SINGAPORE - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the Government intends to honour its promise to work with Singaporeans and form a closer bond with the people, as he took a look back at the results of the GE2015.
When asked about his reaction to the outcome of the polls, which saw the People's Action Party returned to power with 69.9 per cent of the vote, PM Lee said he was "surprised and relieved".
But he would never use the word "vindicated" to describe his response, he added on Saturday at the Singapore Summit 2015. Dialogue moderator Piyush Gupta, chief executive of DBS Group, had asked PM Lee to pick among the three words of surprise, relief and vindication to describe his reaction.
Asked for an explanation of the outcome, PM Lee said: "We will study it carefully. Nobody anticipated it, so any explanations are made after the fact." But he added that it seemed that Singaporean voters approved of what the PAP government did over its past term.
During the hustings, the Opposition's narrative was that "the Government is doing well, vote for us to make them work even harder", he noted. This was a dangerous line of thinking which goes against human nature, he said, adding: "If your friend is nice to you, you're nice to him." That is the most straightforward way to develop the relationship between the Government and the people, and most Singaporean voters seemed to have agreed, he said.
Later, when asked if the poll results had validated the Government's shift to the left in social policies, PM Lee said that he does not see its policy direction as "more welfare or less welfare". Rather, he said that the Government tries to address specific sources of anxiety among the people, whether about housing, jobs or aspirations. Of these, aspirations are the hardest to meet, as once they have been met, new aspirations emerge, he noted.
At the dialogue, PM Lee also discussed international politics ranging from China's economy to political uncertainties in Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Economic Comunity, as well as trends in Europe and the United States.
When asked about his reaction to the outcome of the polls, which saw the People's Action Party returned to power with 69.9 per cent of the vote, PM Lee said he was "surprised and relieved".
But he would never use the word "vindicated" to describe his response, he added on Saturday at the Singapore Summit 2015. Dialogue moderator Piyush Gupta, chief executive of DBS Group, had asked PM Lee to pick among the three words of surprise, relief and vindication to describe his reaction.
Asked for an explanation of the outcome, PM Lee said: "We will study it carefully. Nobody anticipated it, so any explanations are made after the fact." But he added that it seemed that Singaporean voters approved of what the PAP government did over its past term.
During the hustings, the Opposition's narrative was that "the Government is doing well, vote for us to make them work even harder", he noted. This was a dangerous line of thinking which goes against human nature, he said, adding: "If your friend is nice to you, you're nice to him." That is the most straightforward way to develop the relationship between the Government and the people, and most Singaporean voters seemed to have agreed, he said.
Later, when asked if the poll results had validated the Government's shift to the left in social policies, PM Lee said that he does not see its policy direction as "more welfare or less welfare". Rather, he said that the Government tries to address specific sources of anxiety among the people, whether about housing, jobs or aspirations. Of these, aspirations are the hardest to meet, as once they have been met, new aspirations emerge, he noted.
At the dialogue, PM Lee also discussed international politics ranging from China's economy to political uncertainties in Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Economic Comunity, as well as trends in Europe and the United States.
