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Opposition parties make use of social media to leverage against Singapore’s biased media landscape to reach more voters

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5 years ago

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Singapore’s next General Election (GE) is expected to be drawing near this year, although the current administration People’s Action Party (PAP) has up to April 2021 to call for the next GE. In preparation for the GE, political parties have started to ramp up their public outreach by doing more walkabouts and social media engagements since last year.

In Singapore, there are no mainstream media that organizes broadcasted debates where candidates can feature themselves prior to the elections. Traditionally, only two telecasted debates will be held during the span of nine days of campaigning. 

In fact, the PAP leaders seem to have a dominant voice in the government-controlled mainstream media (MSM). The party further strengthens its electoral majority through its People’s Association that has an extensive network of more than 1,800 grassroots organisations (GROs) which provide the party easy access to the public.

While the MSM still covers stories from the opposition parties, its stories tend to focus on the negative side rather than positive aspects of its activities most of the time.

Such as the recent budget forum by the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), MSM made no utter about the forum and the points covered by the party’s politicians which had constructive comments on the Budget 2020 that was recently announced last month.

Since the PAP possess the upper hand in the media landscape, the opposition political parties divert to social media to leverage against the unfair media landscape and reach out to the voters.

According to the Best In Singapore’s report, the nation has one of the highest internet penetration rates globally due to its enhanced digital infrastructure. There are about 4.92 million internet users in the country which is 84 per cent of the country’s population.

This is where social media came into place and changed the landscape of campaigning in Singapore, redefining the way elections are contested and how citizens engage in politics. It became an avenue for Singaporeans to speak their opinions directly to those in power, while opposition political parties are given a platform to disseminate information directly to the public.

Of those various social media sites, Facebook is the go-to online platform for opposition parties to update the people about their activities and develop more public engagements. Facebook enables them to gather real-time feedback, inexpensively weigh public opinion and even engage with young voters.

In the last seven days, the Workers’ Party (WP) has posted two parliament videos; the first video featured WP’s leader Pritam Singh who touched on the GST rate in the country, while in the second video member of WP Sylvia Lim calls on the Government to further strengthen the legal system. Each of the videos has garnered over 17k total views.

WP also has an additional Facebook page The Worker’s Party Youth Wing (WPYW) operated by its youth wing, and targets young Singaporeans and has about 15k followers. On 5 March, the former non-constituency member of parliament Gerald Giam hosted a live chat on Facebook to discuss the nation’s budget 2020 with its audience. The video has garnered up to 14k views.

https://web.facebook.com/wpyouth/videos/597601214430281/

Other than WP, the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) and Singapore People’s Party (SPP) have been especially active in conducting physical outreach to the public recently amid the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

PSP posted on 1 March that 60 PSP members went to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFH), National University Hospital (NUH), Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) to distribute gift bags to frontline healthcare workers who have worked the overnight shift.

PSP also makes use of Instagram and has a total of 972 followers so far on the platform. The party also uploaded a video on Instagram IGTV on 3 February which featured its leader Dr Tan Cheng Bock.

Meanwhile, SPP visited stalls and residents at Bishan St 24 on 1 March to distribute alcohol-based sanitizers and advise residents to practice recommended precautions to reduce the risk of getting infected with the COVID-19 virus.

As for SDP, it made more appearances via Facebook livestream and has been actively uploading videos on its YouTube channel. SDP has a total of 58.9k followers on Facebook page and 5.34k subscribers on YouTube.

SDP’s chairman Paul Tambyah, with another three panelists, were live on Facebook on 4 March where they voiced their views on the nation’s budget 2020 and opened the panel to a public conversation during the livestream. The video was viewed more than 19k in total so far.

https://web.facebook.com/yoursdp/videos/3560677680614866/

The Reform Party also conducted a livestream chat on Facebook on 24 February whereby the party’s leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam shared his views on the Budget 2020 and had a question and answer (Q&A) session with the viewers. The video has, however, garnered only about 800 views.

https://web.facebook.com/kenneth.jeyaretnam/videos/10158728294862241/

People’s Power Party (PPP), on the other hand, often shared its chief Goh Meng Seng’s posts on his point of view about a certain topic. On 4 March, Mr Goh wrote about the four things that can calm the people down over the threat of COVID-19 virus. The four things include effective treatment for the infected patients, a vaccine to kill the virus, more in-depth information about the virus as well as information about its impact on the infected patient.

The National Solidarity Party (NSP) was seen active last year as they conducted more groundwork to visit residents. On 17 October 2019, NSP posted about its house visits at Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC) and wrote that every visit leaves them questioning the public opinion surveys conducted by the PAP government.

