The Workers’ Party won Aljunied GRC because they offered hope to a new generation tired of the pragmatism of the People’s Action Party policies.
Tag: People’s Action Party
Elections Posters: The People’s Version
With the advent of image-editing tools like Photoshop and the ease of finding images online, Singaporeans have created some very interesting visuals to express their views on the General Elections this year. Here’s a sample of some I’ve found so far:
Remiser Tan has retold the elections via the Chinese wuxia classic《倚天屠龙记》The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber:
Nicholas Lim has remade Hollywood and Chinese blockbuster movies to dramatise the opposition’s cause, very apt choices, I must say.
Mr Brown has also translated his satirical voice into visuals, making use of the form of motivational posters and comics (click to see the actual posts)
So far, I’ve yet to find any self made posters supporting the PAP’s cause. I suppose most people think the party has more than enough resources, so why bother?
Here are also two websites that have been producing a body of political cartoons about Singapore, a rare find these days. Check out Joshua Chiang’s The Dunno Cartoons and Ben Soon’s Spore Says Political Cartoon.
Finally, if you’ve come across any self made election visuals that I’ve yet to feature, do share them here!
Urbanism and PAP’s election campaign
While trawling through the Picture Archives Singapore Database for some research on past elections, I came across these two comics that were part of the People’s Action Party (PAP) 1963 elections campaign.
This comic resembles a polling card and persuades voters to choose the PAP (marked with a ‘X’) by equating its logo with a modern city of schools, HDB flats, infrastructure and religious sites. As this elections was held just five days after Singapore merged with Malaysia, the city’s background appropriately depicts the Malaysian flag.
In contrast to the PAP, the comic also illustrates its opponents the Barisan Sosialis and the Singapore Alliance as communists and corrupt respectively. The Barisan’s logo becomes a two-headed snake and is accompanied with a graphic that shows them presenting Singapore to the communists. As for the Singapore Alliance, its boat logo has weak sails, while its candidates are depicted as rich people who give away money to hooligans.
This second comic promotes the progress Singapore has made under PAP’s rule since it came into power in 1959. Again, the image of the modern city is used, this time in the background, while the foreground shows how corruption, lies and the unpatriotic have been crushed or surrendered.
Comparing these comics with how election posters evolved over the years, there is a shift towards ‘looking objective’ and ‘professional’. Nowadays, campaign materials make no reference to the opponents, and photographs are used instead, even if it’s a composed image like the this 2006 poster. Of course, another reason is because these technology (e.g. Photoshop, photography) are now more readily available than in the ’60s.
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in these posters is the use of the modern city as a backdrop in a PAP election visual — a reflection of urbanism as a integral tool of this political party.