GE2025 Mandarin live roundtable: Exceeding speaking time, relying on notes & other observations

Representatives from four political parties and a coalition contesting in the 2025 general election spoke at Mediacorp's live political roundtable in Mandarin, "Singapore Votes 2025: The Political Forum (新加坡大选2025:政党论政)" on Apr. 29 night.

The representatives were:

• People's Action Party (PAP): Senior Minister of State at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Development, candidate for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC Sim Ann
• Workers' Party (WP): Candidate for Tampines GRC Eileen Chong
• Red Dot United (RDU): Candidate for Nee Soon GRC Pang Heng Chuan
• Progress Singapore Party (PSP): First vice-chairperson and candidate for West Coast-Jurong West GRC Hazel Poa
• People's Alliance for Reform (PAR): Candidate for Yio Chu Kang SMC Michael Fang

Here are some of the highlights from the 60-minute-long programme, which was streamed on 8world's YouTube page.

Format similar to GE2025 roundtable in English

Similar to the GE2025 roundtable in English, which took place on Apr. 27, the roundtable in Mandarin revolved around three issues, namely geopolitics, economy and jobs, and cost of living.

For each issue, the moderator posed one common question to all representatives to answer.

Thereafter, a political commentator was invited to ask each representative a follow-up question specific to their respective party's stance on the issues.

Finally, representatives delivered their respective closing remarks, sharing why candidates from their respective parties should be voted into parliament on Polling Day (May 3).

Throughout the programme, the representatives spoke in sequence, namely Fang, Poa, Pang, Chong, and Sim.

According to the moderator, the more candidates a party or coalition fielded in GE2025, the later the representative would speak.

Each opposition party representative had between 1 and 1.5 minutes to speak, while Sim had four times as long, between 4 and 6 minutes.

After their allocated speaking time was up, the moderator would cut them off.

The representatives were unable to address one another.

WP present

During GE2020, only three political parties sent representatives to the Mandarin political debate, according to Today.

The representatives were Ong Ye Kung, now Minister for Health and PAP candidate for Sembawang GRC, Leong Mun Wai, now PSP secretary-general and candidate for West Coast-Jurong West GRC, and Bryan Lim, now Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) vice-chairman and candidate for Sembawang GRC.

At the time, WP secretary-general Pritam Singh apologised for his party's absence from the debate and promised to "do better".

According to him, while there were WP members who were able to deliver speeches and communicate with residents in Mandarin, the proficiency required for a live debate "is of a higher order".

Fast forward to GE2025, WP sent a representative for the Mandarin roundtable, thanks to the presence of Chong.

3 female candidates, 2 male candidate

Unlike the GE2020 Mandarin political debate, three of the five present at the GE2025 Mandarin roundtable, namely PAP, WP, and PSP, fielded female representatives.

As a result, the roundtable had more female candidates than male candidates.

The GE2025 roundtable in English, in contrast, only had one female candidate, namely PSP's candidate for Pioneer SMC Stephanie Tan.

Relying on notes, exceeding speaking time

All candidates at the Mandarin roundtable referred to their notes several times while answering questions and delivering their closing remarks.

Notably, Pang was the only candidate who brought an iPad. All others relied on paper.

However, it appeared that notes were not infallible, as two candidates, Fang and Poa, were cut off by the moderator after running over their allocated speaking time.

Fang was cut off three times, once when answering the moderator's question, once when answering the commentator's question, and once during his closing remarks.

Poa was cut off one time during her closing remarks.

Fewer shots fired than GE2025 English roundtable

In the Mandarin roundtable, Sim appeared to adopt a less confrontational approach towards the opposition parties.

In her response to the moderator's first question on geopolitics, Sim shared that Singaporeans need not be afraid of the headwinds ahead, as Singapore enjoys "a solid economic foundation" and "healthy reserves".

She later added that she was "very happy that WP friend agreed as well that [the government] had a solid foundation".

Although several opposition candidates fired shots at the PAP during their respective closing remarks, Sim did not name a political party in her closing remarks.

Instead, she said:

"I am very happy to see that some of the relatively drastic suggestions [the opposition] had proposed previously were not mentioned in today's roundtable. [...]

At each election, the opposition will exaggerate the problem right in front of us and criticise the government to increase their chance of winning.

A good government, however, will need to persuade its citizens to continue placing their trust in our governance philosophy, which is to take into account both Singaporeans' current and future needs.

If we lose this trust, we would be moving towards populist politics, where we only focus on the issues up close and neglect the future."

Fang invited candidates to bow to audience

Perhaps in line with the overall friendly atmosphere of the Mandarin roundtable, at the end of the programme, Fang invited his fellow candidates to stand up and bow to the audience to "show their patriotism".

In response, the moderator smiled tersely, nodded and said, "Thank you. Please take a seat," before thanking the audience for tuning in.

@mothershipsg But she was still not too stunned to speak. #GE2025 #sgnews #singapore Things are COOKING. Follow #MothershipGE2025 ♬ original sound - Mothership

Top images via 8world/YouTube