“What we have gathered from the residents are usually opposite of what our mainstream media reported. Strange!” NSP wrote.

However, the last post by NSP was made on its walkabout was a post on 9 December 2019 which it shared about its visit to Tampines residents at Tampines St 44.

Meanwhile, People’s Voice Party (PVP) has merged its Facebook page with its founding chief Lim Tean’s page. Mr Lim has previously told TOC that the party has made a deliberate decision to merge the party’s page with his fanpage, adding that the party’s Facebook page will be changed soon. 

PVP has been leveraging Facebook as a medium to voice out its point of views directly to the public as well as to the government. Recently on 9 March, PVP posted on Facebook and criticized the government for allowing crowded gatherings such as the Merdeka Generation event to be held and involved senior citizens, the most at-risk group to be infected with the COVID-19 virus. The post has gained about 406 likes, 93 shares and 127 comments.

It seems that the party has also been posting videos almost every week. PVP’s latest video was on 1 March, in which Mr Lim spoke about the party’s experience when distributing free surgical masks in Chua Chu Kang area amid the COVID-19 outbreak. 

https://web.facebook.com/PeoplesVoiceSingapore/videos/840493683055820/

Meanwhile, Singaporeans First party (SingFirst) was last seen active on Facebook on 8 April 2018 when the party’s leader Tan Jee Say congratulated Pritam Singh for being elected as the new Secretary-General of Workers’ Party. SingFirst has not updated its Facebook page since then.

As for PAP, the party is equally adept in mobilizing social media as it ranked the highest based on the overall political parties’ Facebook page likes. The party has also been active in posting on Facebook, however, most of its posts are articles from its official website.

One of its well-performing posts recently was on 2 March when PAP shared Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat’s video in which he spoke about the importance of using the national reserves responsibly. The video has been viewed 1.9k times so far.

Political parties in Singapore ranked by Facebook page likes

With 192k page likes, PAP has the highest number of followers on Facebook to date. The Workers’ Party comes in second with 108.3k page likes, and SDP ranked third in overall with 58.9k page likes.

Meanwhile, People’s Power Party ranked last in overall with only 2.5k page likes so far.

PVP’s interactions were the highest compared to the other political parties in Singapore, CrowdTangle Intelligence Report revealed

Ultimately, the value of social media as a tool in the political industry depends on the level of interactions the page achieves which can be measured based on the sum of likes, shares, comments, and reactions on Facebook to the content the person is checking.

Based on the data compiled from the CrowdTangle Intelligence Report, amidst the 10 political parties in Singapore, five political parties–PVP, WP, SDP, PAP, and PSP–stand out in terms of their total interactions on Facebook.

Although PAP overtakes in terms of Facebook page followers, PVP’s total interactions on Facebook were the highest for the past twelve months with 634,831 total interactions, followed by WP with 182,882 total interactions.

PVP recorded the highest engagement on Facebook which could be resulted from its consistency in posting articles every day and uploading videos almost every week. The party also recorded the highest total views on its owned videos with 3.64 million views within the past twelve months.  

In comparison to PVP, both WP and SDP have been leveraging the immediacy of Facebook livestream and video formats to engage with the online users. WP has a total of 1.69 million views on its videos, while SDP has nearly surpassed the million total views on its videos with 936,267 total views.

PAP and PSP, on the other hand, only post videos on Facebook occasionally and posted more articles and photos. Furthermore, PAP was more active in promoting content from its official website on Facebook.

Political parties with lower interactions on Facebook seem to rely on their party leaders’ Facebook page

While the rest of the political parties–SPP, PPP, The Reform Party, NSP, and SingFirst–may have lower interactions on Facebook, some of these parties may be relying on their party leaders’ Facebook page to further engage with the public.

SingFirst’s Facebook page has recorded no total interactions for the past twelve months, however, its party leader Tan Jee Say has been actively posting on Facebook which manages about 13k page likes and has recorded 4.5k total engagements in the past six months.

His most recent post was on 9 March, in which Mr Tan shared about a letter from an individual named Maurice Tay who pointed out the direct cause of the COVID-19 cases being reported from the private dinner function at Safra Jurong on 15 February and who should be responsible for the case. The post has garnered about 68 likes, 44 shares and 22 comments to date.

The Reform Party’s Facebook page also ranked as one of the lowest pages in its total interactions aspect, nevertheless, the party’s leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s Facebook page manages about 14.1k page likes and recorded 3.1k total interactions for the past six months.

Mr Jeyaretnam also has a blog, The Rice Bowl Singapore (TRS), a site for the party leader to express his opinions in words.

