Ethnic quotas and unintended effects on women’s political representation in Singapore

Introduction

Presently, more than 50 countries in the world have made legal provisions to ensure the descriptive representation of ethno-religious minority groups and women in politics. While we know much about the institutional solutions to protect minorities in ethnically divided societies (Horowitz, 1985; Lijphart, 1977; Norris, 2004; Reilly and Reynolds, 1999) and the use of gender quotas to ‘fast-track’ women into politics (Dahlerup and Freidenvall, 2005; Tripp and Kang, 2008), less is known about intersections between ethnicity and gender in terms of the implications of affirmative action strategies. Comparative work on the representational politics across the two identities remains limited. Indeed, few studies have explored how ethnic quotas affect gender representation and vice versa. ¹ As electoral rules have intended and unintended consequences (Grofman and Lijphart, 2003; Lijphart, 1990) and the selection of ‘one remedy for underrepresentation over others will generally shape the future trajectory of a social group’ (Htun, 2004: 451), this article will study how an ethnic quota policy in Singapore affects women’s political representation over time.

Singapore introduced an ethnic quota policy in 1988, although minority ethnic groups already constituted 19% of the Parliament, approximating its share of the population. In contrast, women received no legal provisions, despite occupying less than 5% of seats. Singapore’s selective quota policy presents a puzzle and deserves attention for three reasons. First, even without gender quotas, women’s overall legislative representation improved phenomenally, from 5% in 1988 to 21.8% after the 2011 general election. ² While no women stood in the 1980 election, a total of 32 women candidates contested the 2011 elections. Currently, the Parliament has 20 elected women Members of Parliament (MPs), 22.9% of the total legislators – the highest in the country’s electoral history. How the Singaporean women managed to raise their political representation without the use of quotas merits further study.

Second, the adoption of a quota policy for minority ethnic groups and not for women highlights the social differences between the two groups and the consequences of electoral engineering. As Posner (2004) suggests, the salience of ethnicity is higher than that of gender as it can be mobilised by elites to gain electoral support. Unlike gender, ethnicity often coincides with – rather than crosscuts – partisan alignments (Htun, 2004: 439). The case of Singapore shows how changes in the rules of the game are historically contingent and politically motivated. As Reynolds (2005: 308) notes, assessing when communal groups are awarded special electoral rights is important as it sheds light on why the rights were given and motivations behind the electoral design. More could be learned about group representation politics if we avoid conflating the experiences of the two identity groups (Krook and O’Brien, 2010).

Third, the adoption of ethnic quotas in 1988 led to a change in the electoral system used in Singapore, from a single-member plurality system to one that combines single-member constituencies (SMCs) and multimember constituencies based on the party list bloc vote system. The multimember constituencies or the Group Representative Constituencies (GRCs) were introduced to ensure a multiracial legislative representation that reflects the national social ethnic composition. It is designed such that voters casts their votes for an entire team of four to six candidates with at least one minority ethnic member. The winning party with a plurality of votes then takes all the seats in the group constituency. The country’s electoral choice is shared by three other authoritarian regimes, all in Africa: Cameroon, Chad and Djibouti. It diverges from the ‘Asian model’ of a mixed system that combines list proportional representation and a plurality/majoritarian element (Reilly, 2007). Singapore’s party list bloc vote system has been found to penalise smaller parties and generate high electoral disproportionality (Croissant et al., 2002; Tan, 2013).

This article argues that the multimember constituencies/GRCs mandating the nomination of minority ethnic groups also offer more opportunities to field women. Indeed, the ‘district magnitude’ or the number of politicians who are elected in each electoral constituency makes a key difference (Salmond, 2006; Studlar and Welch, 1991). In Singapore, the sizes of GRCs grew over the years. Presently, there are 12 SMCs and 15 GRCs made up of four, five or six MPs each, ³ which guarantees about 17% of 87 total seats for minority ethnic groups. By tracing the political trajectories of the two groups at the party and national levels over the last two decades, the analysis shows that the multimember seats have facilitated the inclusion of not only minority ethnic groups, but also women.

