Ahead of Singapore’s General Election on 3 May 2025, the Elections Department has asked candidates to “steer away from negative campaigning”. Media scholar CHERIAN GEORGE explains this tricky concept. 

negative campaigning

A feature of electoral politics everywhere, negative campaigning has been the subject of intense study by scholars of political communication. Their conclusions are not straightforward because the term can refer to many different types of campaign messages, some of which are more problematic than others. Since elections are competitive, it is inevitable that candidates will try to cast their opponents in a negative light. Whether such attacks degrade the electoral process doesn’t just depend on their content. It also depends on the context.

If a party or candidate is seriously flawed or dangerous — corrupt or chauvinistic, for example — strong denunciations to raise the alarm could serve the public interest. Therefore, what matters is not the degree of negativity but whether any negative claims are well-founded. Even a “positive” campaign can be harmful if it is based on falsehoods about one’s own achievements and plans.

Aside from the accuracy of individual messages, candidates and voters should be mindful of the overall tenor of the contest. One possible effect of overly negative campaigns is to make people cynical about politics. In countries where voting is not compulsory, this could dampen voter turnout in the short term. There may also be a long-term effect: citizens turned off by polarisation may withdraw from participation in a country’s public affairs, making it easier for bad actors to capture decision-making processes. The empirical research on whether negative campaigning actually has such effects is not conclusive. 

However, if personal attacks overwhelm the campaign and distract from issues that matter to citizens, this would probably weaken elections as a vehicle for society to arrive at sound collective decisions. Such distraction is sometimes a deliberate goal of negative campaigning, rather than an incidental byproduct. Politicians who know they are vulnerable on policy can use attacks to generate controversy and draw public attention away from the more important matters that they want to avoid.

Perhaps the most harmful form of negative campaigning is the kind that incorporates elements of hate speech, where the attacks do not just pick on a candidate’s character or competence, but also his or her social identity — targeting the candidate’s race, religion, or gender, for example. Politicians use this tactic to win votes from sections of the electorate who hold deep negative stereotypes or suspicions about another (usually minority) identity group. 

Such identity-based negative campaigning can be subtle, indirect, and extremely difficult to police. For example, a politician’s supporters could circulate images of the targeted candidate engaging in cultural activities that are innocuous but that make his or her race or religion more salient, thus “othering” the candidate and triggering fears in voters who are suspicious of that community. They can also excavate old comments by a candidate expressing strong views (about race, religion, or LGBTQ issues, for example) which if taken out of context may tar the individual unfairly in the eyes of voters who harbour prejudices. If the content being shared is factual and not digitally manipulated or fabricated, it is unlikely to flout defamation or online election advertising laws. The perpetrators would get away with it.

Smear campaigns are nothing new. They used to rely on anonymous poison pen letters dropped into residents’ mailboxes as well as word of mouth. Nowadays, online trolls, bots and inauthentic accounts are the main vectors of such attacks. Fake Facebook and X accounts that vilify candidates and their supporters tend to proliferate in the run-up to an election. Such networks, set up by supporters and third-party consultants are designed to be unattributable to the candidates who benefit from them. Singapore law requires election advertising to be traceable to their sources and any payments to be declared. In practice, however, regulators can’t really stop the viral, grassroots spread of toxic messages, especially through WhatsApp and other private messaging platforms.

Voters who are savvy about how negative campaigning works are likely to be more immune to its effects. A politically literate electorate is also the best defence against the toxic elements of election campaigns. Regardless of the messages they receive, individuals can choose what to say and share.