On June 23, Singapore’s elections department announced the country’s next general election will be held on July 10. Six days later, the department revealed that preregistered overseas voters can vote at 10 polling stations in Beijing, Canberra, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York City, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington DC. 

While a significant number of Singaporean citizens overseas reside in these cities, those cities, states or even countries away from the nearest polling station feel sidelined in this election. 

In many parts of the world, overseas Singaporeans like Faizah are unable to cast their vote. Many have to brave the pandemic, travel to a different state, or even country, serve a 28-day quarantine to make their ballot count. And for those who are working, their overseas employers would never give a 28-day leave. 

Said is an international relocation specialist residing in Dallas  and the nearest polling station for her is San Francisco, at least a three  hour flight and 28 days of quarantine away. Apart from the time and inconvenience that comes with voting, exposure to Covid is also stopping Said from voting. 

“Right now, America is almost the epicenter of the pandemic,” he said, As much as I am patriotic and I want to do my part as a Singaporean citizen, to vote, do I want to expose myself to the virus? And come back to Dallas to expose my wife to the virus?” 

Singaporean postgraduate student Heidi Gay who lives in Toronto, also shared similar concerns about traveling to the polling station in New York.

 “I can and will happily spend the money to travel to vote, but this already speaks to the degree of financial accessibility overseas voting involves,” Gay said. “With the pandemic I believe it is extremely unwise to be getting on a plane to the US, given how the situation has been handled there to this point.” 

But both Said and Gay believe in the importance of their vote. Said had wished to vote for more diversity to represent minority voices in parliament. The 44 year-old identifies as a transman and Malay Muslim and to him, neither of his community is well represented by the current government. 

“I’m not saying that my one vote can immediately say, hey, Singapore’s legalizing gay marriage now,” he said. “But I’m saying my one vote can make a difference. It might be the vote that sways things to the right direction.” 

Said served 10 years as a police office in Singapore. 

 “Yet I have to leave my beloved country to find happiness in another country,” he said which has added even more desire to cast his vote.

Said had expected an election since last year. Under Singapore’s Parliamentary Elections Act, the prime minister calls a general election before the five-year parliamentary term ends in January 2021. Unlike presidential elections in the US, the polling day of Singapore’s most important election is only announced when the prime minister dissolves parliament. 

Since 1972, election periods, only during which parties can campaign, go up to 11 days. While there is no polling day irregularities, the Freedom House notes that “numerous structural factors impede the development of viable electoral competition.” 

Gay was set to vote in one of the only two constituencies previously held by an opposition party. 

“It goes without saying that I take this responsibility very seriously and this ( the decision to forgo her vote) was not an easy decision to make,” Gay said. 

Without the options of online and mail-in voting, Said now finds his only opportunity for equal representation thwarted. 

“It’s almost akin to the president here, Donald Trump, saying that there’s no mail-in voting because it might be rigged,” he said. 

Inability to vote due to their location and the pandemic is not the only obstacle for overseas Singaporeans to practice their voting rights. A technical “glitch”, according to the immigrations and customs authority’s statement on July 4, failed to process 101 voter registrations overseas. Under the Parliamentary Elections Act, changes can no longer be made after the voter lists are certified. 

The Authority said in the statement, that it is making efforts to contact these 101 overseas voters. But some members of a private Facebook group started by overseas voters fear an undercount of affected voters and an impact on election results in key constituencies. 

Along with these overseas voters, another 350 eligible voters in Singapore, Covid-19 patients and those issued a legal quarantine order, usually a close contact of a Covid patient, will not be able to vote. Whereas overseas returnees quarantined in hotels can vote with polling agents bringing ballot boxes from door to door. 

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“The whole dengue rise has kind of changed my life,” Bukhari said. 

Across the region, dengue cases have risen sharply, and are expected to continue rising during the hottest and most humid months of  June to August. In 2020 alone, Singapore recorded 15,273 dengue infections and the highest daily record was 283 dengue cases on June 30. The country’s environment agency predicts that total dengue cases will exceed the 22,170 cases reported in 2013, the country’s last dengue outbreak, according to The Straits Times. 

Dengue is a viral disease that travels via mosquito.When infected with dengue, a person could develop fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, skin rashes, feel nauseous and suffer from nose or gum bleeding. More severe cases develop dengue haemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome, which is potentially deadly. 

Common ways to avoid dengue infection include wearing covered clothing and using insect repellents, according to the CDC. But removing stagnant water, where mosquitoes breed, is crucial to preventing a dengue outbreak.

“When I went to my local Guardian (a local pharmacy chain), all the mosquito repellents were out of stock,” Bukhari said. 