To understand the resulting increase in the number of women, this article builds on the growing scholarship on gender quotas (Darcy et al., 1994; Krook, 2010; Krook and O’Brien, 2010) and electoral politics (Grofman and Lijphart, 2003; Norris, 2004). It seeks to demonstrate how party leaders act as gatekeepers and that candidate selection is ‘the choice before the choice’ that determines the composition of the legislature (Field and Siavelis, 2008; Rahat, 2007). Candidate selection is significant for hegemonic party systems such as in Singapore, as one party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), has maintained a legislative supermajority over time while the opposition parties are ‘second class, licensed’ parties that cannot compete with the hegemonic party in an antagonistic or on an equal basis (Sartori, 2005: 204–205). Despite the PAP’s recent trend of declining vote shares, the party has retained an average of 95% seat shares over the last five decades. Even with 24 registered parties in the country, only five to six are active in or contest elections. Hence, in Singapore, the ruling party’s candidate selection is critical as it largely decides the composition of the legislature.

This article is organised as follows. The first section introduces the claims and politics behind the selective adoption of ethnic quotas in Singapore. The second section compares and examines the effects of the ethnic list quota on the representation of minority ethnic groups and women at the national level. Finally, the third section demonstrates how multimember lists in Singapore have offered parties incentives to field not only minority ethnic groups, but also women, in the last three elections.

Regulating ethnic relations

Singapore is one of Asia’s most culturally diverse and ethnically fractionalised countries. Geographically surrounded by large Muslim neighbours, the small island has a population of about 5 million made up of 74% Chinese, 13% Malay and 9.2% Indian minority ethnic groups (Statistics Singapore, 2010). The country’s history of low-intensity attacks from Indonesia during the Konfrontasi period, ⁴ expulsion from the Malaysian Federation and two racial riots in 1964 and 1969 were critical junctures that left an indelible mark on the leaders’ psyche. Since then, the fear of the resurgence of racial conflicts has dominated the country’s public policies.

The PAP government makes no apologies for introducing even racially discriminatory policies to promote racial integration, subsuming them under a nation-building rationale (Tan, 2005). For example, all Singaporeans have to carry identity cards declaring their racial group, based on Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other racial categories. State-sponsored ‘self-help groups’ to promote the welfare of communities are also organised along racial lines, while immigration policies seek to maintain a Chinese majority in the national racial distribution. Aside from the legal constraints, the PAP government also created ‘broker institutions’ such as the People’s Association, a statutory board, to build a wide network of grassroots political organisations and inter-racial activities to foster national identity. In addition, social ethnic integration is maintained through national conscription and making English the lingua franca.

By the late 1970s, draconian and intrusive measures had eliminated labour strikes and racial unrest in the country. However, a myriad of rules – such as the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, the Public Entertainments Meeting Act, the Miscellaneous Offences Act, the Newspaper and Printing Presses (Amendment) Act, the Internal Security Act, the Singapore Societies Act, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act and the Seditious Act – are actively enforced to ensure ethnic and religious harmony. The manner in which these rules and laws are applied and undermine civil and political liberties is well-documented and requires no elaboration (see George, 2012; Rajah, 2012; Thio and Tan, 2009). ⁵ It suffices to note that individuals who attempt to mobilise support based on racial or religious issues would be met with dire consequences. ⁶

Rationale and timing of ethnic quotas

By the mid-1980s, the PAP leaders’ concern with ethnic voting ⁷ led to a new electoral initiative to ensure the legislative representation of its minority ethnic groups, especially the Malays. Despite opposition, even from the Malay community, the party list bloc vote system was introduced to ensure at least one minority ethnic candidate in each GRC. Each party contesting a GRC has to field four to six members with at least one Indian or Malay. Three-fifths of all GRCs require at least a Malay candidate in each GRC, while the remainder can have other minority ethnic groups.

The rationale and timing for the ethnic quota policy in Singapore is controversial for two reasons. First, as Figure 1 shows, minority ethnic legislative representation was not poor to begin with. Even though there was a slight declining trend, by world standards, Singapore still has a comparatively high level of minority ethnic representation. Even at the lowest point of minority ethnic representation from 1984 to 1988, the Parliament had 11.4% Malay MPs and 6.3% Indian MPs (slightly below the total national average of 14% Malay and 7% Indian in 1988). Besides, the GRC scheme was not widely supported by the Malay community. ⁸ Based on election results from 1955 to 1988, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) had found no evidence that Singaporeans were voting along racial lines. ⁹ Moreover, a study of minority ethnic candidates contesting SMCs before 1988 showed that neither the PAP nor the opposition parties had difficulties fielding minority ethnic candidates – although, on average, Indian candidates tended to perform better than Malay candidates. ¹⁰ Presently, the number of minority ethnic MPs has exceeded the total national minority ethnic population share of 25.9%.

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Figure 1.

Representation of minority ethnic groups and women in Parliament, 1968–2011.

