1984 Singaporean general election

22 December 1984
All 79 directly elected seats in Parliament (and up to 3 NCMPs)
Registered	944,624
Turnout	95.65% ( 0.15pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Lee Kuan Yew J. B. Jeyaretnam Chiam See Tong Party PAP WP SDP Last election 77.66%, 75 seats 6.22%, 0 seats 1.77%, 0 seats Seats won 77 1 1 Seat change 2 1 1 Popular vote 568,310 110,868 32,102 Percentage 64.83% 12.65% 3.66% Swing 12.83pp 6.43pp 1.89pp
Prime Minister before election Lee Kuan Yew PAP Prime Minister after election Lee Kuan Yew PAP

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General elections were held in Singapore on 22 December 1984. President Devan Nair dissolved parliament on 4 December 1984 on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 77 of the 79 seats, marking the first time since 1963 that at least one opposition candidate was elected to parliament in a general election, although the first presence of an opposition MP was in the 1981 Anson by-election.

Background

In his 1983 National Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew lamented that declining birth rates and large number of graduate women remaining single or not marrying their intellectual equal could see Singapore's talent pool shrink. The PAP government then proceeded to launch the "Graduate Mothers' Scheme" to entice graduate women with incentives to get married and grant graduate mothers priority in the best schools for their third child.^[1] The proposal was met with anger by the Singapore public (including many female graduates) and the PAP government drew accusations of elitism, and even eugenics. Notably, prominent PAP stalwarts like Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam and also ex-minister Toh Chin Chye expressed opposition to the proposal.^[2][3]

In March 1984, Health Minister Howe Yoon Chong released a controversial proposal to raise the age for the withdrawal of Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings from 55 to 60 years. At a news conference on 26 March 1984, Howe reasoned that Singaporeans could not depend only on their children in their old age. That suggestion, part of the 54-page report of the Committee on the Problems of the Aged^[4] which he chaired, was eventually dropped. Taking up the suggestions in the report, the Singapore Government subsequently introduced the Minimum Sum scheme. This allows workers to withdraw some of their CPF funds at age 55, setting aside a certain minimum sum which can only be withdrawn at retirement age, currently at 62 years.^[5][6]

These controversial proposals sparked debate and uproar in the Singapore electorate and were said to have contributed to a big dip in PAP's support and its share of votes plunged by 12.9% to below 64.8%, the biggest fall and the lowest for PAP since the 1963 general elections (this remains the largest anti-PAP swing ever in a seriously contested general election as of 2020). In his memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew recalled that the swing against the PAP was larger than what he expected.

Timeline

Electoral boundaries

The newer constituencies are those with rapid developments of Ang Mo Kio, Tampines, Jurong East, Bedok & Jurong West (smaller developments), while other constituencies were dissolved, which was reflected in the table:

New/Outgoing MP

^Note : A caret indicates that the constituency was removed and absorbed to other wards.

Results

Chua Chu Kang SMC United People's Front candidate Teo Kim Hoe who garnered only 196 votes, or 0.81% of the valid votes cast, set a worst-scoring result for any candidates in the history of the election until the 2013 by-election where Desmond Lim surpassed the record with 168 votes or 0.53% of the valid votes;^[7] not counting by-elections, the record has also be broken by independent candidate Samir Salim Neji in the 2015 general election, with 150 votes or 0.60% of the valid votes.

Excluding the 30 uncontested constituencies, the voter turnout was 95.6%, with 63.2% of the total electorate casting their votes.^[8]

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	People's Action Party	568,310	64.83	77	+2
	Workers' Party	110,868	12.65	1	+1
	Singapore United Front	87,237	9.95	0	0
	Singapore Democratic Party	32,102	3.66	1	+1
	United People's Front	27,217	3.10	0	0
	Barisan Sosialis	24,212	2.76	0	0
	Singapore Justice Party	10,906	1.24	0	0
	Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura	4,768	0.54	0	0
	Angkatan Islam	359	0.04	0	New
	Independents	10,586	1.21	0	New
Total		876,565	100.00	79	+4
Valid votes		876,565	97.08
Invalid/blank votes		26,394	2.92
Total votes		902,959	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,495,389	95.59
Source: Singapore Elections[lower-alpha 1]

Notes

References