Covid-19 has changed the way Singapore worked.
From dining out to eating at home, working at the office to working from home and offline campaigning during Elections to online campaigning.
Opposition Parties Have Geared Up for Online Campaigning
The General Elections must happen before 14 Apr 2021 but there are rumours that it’s going to happen as early as Jul 2020.
The Elections Department (ELD) has told political parties in Singapore to prepare plans for campaigning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Namely, campaigning methods that don’t involve large crowd gatherings like this:
And the opposition parties are preparing to go all out.
Some, like SDA’s Mr Lim and Singapore People’s Party chairman Jose Raymond, have set up studios in their own office to record video messages to be placed online.
Progress Singapore Party (PSP) has also held several sessions on Facebook and Zoom to introduce its new members.
Workers’ Party (WP) also took to Facebook to remind people that their official messages will be posted on Twitter, Instagram and Telegram.
But is Facebook the only place they’re focusing on? And is it wise to do so?
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Apparently Not
The various opposition parties spoken to aren’t just sticking to Facebook.
The National Solidarity Party (NSP) is planning to distribute flyers to residential units without requiring residents to open their doors.
They are also planning to mail their campaign materials individually.
Meanwhile, PSP has already started leaving little packets (consisting of mask, pen and flier) on residents’ doorsteps.
Speakers are also being fitted to the top of cars to broadcast party messages.
While the ELD Is contemplating giving candidates more TV broadcast time for political candidates, opposition parties are trying to reach out to as many non-mainstream platforms as possible.
PSP has a public Telegram channel and answers questions through their Instagram account.
WP and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) are trying to get people to sign up to their Telegram and WhatsApp channel so that they can send outreach messages.
A Wise Move
It’s a wise move as Facebook’s organic reach has dropped drastically over the years (from 5.4% in 2014 to 1.2% in 2018) and it has dropped further since then.
While political parties can still use paid ads to reach out to more people, they’ll have to jump through (a bit) more hoops in order to get their political ads up and running.
It also doesn’t help that the Facebook demographic doesn’t cover all of Singapore, and younger people are likelier to be reached via Telegram, while older ones aren’t on the internet.
ELD has yet to announce the campaigning guidelines for the upcoming elections but judging by the rumours, it might be coming really soon.
They had promised to give campaigning candidates “as much lead time as possible” in this volatile situation.
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