In the small island nation most of some 44,000 Covid-19 cases lie in foreign worker  dormitories, but  the dengue fever outbreak has attacked the general population. At 16 deaths, the mosquito-transmitted epidemic has a 0.105% death rate, almost double of the country’s 0.0576% for Covid-19. 

To prevent the possibility of mosquito breeding in her own apartment, Bukhari no longer keeps her house plants, a potential source of stagnant water for mosquito breeding.

“It’s been raining a lot recently, and my pot plants just hold on to a lot of water,” she said.

There is no known cure or treatment for first-time infections. While a vaccine, Dengvaxia, is available for individuals with previous infections, there remains no known solution for those suffering from the disease. 

Although research experts have outlined the differences between dengue fever and Covid-19 symptoms, Bukhari continues to worry about health authorities balancing the efforts  of two concurrent epidemics. 

“I know that Covid is contagious and dengue is not,” Bukhari said. “But I don’t want the government or the people in general to not care about dengue at the same level.” 

To suppress the number of dengue carrying Aedes mosquitoes, Singapore’s environment agency carried out tests releasing male Aedes mosquitoes infected with a bacteria called Wolbachia. The bacteria, known to be harmless to humans, competes with viruses like dengue and Zika in Aedes mosquitoes. When these male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, which do not bite, pass the bacteria to their female counterparts, the latter will be infected with Wolbachia and are much less likely a carrier for dengue.  This suppression method is also used in 20 US states.  

Countries such as Vietnam and Brazil partnered with the World Health Organization  to use an alternative method that releases both male and female Wolbachia-infected Aedes mosquitoes. However, Singaporean microbiology and immunology professor Eng Eong Ooi explained that releasing a large population of female mosquitoes is risky, if these mosquitoes end up transmitting dengue or Zika despite being Wolbachia-infected.  

Despite using the Wolbachia method in communities with larger dengue clusters, reported dengue infections continue to rise to 1453 weekly cases in the week ending on July 4. Local researchers speculate that working from home puts people at a greater risk for the day active and urban loving species of the Aedes mosquito. 

“While no evidence has emerged proving a direct link, lockdowns could potentially have created an environment where mosquitoes are interacting more with the population than they would otherwise,” Dr Cameron Simmons, director of the Institute of Vector-Borne Disease at Monash University, told The Straits Times. 

For residents on the tropical island, their Covid-19 personal protective gear now has a necessary addition. 

“It’s hard because you feel like you are covered in sunblock and mosquito spray,” Stephanie Pakowitz, music teacher at an international school located near multiple dengue clusters, said. “And on top of that, you wear a mask.” 

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Along the southeastern coast  spots of pink sprinkled over residential buildings while the island’s only park for public assembly remains in the darkness.

Instead of making a political statement in varying hues of pink, few Singaporeans attended small group gatherings in pink t-shirts. Others in support of LGBTQ rights, watched the livestream of the digital pride parade. 

On Saturday, thousands of Singaporeans showed up to the 12th Pink Dot online after its organizers, Pink Dot SG, cancelled the physical parade on its Facebook page back in March, as Covid-19 numbers were just beginning to climb. 

Since 2009, Singaporeans across the island have gathered at Speakers’ Corner on Saturday evenings in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer rights. The area in Hong Lim Park allows citizens and permanent residents of Singapore to speak freely, without criticising racial or religious groups, after prior registration. 

participated in my first #PinkDot12 as an ally to the lgbtqia+ community here in singapore 🇸🇬 #loveliveshere, and always remember that you ARE valid and loved by so many! thank you for being brave to stand up for who you are!! 🏳️‍🌈 pic.twitter.com/H9XEn3Tni9

— rachel✨ (@amortentiaxx) June 27, 2020

Facebook user Joseph Henderson Tang commented on the broader geographical outreach of the virtual event as a result of the pandemic.

 “Ironically PD [Pink Dot], it means I can participate by lighting my pink torch in the UK, ” he said. 

The event featured a digital light up, where individuals wrote messages of support for the freedom to love and dropped a pink pin on a zoomable map of Singapore. The final map lit in pink was revealed at the end of the livestream. 

Yet, the non-physical nature of participation also meant that there were fewer participants actively engaged . Crowds dressed in pink arriving in Singapore’s heartland on  Pink Dot Saturday were replaced by groups of  less than five meeting in nearby malls, which is  the  legal gathering size under the country’s Phase 2 regulations.

