The Parliament session on Sept. 2, 2020 saw a crossing of rhetorical swords between the leader of Singapore and the Leader of the Opposition (LO) over a slew of issues.

"Free-riders": New buzzword

However, the buzzword of the day, which managed to seize the Singapore public's attention, was "free-riders" -- a concept thrown into the fiery exchange and igniting some impassioned arguments across the political divide.

MP Jamus Lim's economics territory

Following the marathon seven-hour session on Wednesday, Workers' Party (WP) Sengkang GRC MP Jamus Lim took to his various social media accounts to explain why he felt opposition voters cannot be classified as free riders in Singapore's political system, just because they did not pick PAP candidates to represent them.

Lim posted his arguments on social media after 8pm:

What MP Jamus Lim argued?

Lim's views were to shift the public's understanding of the free-rider phenomenon, which in economics and outside of it, is often used as a pejorative term and presented frequently as a negative issue.

Lim was essentially saying that the "free-riders" label should not be applied to opposition voters because:

- Free-riders are people who reap the benefits of other people's actions or underpay for it.

- Free-riders cannot be excluded from enjoying the benefits that others pay for.

- And that opposition voters are incurring their own costs as well by virtue of not picking the incumbent.

Lim elaborated:

Moreover, in Aljunied, Hougang, and Sengkang, the votes were potentially costly: it required trust in our candidates, that we would be good town councilors and MPs. Yet voters were willing to do so. This does not strike me as consistent with free riding. Moreover, our sense—having spoken to voters in the aftermath—is that they did not vote tactically (for the WP, hoping that the PAP would still form government). If anything, they overcame their fear of the untested, and voted for the WP regardless.

Context of opposition voters as "free-riders" debate in Parliament

Lim's comments have to be read in the context of what transpired in Parliament earlier on between the two leaders.

What PM Lee argued

The "free-rider" concept was brought up by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, following his one-and-a-half-hour speech during the debate on the President's Address.

It was raised during PM Lee's subsequent clarification to WP chief and LO Pritam Singh.

PM Lee said: "What I would say, however, if you stand and you tell people, vote for me, I would be a better MP than the other PAP MP, I think that's entirely reasonable."

"But if you say, vote for me, somebody else will vote for the PAP and therefore the PAP will be the government, that, the economist will call a 'free-rider'."

"It means you are taking advantage of somebody else, who is doing their duty of electing a government for the nation."

Such an action, PM Lee argued, will bring the system to ruin.

He said: "But if you say, vote against the government, because somebody else will look after getting the PAP government, and you just become a free-rider. And you vote opposition, no harm, the PAP will still be there, then I think the system must fail."

"Because the system can only work if people vote sincerely, honestly, in accordance with what they really want, and to produce the result, which matches their true intentions."

PM Lee added that if a voter truly believes the government is not up to scratch, they should vote to change it.

He said the WP campaigned on the platform of forming a strong opposition, but explicitly not seeking to form the next government.

Supposing the other opposition parties such as Progress Singapore Party and Singapore Democratic Party have been “as persuasive as” Singh, and more voters took such an attitude, PM Lee queried, “where would Singapore be?”

But PM Lee's argument has come to be understood that voters who vote for the opposition are doing so tactically, almost second-guessing the outcome, on the assumption that the PAP government will still be returned to power -- resulting in opposition voters having their cake and eating it, or having the best of both worlds.

What Singh argued

However, Singh responded by turning attention away from the rhetoric of the election campaign into a voter issue.

He said the voters who pick the opposition are not free-riding, given that opposition MPs still have to run town councils and prove their worth, or else, they too would be voted out -- just like the PAP would.

And political choices can be made because of an underlying stratum of stability, an assertion Singh borrowed from PM Lee's father.

Singh said that Singapore's ability to function resides in its non-political public service -- one that has been recognised as reliable and functional.

Citing the late Lee Kuan Yew, Singh said it was the first prime minister who said that if the ruling party is ever voted out of government, the "machinery" must be there so that the civil service, police and armed forces can continue.

But the first and foremost challenge, Singh highlighted, was the need for good people to step up to join the opposition in the first place.

Singh added, in a voice shaky with emotion at some points: "When my colleagues and I joined the opposition cause, we didn't have heady dreams of becoming government."

"It's certainly not me. Why did I do this? I believe in an opposition, in a parliamentary democracy. It's not going to happen with people just hoping someone else does it."

"Somebody has to put his flag in the sand and say, 'I'm going to do it'. And then it's the duty of myself, my party colleagues, to make sure that the people who are on board, do their very best. This is my commitment to Singaporeans and this is my commitment to the prime minister as well."

This elicited some applause from the MPs, including a few ministers.

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