Second, the fact that ethnic quotas were introduced at the lowest point of the PAP’s vote share also raised doubts about the political motivations of the initiative. Concerns about ethnic voting emerged only after opposition minority ethnic candidates became competitive in the 1980s. ¹¹ The PAP had retained full control of all legislative seats since 1968. In 1981, however, a PAP Chinese candidate lost to a minority ethnic leader in a by-election, and by 1988, the average vote share of the PAP minority ethnic candidates had slid to a low of 55% from a high of 83% in 1968 (Tan, 2012). At this point, the PAP changed the electoral rules.

Studies show that the PAP Malay MPs suffered from credibility problems as they are often from educated or middle-class backgrounds, with difficulties connecting with working-class Malays (Mutalib, 2012; Rahim, 2008). Hence, the declining support for the PAP’s minority ethnic candidates could better explain why the PAP introduced the ethnic quota: to improve the electability of their minority ethnic candidates in the party list bloc vote system. ¹² Critics see the government’s inconsistencies in the regulation of racial politics as being more concerned with self-preservation than with safeguarding minority ethnic groups’ position (Kassim, 1974; Mutalib, 2004, 2012; Rahim, 2008). For example, when the PAP’s minority ethnic support was weak in the 1960s, the PAP leaders were quick to co-opt many Malay leaders into the higher party ranks and governmental positions. But once the support of minority ethnic voters was less critical, the PAP was less concerned with protecting Malay rights (Rahim, 2008: 111).

In addition to ethnic quotas, the PAP government also introduced an ethnic housing quota (Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP)) to encourage ethnic integration and prevent the formation of ethnic enclaves so that no minority ethnic group would exceed 25% in any housing estate. ¹³ Each housing estate is curbed at 84% for Chinese, 22% for Malays and 12% for Indians or Others. ¹⁴ As the government provides more than 80% of housing in Singapore, the housing quota affects a large proportion of residents (Chua, 1991, 1997). The combination of the GRC and ethnic housing quota ensure that all minority ethnic groups will remain a minority in every constituency, both in numbers and in electoral strength. The spatial distribution of minority ethnic groups across 27 constituencies implies that parties cannot canvass support based on ethnic issues. ¹⁵ Essentially, these measures wiped out Malay-based parties such as the Pertubohan Kebangsaan Melayu (PKMS), which had survived on promoting Malay rights and interests (Mutalib, 2004). With quotas in place, there is no constituency where Malays are numerous enough to form a majority and pose an electoral challenge. Ethnic politics is thus effectively suppressed.

Effects of ethnic quotas and district magnitude

Electoral systems have a strong, systematic effect on the legislative representation of minority ethnic groups and women (Grofman and Lijphart, 2003; Norris, 2004). Despite the debates, the general consensus is that single-member district (SMD) plurality/majority systems are less favourable to women and minority ethnic groups than proportional ones (Lovenduski and Norris, 1993; Matland, 1998; Matland and Studlar, 1996). The reason is that the winner-takes-all aspect in SMD means that the incentive is to field a candidate who can attract a large vote share and less attention is put on gender or ethnic balancing. Women and minority ethnic groups, then, perceived to be electorally risky, are less likely to be nominated in SMD systems, where parties choose only one candidate per constituency. SMD systems are often more candidate-centred and allow gender or ethnicity factors to affect voting behaviour (Norris, 1987: 130). This phenomenon is most evident in contexts where social prejudices ¹⁹ persist against women, viewed as being less politically experienced or financially connected (Moser and Scheiner, 2012). By implication, the attitudes of political parties and the views of the selecting committees towards women and minority ethnic groups are also crucial (Farrell, 2011: 164).

SMD systems are also less favourable to women candidates because of the difference in the district magnitude (Norris, 1996; Rule, 1987). Proportional representation (PR) systems with larger multimember districts tend to have higher numbers of women legislators as the chances for their nomination are higher (Yoon, 2011: 103). This is because increases in district magnitude in PR systems enhance opportunities for ticket balancing at the constituency level. Such balancing becomes easier as the district magnitude increases and parties have more incentives to include women and minority ethnic groups to appeal to a wider range of voters (Matland and Studlar, 1996; Norris, 1985). Hence, in mixed electoral systems, women and minority ethnic groups tend to do better in seats elected by PR. In particular, closed-list PR systems are found to be more statistically and substantively significant in promoting women’s representation than open-list systems; they tend to mute cultural bias against women and minority ethnic groups because voters have no ability to select a candidate but instead have to vote for a party (Moser and Scheiner, 2012: 211).