The event organizers said 6,800 viewers were watching the livestream event at its peak, according to Yahoo news, whereas at least 20,000 people attended the previous two  Pink Dot’s pride events

In Singapore  there is still a  colonial law criminalizing gay sex. A few days before the event, an online petition calling for the livestream event to be restricted for children attracted 25,000 signatures in 36 hours, according to the Change.org petition. The petition, written in English, Mandarin and Malay, said that “it is deeply disturbing” that Pink Dot’s livestream featured homosexual content 

On June 25, Singapore’s social and family development ministry responded, allowing for the event to continue without restrictions, but emphasized the importance of “the traditional family unit.” 

“The traditional family unit remains the bedrock of our society. At the same time, we recognise that LGBT individuals are part of our society, and they are free to lead their private lives and welcome to contribute fully to our society,” the ministry said, according to the Straits Times.  

The petition reached 30,472 signatures a day after the livestream. 

The highlight of the virtual event came when viewers were shown a short video of testimonies speaking against Singapore’s penal code 377A which criminalizes sex between consenting men.

The video ended in last year’s sea of pink surrounding white lights which spelled out “Repeal 377A.” In the video, executive Director of Oogachaga Bryan Choong, also one of the three men making court challenges to the penal code criminalizing sex between consenting male adults, spoke about his own decision to leave a career in the army.

“The policies that affect LGBTQ community are directly connected to the existence of 377A,”he said in the video. “If we don’t address those structural issues, those legal issues, all we are doing at the grassroots level is really just minimising or reducing the pain caused to the community.” 

As Pink Dot takes place virtually during Singapore’s election campaign season, no political party standing for elections on July 10 has mentioned LGBTQ+ rights or penal code 377A.

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On May 19, Hong Kong extended its ban on public gatherings of more than eight people to June 4, the very day the Chinese government was accused of killing thousands before the Forbidden City gate 31 years ago. After the 30th annual vigil in 2019, numbers at the vigil this year were anticipated to remain high amid local protests against Chinese extradition bill, police violence and the recently proposed national security bill. 

The ban on public gatherings was later extended to June 18 due to sporadic community infections of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Some Hong Kongers denounced the ban as a deliberate tactic to prevent the annual candlelight vigil for Tiananmen from taking place amidst reviving protests.

The organizer of the vigil, The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, called for individual vigils “wherever you are” on their official website. They planned to attend the vigil in groups of eight to avoid violating the public gathering ban, but police said attempts to split up into smaller groups would still be considered illegal, according to the South China Morning Post. 

As the sun set on the evening of June 4, silver barricades lay by the foot of the entrance at Victoria Park after members of the Alliance removed them. People attending the vigil  sat a few metres apart to observe social distance before more arrived. At 8 p.m., Hong Kongers holding white candles gathered in areas like Whampoa, Mongkok and Victoria Park despite the ban. 

This is the first occasion that the vigil was banned in Hong Kong. 

Typically, hundreds of thousands legally attend the vigil while internet censors in mainland China are stricter than usual on this day. Last year, on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen, real-time comments on some mainland China’s video-streaming websites were disabled for the week. 

This large gathering came together after the island’s legislature passed a controversial national anthem law hours before the 30-year tradition. The Chinese national anthem law bans any insult of the national anthem, such as altering its lyrics or singing it in a “disrespectful way,” rendering protestors who use the Chinese national anthem in their protests illegal. 

Throughout the day, hashtags such as “#6431”, referring to the 31st year commemorating June 4th, and “#8964”, June 4th of 1989,and “#TiananmenSquareMassacre” trended on Twitter. Videos on Twitter also showed people wave protest flags and shout protest slogans. 

In Mong Kok, a district famous for nightlife and shopping, riot police arrived after 9p.m. covered with surgical masks and raised the blue flag, a familiar sight in Hong Kong to disperse protests deemed illegal over the past months. 

Shortly after the riot police left, plainclothes police officers subdued and arrested a few people after protesters tried to block roads after the vigil at Mong Kok. More than 3000 riot police officers were said to have been deployed to enforce the ban against public gatherings, according to the South China Morning Post on Wednesday. 

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo met with Wang Dan, Su Xiaokang, Liane Lee and Henry Li, high-profile survivors of the Tiananmen protests, in Washington and tweeted about the gathering ban on June 2. 

It starts; so soon. For the first time in 30 years, Hong Kong authorities denied permission to hold the #TiananmenVigil. If there is any doubt about Beijing’s intent, it is to deny Hong Kongers a voice and a choice, making them the same as mainlanders. So much for two systems.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) June 2, 2020

The protests in Hong Kong have taken on a new agenda after China approved national security law that criminalizes succession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in Hong Kong. Demosisto leader Joshua Wong called on European leaders to “be more vocal on the expansionist communist party in China” While European leaders have not responded to China’s national security law collectively, the United Kingdom is set to offer three million Hong Kongers visas and pathways to citizenship. Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen also pledged to help Hong Kongers who wish to leave.

