8–9 pm, Friday 21 March 2025, on Zoom

KEVIN Y.L. TAN

For a democracy to function optimally, we need more than a one-person, one-vote system of parliamentary elections. Elections must be held at regular intervals, and voters must have the opportunity to be adequately represented by their Members of Parliament. In Singapore, the right of every Singapore citizen to vote is implied under the Constitution, which also provides that the life of Parliament shall be five years. There is, however, nothing in the Constitution nor any other law stipulating how many constituencies there should be, nor the basis for how electoral boundaries should be drawn. These details are left entirely to the discretion of the Prime Minister, who appoints the Electoral Boundaries Delineation Committee, which then acts on his instructions. The incumbent government exercises an unencumbered discretion on the making and breaking of electoral constituencies. In this talk, Prof Kevin Tan argues that electoral reform is necessary if Singapore is to have a more equal and fair voting mechanism. He will argue that for Singaporeans to have equality in voting and representation and to prevent any political party from arbitrarily redrawing electoral boundaries, an independent and constitutionally-protected Elections Commission is necessary.

Kevin YL Tan is Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. A specialist in Constitutional and Administrative Law and Legal History, he has written and edited over 60 books on history, law and politics.