His latest post on Facebook was on 6 March whereby he shared content from his blog on Facebook with the caption, “Given the fear that POFMA has instilled, the PAP feel very free to put out their own fake news to convince Singaporeans to blindly trust them for another five years. It is time to call them out.” The post has garnered a total of 69 likes, 33 shares and 12 comments to date.

 

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Current Affairs

Protests continue as Indonesia president Jokowi receives final draft of job creation law

Published

4 years ago

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16 October 2020

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JAKARTA, INDONESIA — After being rocked by the three-day mass protests against the controversial job creation law (UU Cipta Kerja), Indonesia witnessed yet another protest on Thursday (15 October) as President Joko Widodo received the final draft of the law.

The final version of the much-debated regulation–which the parliament enacted on 5 October–was handed over to the president the day prior.

Different versions of the final document once raised questions

The final draft of the job creation law had two versions when it was enacted. The parliament confirmed the 812-page document on 13 October.

However, there was a 1,035-page file that the parliament also confirmed. Both documents were brought during the ratification of the bill.

In a text message TOC received on Thursday afternoon, Sukamta, a politician from the Social Justice Party (PKS) stated that his faction had yet to provide a statement regarding the different versions as they wanted to avoid the spread of false news.

“We are still reviewing the draft. The file that has been circulated has some differences in the numbers of pages. The parliament chief said that it is about the paper and font’s size,” he said in a WhatsApp chat.

The 812-page version has 24 changes in the word “and” into “and/or”, Detik reported.

How do politicians see the job creation law?

Sukamta opined that the law will benefit investors and pave the way for liberalisation in the education and mineral resources sectors. A major concern that comes with the bill, however, is the shrinking of labour rights.

In an energy cluster in the bill, for example, the government will provide an incentive by freeing coal royalty for coal miners that focus on the downstream sector as stipulated in Chapter 128 A.

Such an incentive can disrupt the country’s income. However, a high-ranked official at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry (ESDM) rebutted that claim, saying that coal downstream sector can boost a region’s income and open a job opportunity.

The main sources of protest against the bill rely on some chapters on workers’ rights.

Ahmad Baidowi, a politician from the United Development Party (PPP), stated that the reduction of the compensation for laid-off workers aims to ensure that all workers receive their rights.

Under the omnibus law on job creation, compensation for laid-off workers is reduced from 32 times salary to 19 times salary and six times from the government’s scheme of laid-off workers (JKP).

“Data from the Ministry of Manpower in 2019 revealed that only 7 per cent of laid-off workers receive their rights under the old law,” the parliament member told TOC on Wednesday, claiming that not all companies pay compensation 32 times of salary due to financial trouble or bankruptcy.

When asked about how factions at the People’s Representative Council (DPR), Ahmad stated that during the process of converting the bill into the regulation, all factions agree.

“It is their political statement when they voice their opposition, and it is common in politics,” he added.

The process of turning the draft into the law also raises questions as it lacks public participation, Sukamtan and other experts stated.

“As stipulated in the DPR’s Code of Conduct, the enactment of the bill must be carried out by handing over the bill and the signing during the plenary session,” said Sukamta in a written statement sent to TOC.

Migrant workers on job creation law

Hariyanto from the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (SBMI) told TOC that migrant workers were not involved during the formulation of the bill before being converted into the law.

The omnibus law on job creation disrupts the management of migrant workers’ placement companies (P3MI). Under the new law, the central government has the authority to give permits to P3MI, revoking that of the Ministry of Manpower.

“Such a new procedure disrupts the management of P3MI. We see that the placement procedure of vessel crewmembers overlaps, as there are three institutions hold the permits for manning agencies (Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Transportation, and Ministry of Trade),” Hariyanto said, adding that there are many fraudulent manning agencies that recruit people.

Chapter 57 in the new law revoked the role of the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Protection Agency (BP2MI) in granting a recommendation for recruitment agencies.

“The law slashes red tape, so it is good. However, the establishment of recruitment agencies takes time … We need to make sure whether there is a training centre, and so on.

“The chapter also has multiple interpretations regarding the statement that the data update of P3MI should be within 30 days. Is it after the law is enacted or every 30 days?” The activist questioned.