In Singapore, the GRC scheme turned more than 90% of the single seats into multimember constituencies. Essentially, the multimember constituencies/GRCs behave like a closed-list PR system where the party determines the list of candidates who will be voted in en bloc through simple plurality in each constituency. The ethnic quota policy that mandates parties to field at least one minority ethnic candidate ensures that parties are broad-based and inclusive. To be successful, ethnic-based parties have to seek out other ethnic groups to stand as a multi-ethnic team. In sum, the GRC scheme modified candidate selection methods in Singapore. As indicated, the PAP was worried about the popularity of its own minority ethnic candidates in the 1980s. Being more vulnerable in the SMCs, the PAP has refrained from fielding minority ethnic candidates in SMCs after the GRC was introduced. As Figure 2 shows, the PAP stopped fielding minority ethnic candidates in SMCs after 1988 and the opposition parties followed suit after 1997. No minority ethnic candidates stood in SMCs for 15 years, until 2011.

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Figure 2.

Minority ethnic candidates in SMCs (%) (1968–2011).

As for women, very few (and only from the opposition parties) were fielded in the SMCs in the post-independence elections. When Singapore was under the single-member plurality system from 1970 to 1984, not a single woman was elected. It was only in the 1984 election that the PAP experimented with fielding three women candidates in SMCs. However, the loss of a single seat by a woman minister in the 1991 election shocked the PAP leaders and deterred them from fielding any women in SMCs for 15 years. Eventually, the introduction of the GRC scheme allowed parties to position women candidates to balance their multimember ticket. As the district magnitude of the GRCs grew over time (from groups of three in 1988 to groups of four to six by 1997), more seats were available for minority ethnic and women candidates. As Figure 3 shows, the number of women candidates fielded by the PAP climbed significantly after 2001, the same time when larger GRCs (groups of five to six) were created.

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Figure 3.

Total number of minority ethnic and women candidates (1968–2011).

Legally, the ethnic quota imposed on all the GRCs guarantees about 17% of legislative seats for minority ethnic groups. However, because the PAP fields more than one minority ethnic candidate in the GRCs, actual minority ethnic legislative representation rose to 27.6% by 2011. Likewise, for women candidates, sometimes more than one is placed in a GRC. For example, in Tanjong Pagar, Marine Parade and Aljunied GRCs during the 2011 election, the PAP five-member teams that were led by senior PAP ministers had two women candidates in each team.

Candidate selection and party leaders as gatekeepers

The PAP’s early exclusion of women from elections, avoidance of a gender quota and use of an admission quota to curb women medical students indicate that it was not a women-friendly party and the rise in women’s political representation was rather ‘unintended’. To understand why ethnic quotas and multimember constituencies have the effect of boosting the political numbers of women, there is a need to focus on the candidate selection system. In Singapore, parties do not hold primaries and the party leaders choose the candidates directly. In the hegemonic party system, the PAP’s centrally controlled, candidate selection process effectively determines about 90% of the legislature’s composition. ²⁰ Indeed, the turning point for the rise in women’s legislative numbers was the decision by the PAP to field more women candidates in the 2001 general election, two elections after the introduction of the GRC scheme, more than doubling the number of women candidates from the previous four to 10. At the same time, the district magnitude of the GRC had also increased to groups of five and six, making it easier for parties to include women to show inclusivity and balance.

Faced with a younger and more educated electorate, the PAP was eager to revamp its image and appeal to a wider range of voters. As one senior PAP leader said: ‘These younger Singaporeans, born after Independence, now form the majority of our population. The political leadership must, therefore rejuvenate itself with the infusion of younger men and women who are able to connect and empathise with them’ (Wong, 2004). In 2009, the PAP announced that it would gradually increase the percentage of women MPs to 30%. In the same year, the first woman was appointed as a cabinet minister. Without gender quotas, the number of women candidate rose from none in 1980 to 32 by 2011. By the 2011 general election, a total of 19 women (18 from the PAP) were elected to the House (21.8%). Without the PAP’s decision to place more women in the GRCs, this would not have occurred.

Changes in mass attitudes towards women politicians could also have encouraged the political parties to nominate women in elections. In 2002, the World Values Survey conducted in Singapore showed that about 50% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that ‘Men make better political leaders than women do’ (World Values Survey, 2005). While more empirical studies are needed to show how the mass perception of women politicians has changed over time, one could perhaps argue that the women politicians’ positive media coverage and better performance in recent elections have boosted their electability.

