A curious election campaign trend has emerged in Singapore as the country gears up for its May 3 poll: candidates showcasing their musical chops, or lack of talent, on social media clips.
The displays of musical talent range from clips of opposition star candidate Harpreet Singh playing the saxophone for local broadsheet The Straits Times, to others beatboxing and belting out songs in dialect or giving an awkward rendition of the earworm APT song by Rose and Bruno Mars.
One candidate, Samuel Lee of the small People’s Power Party, has become a meme thanks to his self-written tune, badly sung, about looking left and right to find a career path.
Some clips are freshly shot this election season as candidates are introduced to media or speak at rallies, others are older clips resurfacing of Singapore’s guitar-playing Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on stage with a local band, or the leader of the opposition Pritam Singh singing at his party’s Lunar New Year celebration.
“They want to be relatable, but it won’t work,” said political scientist Walid Jumblatt Abdullah from Nanyang Technological University.
“These silly Tiktok videos, these music videos, aren’t exactly the best way to appear relatable. Just speaking like a normal human being, that would make them appear for more relatable.”
Voters, he said, are more discerning and would pay more attention to parties’ and candidates’ credibility and what they say about causes that matter to voters. — Reuters
