If there's one thing that binds both the People's Action Party (PAP) and Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) together, it is their love for Singapore McDonald's.

The allure of fast food proved too much for the men in white and the men in red, as they chalked up a collective $221.45 at the Bukit Batok Central McDonald's outlet during the 2016 Bukit Batok by-election.

On the PAP side, they chomped down a total of 195 chicken McNuggets during the nine-day campaign -- 9 boxes of 20-piece nuggets, one box of 9-piece nuggets, and one box of 6-piece nuggets. Lots of additional curry sauce boxes also appeared in their payment receipts.

The SDP camp preferred burgers -- they bought five double cheese burgers in a single trip to McDs on April 24.

All these and other quirky information were revealed in the campaign expenses submitted to the Elections Department (ELD) this week.

The spending limit imposed by the ELD was S$4 for each of the 25,727 registered voters in the Bukit Batok SMC, and both candidates kept their spending below that.

The mainstream media focused on how SDP Sec-Gen Chee Soon Juan outspent PAP's Murali Pillai -- S$87,200.42 for Chee, compared to S$82,091 for Murali.

This is true, but it is merely scratching the surface of how local politicians allocate their budgets in a modern political campaign.

Here are three observations on how these two politicians devoted their resources in our latest election, after spending a morning at the ELD:

1. Mark Zuckerberg thanks you: Facebook promotion to increase political awareness is a rising trend

Distributing flyers and holding rallies are the two most traditional ways political candidates drum up public awareness about them and their campaign. Since 1965.

And these two items continue to form the bulk of the spending (as high as 65 per cent) for both PAP and SDP. Take rallies for instance -- SDP spent about $30,060 to hold four rallies, while the ruling party spent at least $28,224 on two.

But Facebook now comes in third, after flyers and rallies.

This is quite an achievement for a social media platform that is only 12 years old.

In contrast to other countries, politicians here skip a medium (broadcast -- TV and radio) or two (if you consider print) in terms of political advertising.

SDP and PAP spent $645.55 and $317.49 respectively on Facebook advertising. Most of the money was spent on promoting the Facebook posts from the candidates' individual pages, followed by the parties' Facebook pages.

Now, the amounts spent are not as high as the spending on rallies or flyers, but that is precisely the allure of Facebook advertising -- it is cheap (you can spend as little as $1), convenient (you just need a credit card) and effective (most Singaporeans are on Facebook).

2. The SDP guys are real foodies, and the PAP needed office space and insurance. 

Chee spent a lot more on food than Murali for his activists and volunteers: $5,369 versus $2,356.

According to The Straits Times, the reasons for the high costs are as follows -- PAP has a volunteer who cooked their meals, while Chee's food bill included a $2,354 thank-you dinner for 100 volunteers after the by-election.

For a politician known for being pro-Singaporean in his approach to the economy (he called on the government to “retrench foreign workers first, Singaporean workers last”), it is rather strange that his team had to travel all the way to Selangor to get his posters printed.

SDP spent $3,025 printing his posters from a company (TM Graphic Sdn Bhd) based there. Was it because posters printing are cheaper or was it because none of the local printing companies wanted this job?

The PAP also had a few line items that stood out. They spent $160.50 on office rental in Bukit Batok. They also took insurance coverage for its rally workers at $374.50 from NTUC Income.

3. Election spending reveals PAP's strong grassroots connections and SDP's savviness with technology.

SDP spent a lot of money hiring people to distribute their flyers. SDP spent $14,659 on manpower and logistics to distribute a total of 28,000 flyers.

This is in contrast to the PAP which did not indicate that it spent any money on the distribution of flyers.

On the other hand, the SDP was able to save costs in terms of video production and website development.

For instance, they declared that they spent $410 on camera equipment rental. In other words, videos were probably produced in-house by the SDP activists and volunteers.

In contrast, PAP hired local production company Freeflow Productions to film and edit three videos, which costs $9,630. Photography costs was estimated at $640, while another $2,675 went to Biz-Era.Net Pte Ltd for website development.

Top photo from Getty Images.

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