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Indonesia boosts diplomacy efforts to raise concern over exploitation of its nationals on fishing vessels

Published

4 years ago

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18 May 2020

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Indonesia’s plans to report the alleged exploitation of Indonesian crew members on a Chinese fishing vessel to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council is expected to raise worldwide concern over the ongoing “modern slavery” at sea.
“As there are statements that there will be a further investigation involving Interpol, we hope that the incident [the dumping of four Indonesian crew members from Long Xing 629 fishing vessel] can be an eye-opener that the exploitation at sea is still rampant,” Hariyanto Suwarno, chief of Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (SBMI) told TOC on Saturday (16 May).
Hariyanto added that this year would be the right time for Indonesia to strengthen diplomacy and pressure countries identified as fishing vessels’ owners such as China and Taiwan to urgently make changes, given Indonesia’s position as one of the permanent members of the UN Human Rights Council.
The incident at Long Xing 629 vessel in early May caught international attention when South Korea’s MBC TV station aired the poor working conditions on the fishing boats and how employers had dumped the dead bodies of Indonesian workers at sea.
Hariyanto added that what happened in early May was not the first case of its kind.
In 2012, 204 Indonesian vessel crew members were stranded in Trinidad and Tobago’s waters on a Taiwan-owned vessel.
In February 2014, 74 Indonesian workers were abandoned in Cape Town, South Africa. They worked for a Taiwan-owned boat.

Indonesian workers on foreign fishing vessels receive lower salaries than stipulated in contract, says insider

Workers on fishing boats are prone to exploitation as they are forced to work for 18-20 hours. They also do not receive the salaries stated in their contract.
“The contract states the salary is US$400, but they only receive US$150,” said an insider, who agreed to speak to TOC under the condition of anonymity.
He added that fishing boats usually remain at sea for months, or even years, posing a challenge to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to communicate with the fishermen aboard the vessels in the event of an emergency.
“Fish in fishing boats such as Long Xing are transferred to collecting boats that will provide logistics to that fishing vessel. Such boats remain at sea for more than two years,” the source explained.

Overlapping procedures?

Head of Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Protection Agency (BP2MI), Benny Rhamdani, told CNN Indonesia that overlapping procedures on sailors’ recruitment had contributed to the insufficient protection of fishers on a fishing boat.
He said that several institutions claimed they could issue a format letter on sailors’ placement, such as the Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Trade, and Indonesian Migrant Workers Placement Company (P3MI).
“Such a complicated situation makes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs act like a firefighter, as they only act when something happens. This is because they do not have official figures, since many fishers are recruited to work illegally,” an anonymous source told TOC.
Hariyanto of SBMI, however, said that the Ministry of Transportation only focuses on marine transportation management, while boat workers’ recruitment and placement is the central core of the Ministry of Manpower.

Ratification of ILO Work in Fishing Convention No.188

Migrant workers’ organisations urged the Indonesian government to ratify the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Work in Fishing Convention No.188, which the country had signed in 2007.
The ratification will provide legal certainty and protection for Indonesian sailors work in the fishing sector, said Ilyas Pangestu, Head of Indonesian Fishery Workers’ Union (SPPI) in a virtual press conference on 7 May.
The ratification of ILO Works in Fishing Convention matters because not all sailors are fishermen. Under international law, sailors are protected by the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) 2006.
“Indonesia ratified U.N. Convention on The Protection of The Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Family Members (1990) in 2012, and it became the Law No.6/2012 on the convention’s ratification.
“That law was integrated into the Law on Protection for Indonesian Migrant Workers,” Hariyanto said, adding that Article 4 in the law stipulates that the definition of ‘migrant workers’ includes those working in the fishery sector.
“Let’s say Indonesia has ratified the ILO Work on Fishing Convention. The ratification is not enough as Indonesia needs to push countries like China and Taiwan to do the same so we can demand our fishers’ protection,” he added.

Indonesia signed, ratified UN human rights treaty for migrant workers

International human rights lawyer and academician Andrew Clapham in his book Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction highlighted that a treaty for migrant workers is one of the seven “core” human rights treaties under the United Nations Organisation (UN).
The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which came into force in 2003, covers rights such as access to labour rights equal to those of citizens and protection from collective expulsion — including for workers at sea such as fishermen.
Indonesia, one of the Southeast Asian countries known to frequently export migrant labour to neighbouring countries and beyond, signed the treaty on 22 September 2004 and ratified it on 31 May 2012.
Professor Clapham noted, however, that UN Member States that “have accepted obligations under this treaty are mostly states that export migrant workers rather than those that host them” [emphasis by Professor Clapham].
Such a situation would also mean that “those states that host migrant workers avoid the reach of this treaty and the prospect of supervision by the monitoring body”, he added.
Treaties are considered legally binding between UN Member States at international law.
While the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hears disputes between Member States — and has the authority to issue binding decisions to the Member States involved in the cases at hand — a State must firstly accept and recognise the jurisdiction of the Court, whether generally or in relation to a particular case.
A State that has not accepted the Court’s jurisdiction cannot be compelled to appear before the ICJ.

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