New Citizens boost PAP votes by 2.3% (crucial to PAP wins in Potong Pasir and Joo Chiat)

by Helluo Librorum

April 28, 2011

Intrigued by the popular speculation that PAP intends to vastly increase new citizen numbers in the next five years, in order to boost its voter base, I was interested in how much impact the new citizens might have in the current election.

My estimate is that new citizens (naturalized since the beginning of 2006) will boost the PAP's share of votes by 2.3%.

Suppose that among the original 2006 electors, PAP has 48.85%, and the opposition has 51.15% of the votes.

Then the new citizens (naturalized since the last election in 2006) would serve to boost the PAP share to 50%, and reduce the opposition share to 50%, in this election.

Therefore, with the help of the new citizens, PAP needs only 48.85% (instead of the usual 50.001%) of the 2006 electoral votes to win an electoral contest.

I will now explain my estimate.

Given that I am aiming at a rough-and-ready estimate, I probably have not used the best available data. I welcome your input in this regard.

There are 2,350,873 (as of April 27, 2011) electors in the 2011 election. The number of citizens in 2010 is  3,230,700 (here).

Dividing the first number by the second, 72.77% of citizens are electors.

How many of the electors are new citizens (naturalized since 2006 election)?

-------------------------- Unused data -------------------------------


[20000 new citizens are needed yearly, according to the government in 2010 (source).]

[There were 13200 and 14600 (estimated) new citizens in 2006 and 2007 (here).]


[ "(Baaskaran Nair) thought new citizens would be more likely to support the PAP. There are a 'few hundred thousand' new citizens, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said in February this year. Those who became citizens last year (2010) totalled 18,758, compared with 19,928 in 2009."
                - Straits Times, 6 May 2011]

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According to figures from the Home Affairs Ministry, nearly 90,000 foreigners became new citizens between 2006 and last year (2010) with the electoral rolls being updated twice in a year to add them to the electorate.


The number of new citizen electors (NCE) is therefore 90000x 72.77%=65493 ~ 65500.

NCE comprises 2.79% (=65500/2350873), about 1 in 40, of the 2011 electors.

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Under what circumstances would the NCE votes be crucial?

Considering that opposition sentiments are strongly against influx of foreigners, it is reasonable to assume that 90% of  the NCEs are PAP voters.

Of the 65500 NCE votes, 58950 (90%) are for PAP. 6550 (10%) are for the opposition. So the net advantage to PAP is 52400 votes (=58950-6550).

There are 2285400 (=2350900-65500)  original (2006) electors (OE).  This net advantage of 52400 votes is 2.29% of OE, and 2.23% (=52400/2350900) of the 2011 electorate.

In this sense, NCE boosts the PAP votes by 2.3%, based on OE.

So, if the PAP's share of OE votes is 48.85%, and the opposition share is 51.15%  (51.15-48.85=2.3), then the NCE votes would equalize the numbers.

Suppose that among the original 2006 electors, PAP has 48.85%, and the opposition has 51.15% of the votes.

Then the new citizens (naturalized since the last election in 2006) would serve to boost the PAP share to 50%, and reduce the opposition share to 50%, in this election.

ps. Post-election comment

The net advantage to PAP of 52400 votes is 2.23% of the 2011 electorate.

Therefore, any PAP winning margin of less than 2.23% would have been a PAP loss without the new citizens' votes.

There are two close PAP wins in the 2011 elections: Potong Pasir (winning margin of 0.72%=50.36%-49.64%) and Joo Chiat (winning margin of 2.04%=51.02%-48.98%).

PAP would have lost these two seats but for the new citizens. Of course, my conclusion is tentative, and subject to the validity of the assumptions.