SINGAPORE — 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 Korean song.

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,” said Mr. Walid. “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.

The election comes amid a deteriorating economic outlook, due to US tariffs, with the government warning of a possible recession. Bread and butter issues still matter most to the 2.76 million voters.

It is the first electoral test for Mr. Wong, who took over from long-time premier Lee Hsien Loong last year as leader of the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled the city-state of 6 million people since independence in 1965.

According to an April poll by Blackbox Research of 1,506 people, Singaporeans gave the government the lowest scorecard ratings for its handling of the cost of living (52%), sales tax (55%), inequality (57%), car prices (58%) and housing affordability (59%).

However, the PAP is almost certain to win most seats in the election, with candidates fielded in all 33 constituencies for 97 seats in parliament.

Crucially, the PAP will be looking at its popular vote. The PAP’s share of the popular vote fell to 61% in 2020 from 70% in 2015. If it sees another decline and its main opposition the Workers’ Party build on its record 10 seats in 2020, it could be interpreted as a sign the PAP’s grip on power is weakening. — Reuters

JEWISH AND MUSLIM students at Harvard University faced bigotry and abuse as the Massachusetts campus was roiled by protests last year, according to two reports released on Tuesday that found many felt shunned by peers and professors for expressing political beliefs.

Harvard and other universities face extraordinary pressure from US President Donald J. Trump’s administration over allegations of antisemitism and leftist bias. The reports, jointly amounting to more than 500 pages, were the result of two task forces Harvard set up a year before Mr. Trump took office, one on combating antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, the other on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter accompanying the reports that they included “searing personal accounts” drawn from about 50 listening sessions with about 500 students and employees.

He wrote that Harvard would do more to teach its students how to have “productive and civil dialogue” with people from different backgrounds and would promote “viewpoint diversity.”

The task forces recommended that Harvard review its admissions, appointments, curriculum, and orientation and training programs, as well as change its disciplinary processes. They also encouraged more classroom teaching about “Israel/Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Mr. Garber wrote that Harvard will begin a research project on antisemitism and support “a comprehensive historical analysis” of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at the university. He said the school would also make its disciplinary processes more effective and efficient.

The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard work to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students deemed activists, as part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses in 2023 after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ attack on Israel and subsequent war in Hamas-controlled Gaza. It also urged Harvard to audit departments to ensure “viewpoint diversity” and take other steps.

The administration froze $2.2 billion in grants, most of it for medical and scientific research, following Harvard’s denunciation of its demands as an unconstitutional attempt to control the school, and Harvard sued.

BULLYING, REPERCUSSIONS
Both Harvard task forces conducted an online joint survey last year, gathering 2,295 responses from students, faculty and staff.

The survey found 47% of Muslim respondents and 15% of Jewish respondents did not feel physically safe on campus compared to 6% for Christians and non-believers, while 92% of Muslims and 61% of Jews felt there were academic or professional repercussions for expressing their political beliefs.

According to the task force on antisemitism, in late 2023 the campus became to many “what appeared to be a space for the unfettered expression of pro-Palestinian solidarity and rage at Israel – a rage that many Jewish and especially Israeli students felt was directed against them as well.”

Many Jewish or Israeli students reported being bullied or ostracized for their actual or assumed support for Israel or Zionism, or found themselves accused of supporting genocide. 

A smaller group of anti-Zionist Jewish students who joined some of the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests said they felt shunned by Jewish campus groups.

The task force on anti-Muslim bias said Arab-American students reported being called “terrorist, baby-killer, towelhead and antisemite” after they wore a keffiyeh to show solidarity with Palestinians.

Asked about the two reports, Harrison Fields, a Trump spokesman, said: “Universities’ violation of federal law, due to their blatant reluctance to protect Jewish students and defend civil rights, is unbecoming of institutions seeking billions in taxpayer funds.”

Mr. Fields did not comment on the findings by Harvard’s anti-Muslim bias task force.

In a statement, the Council on American Islamic Relations’ research and advocacy director Corey Saylor said his Muslim advocacy group stood by its designation of Harvard as hostile to Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians.

“If the university actually acts on its task force’s report to improve academic freedom, free expression, and address the rampant anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia that have been downplayed or outright ignored in public discourse, this may indicate that it is time to change that designation,” Mr. Saylor said.

Vlad Khaykin, an executive vice president with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, sharply criticized how long it took Harvard “to even begin an honest reckoning” of antisemitism on campus, adding it “is not merely negligent — it is a disgrace of historic proportions.”

“Sadly, this is symptomatic of a broader trend we are seeing across academia,” Khaykin said. “Harvard is both a symptom and a progenitor of the problem, providing the imprimatur of academic legitimacy to naked antisemitism.” — Reuters