Singaporean women candidates have performed well in recent elections (see Table 1). In the 2011 general election, a total of 32 women candidates ran. Some women who stood in GRCs such as in Marine Parade and Aljunied outshone their male counterparts. The 2011 election was exceptional as three women were fielded in the SMCs for the first time since 1991. To the surprise of many, a woman, Dr Amy Khor, won by a large margin and was the PAP’s best-performing candidate. Dr Khor’s victory was critical as it dispelled the myth that women are unelectable in SMCs. Likewise, the handsome win of an opposition female candidate, Lee Lilian, against her male PAP counterpart in the 2013 Punggol East by-election also showed that connection with the voters was more important than gender. Following the resignation of the PAP’s Speaker of the House due to his extramarital affair, a Malay woman, Halimah Yacob, was nominated to be the Speaker – making her the first woman Speaker of Parliament in Singapore.

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Table 1.

Women candidates and legislative representation (1980–2011).

General election	1980	1984	1988	1991	1997	2001	2006	2011
PAP women candidates	0	3	3	3	4	10	17	20
Opposition women candidates	1	2	4	2	0	1	5	14
Total women candidates	1	5	7	5	4	11	22	34
Elected women PAP MPs	0	3	4	2	4	10	17	18
Elected women opposition MPs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Non-elected women NCMP b	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
Total elected women MPs (%)	0	3 (3.8)	4 (4.9)	2 (2.4)	4 (4.8)	10 (11.9)	17 (20.5)	19 a (21.8)

Note: ^a Total number as of 2011 general election. ^b Non-constituency member of parliament is a ‘best-performing loser’ from the opposition party that is appointed into parliament.

Source: Compiled by author based on data from Singapore Parliament website available here: http://www.parliament.gov.sg/

The increased presence of women MPs, their popularity on the ground and positive media exposure could have changed the view that women are electorally risky. Party leaders are learning that the presence of women MPs makes the party look good and attracts a wider range of voters. Now, both the PAP and the Reform Party (RP) have a ‘Women’s Wing’ to recruit women members. Interviews with opposition party leaders indicate that active efforts are under way to encourage women to join political parties. However, the recruitment of women remains an uphill task (Interviews with Jeyaretnam, 5 October 2010 and Goh, 23 September 2010). Despite the active recruitment efforts, the number of women in the party’s highest decision-making body remains low. Singapore labour statistics also show that while women make up nearly 45% of the resident workforce, only 7.3% of them take up directorships in the boards of companies. ²¹ In fact, an online survey has found that 74 out of 100 women surveyed from medium- and large-sized companies have turned down jobs due to work–life balance concerns (Lee, 2013). The lack of women in senior management and political positions shows that Singaporean women have not overcome all the socio-economic or institutional barriers to work and political participation, and more work is required to understand why they remain under-represented at the higher levels.

Conclusion

The politics behind quota adoption is complex and can have unintended consequences. This study has examined the claims and effects of representational policies for minority ethnic groups in Singapore. Ethnic quotas imposed on public housing and candidate selection in the group constituencies have both repressed ethnic-based politics and improved the legislative presence of minority ethnic groups. However, it is also argued that without gender quotas, the ethnic quotas have had the unintended effect of expanding women’s political participation. Recent developments show that the ruling party’s candidate selection decisions were critical and the availability of the GRCs opened more opportunities for the nomination of women so that the multimember team will appear more balanced. Specifically, the growth in the magnitude of the GRCs after the 2001 elections increased the number of available seats in the multimember lists for women. Similar to the effects seen in closed-PR list systems, Singapore’s party bloc vote system has had positive effects for both minority ethnic groups and women. In addition, changes in the attitudes of the party leaders toward fielding minority ethnic groups and women beyond the quota requirement were vital in improving their legislative numbers. Hence, a combination of electoral constraints, incentives and changes in elite attitudes explain why both groups each gained a more than 20% seat shares in Parliament over the past two decades.

What remains to be seen is whether the increased legislative presence of minority ethnic groups and women makes a substantive difference to their respective groups. In Singapore, an MP cannot claim to just represent minority ethnic or women’s interests, as he or she is part of a multimember team. the same could be said of women MPs. Besides, minority ethnic MPs are also constrained by many regulations governing race and religion. Singapore’s experience with ethnic quotas suggests that electoral institutions can improve legislative diversity. But whether the legislative diversity brings about substantive democratic development is another question that deserves further study.