way of "gentlemanly conduct" and a "maturing political contest" - the fourth narrative of the campaign period.

We estimate that the combination of crisis messaging, the tacit electoral truce, and the mosquito labelling and attacks cost non-WP opposition parties up to 10% of the vote. In other words, if both PAP and WP had resorted to MADCAP, Chee would've won and PSP had a 50-50 chance of entering parliament.

What does the future hold?

Both PAP and WP took the most rational route to self-preservation and arrived at a tacit electoral truce. If this tacit truce persists across multiple general elections (and why wouldn't it, when it's worked out so well for both parties?), Singapore is headed for a parliamentary duopoly instead of a two-party state. PAP will cement its supermajority while WP plays the token, loyal, PAP-approved opposition, a junior partner, not a government-in-waiting. Both will tag team to keep all other parties out of parliament in general elections. It's a win-win, at least for them. Of course for this to become a formalised arrangement, WP would likely need to cap its ambitions. It must contest no more than 24 seats (roughly a quarter of Parliament) to avoid threatening PAP’s supermajority. Such a ceiling would signal WP’s acceptance of its role in the duopoly.

This hypothetical duopoly has several implications. "Mosquito parties" will remain as essential as they will be derided. If WP cannot contest more than 24 seats, several mosquitoes would have to cover the rest! They function as safety valves, absorbing discontent that might otherwise destabilise the system, and to lend democratic legitimacy to the duopolists. The duopoly is almost exactly the world described by Emeritus Professor Chua Beng Huat: where the only way to run any opposition party is to have

an explicit slogan that we are not here to win elections, but we are here to have the rights to publish a party newsletter, to talk about issues, to exercise the rights to contest elections and make speeches during elections.

Nonvoting may increase as voters disengage entirely from the sheer disillusionment of a lack of viable alternatives. This is likely the dynamic behind the high abstention rate in Tampines GRC. An extended tacit truce between PAP and WP points to a future where Singapore’s parliament becomes a managed duopoly unless mosquito parties challenge the duopoly's legitimacy, voter apathy becomes too embarrassing, or an opposition party decides to go for broke to challenge all the seats (in effect signalling the moral and governance competence required to organise such an effort).