The People's Action Party entered into a bruising electoral encounter this GE2020, dubbed the Covid-19 election, but still ended up with the supermajority.

It's national vote share fell to 61.24 per cent.

Over the years, the national vote share trended downwards, except for 2015, where there was a bump:

2001: 75.3 per cent

2006: 66.6 per cent

2011: 60.1 per cent

2015: 69.9 per cent

2020: 61.2 per cent

This marks a 8.66 per cent swing against the PAP from the SG50 high in 2015.

Why the swing?

Across multiple contests in various GRCs and SMCs, certain outcomes stood out for the being close contests.

For example, former Republic of Singapore Air Force brigadier-general Gan Siow Huang 45, defeated her opponent Ang Yong Guan, 65, of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) with 55.04 per cent of the votes in an unexpected close call.

In another close contest, PAP's Marine Parade GRC team led by the Speaker of the 13th Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin, got 57.76 per cent of the votes against the Workers' Party (WP).

This showing was noticeably lower than the 64.07 per cent achieved in the 2015 General Election.

Total votes cast

In total, 2.53 million votes were cast this GE2020, according to the Elections Department Singapore.

Out of the 2,535,565 votes cast, 45,772 were rejected votes.

This 2.53 million figure made up 95.63 per cent of the 2,651,435 registered electors.

PAP leadership response to vote share

In his post-election press conference at about 5am, leader of the PAP, Lee Hsien Loong, said the overall vote share was not what he expected, but it was enough to indicate that Singaporeans still wanted the PAP to remain in power.

Top photo via CNA