Meanwhile, vigils to commemorate Tiananmen were also held in Taiwan and Australia. 

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 Since January, Singapore’s government has conducted three rounds of mask distribution for its residents. During the first 10-day collection period in February, each household could collect up to four disposable surgical masks. 

On April 3, the country’s government reversed its policy discouraging the use of masks after seeing a surge of community cases and a change in WHO guidelines. Qualms over surgical mask shortage after the announcement was quickly dismissed by a new round of mask distribution. This time, reusable and washable. 

This third round of mask collection was announced three weeks before collection started, when the country’s government announced plans for gradual reopening in May. The new reusable masks “are made of at least three layers of material, with a filtration efficiency of at least 95%, even after 30 washes,” according to the government’s website. 

“All the reusable masks, although is reusable, is not reusable for eternity,” trade and industry minister Chan Chun Sing said during a video interview on May 6. The durability of the earlier version of government distributed reusable masks was not mentioned in April. 

Aside from manual collection booths manned by government organized volunteers and staff, 24-hour vending machines are also installed for collection. Residents in Singapore, including foreign workers and students, can collect one reusable mask each using local identification.  

In more densely-populated communities, volunteers and staff are deployed near vending machines to assist residents. Residents had to first go through temperature screening and contact tracing before collecting their masks either manually or from vending machines. 

Meanwhile, reusable and washable masks are also sold in Singapore’s supermarkets. Razer, a US tech firm, also gave out surgical masks to adult users of Razer Pay using 20 vending machines set up across the island.

A row of mask distribution machines at Tampines Hub, Singapore. May 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Data collection and exchange policy disclaimers before a row of machines. May 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Two of the machines lie within a newly-built public housing complex, next to a temporary location of a community club. Bilingual signs directing residents to the machines are pasted on the ground level of several flats in the complex. May 28, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Some Singaporeans or permanent residents collecting masks on behalf of their foreign family members, younger children and domestic helpers face difficulties at the machine. They turned to manual collection after collecting their own masks. May 28, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A woman selects her mask from the mask distribution machine. May 28, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A woman scans her IC (national identity card) for collection. May 28, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A sheltered set-up of machines outside a community club in Simei, Singapore. 29 May, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A staff member from the community club assists a resident with mask collection. 29 May, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A staff member from the community club assists a resident with mask collection. 29 May, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

The machine display and instructions attached to the machine at Bedok, Singapore. 28 May, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

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Paying visits to supermarkets and food establishments liberates many, including me, from confinement. But once out, liberation comes at full speed – there is no time to pause, legally, in the public space. Benches are cordoned off by tapes and most shops no longer open. Coronavirus has taught us a lesson: even this is a luxury.

Life is not the same for essential workers, who aren’t given a real choice between eschewing health risks and maintaining a livelihood. Busy operations continue at food establishments, like a blessing to those working in related businesses.

The pandemic has torn away veils of inequality. What next?

Only direct paths in the parks remain open in Tanah Merah, Singapore, May 3, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Dine-in is no longer allowed under Singapore’s Circuit Breaker. Ann, employee at a restaurant in Tanah Merah tells customers not to sit on the chairs in the restaurant, April 25, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employees at Haig Road Putu Piring making putu piring, or kueh tutu, for delivery or takeout orders. The traditional Malay street snack made of rice flour and gula melaka (palm sugar) is usually consumed immediately, April 15, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Stone bench, where families or couples would sit for after-dinner walk, is cordoned off, May 3, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employee at Syed Cafe says he makes 500 roti pratas, known in the US as roti, everyday. Photo by Yifan Yu

Employees at Syed Cafe clean up after completing an order for 2000 people. The employees said that the government has placed 4000 orders per day from April 19 to June 1 for staff catering. An entire side of the kitchen is used for these orders and employees work from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. to complete the orders, May 2, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

A Western food restaurant separate lines for deliverymen and customers ordering takeouts. There is little communication between deliverymen and restaurant employees at this line, May 2, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Benches are usually extra space for a crowded hawker center. They are now cordoned off next to the empty hawker center, April 14, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Wang’s fruit store is one the few stalls open in a neighborhood wet market. But noticeably more customers make their purchases at a large fruit store opposite Wang’s. April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Row of shops that have closed as they are not “essential service”, April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Huang (left) and Liu (right) are employees of SKP, a container store. The store selling plastic food containers remains essential for food delivery. Large boxes of containers from SKP are seen near Syed Cafe, April 29, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

Playground in condominium on March 27, 2020. Photo by Yifan Yu

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