The ruling party in Singapore, People's Action Party, had never lost more than four parliamentary seats since 1968. Today, Singaporeans went to vote. The verdict: PAP lost a total of six seats to the opposition Workers Party. In addition, 60.1% of Singaporeans voted for the PAP, down from 66.6% in 2006 and lowest since the country's independence. These numbers are highly significant in a political scene long dominated by a single political party. So what is different in this General Election?

For those who have paid attention to the campaigning activities for the past two weeks, they would realize that newspaper and public speeches are no longer the only discussion mechanics. On Facebook, I received several updated news from friends everyday. At the time of counting, I received news via twitts faster than Channel News Asia, the local version of CNN. On Youtube, I saw most of the campaigning speeches. And most of the people who had posted these media on the Internet news had painted their messages in favor of the opposition.

In fact, the PAP had worked hard campaigning in the "traditional grassroots", i.e., visiting voters in the households, community centers, and food courts. Despite putting in much efforts in these traditional campaigning outlets, PAP had mishandled the Internet "grassroots" in many instances. For example, on Youtube, PAP posted a video clip telling voters that they would listen to the people. In a twist, the PAP poster turned off comments for the video. While some of the PAP candidates and constituencies have Facebook pages, the administrators typically echoed the government policies rather than to discuss issues earnestly with voters. The Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong setup a "Facebook chat" with voters, not knowing that the platform was hardly designed to handle 6000 comments.

What is different in this General Election is that many of the fluent Internet users have come of age. I remember having the first taste of the Internet in 1997, when I was a first year undergraduate student. At that time, most of the Internet users were young, and hardly had any influence on national issues. Also, there were no Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter that facilitated information movement across trusted social networks. Today, we are in the thirties and early forties. We are working, have families, and are concerned about public policies. Most importantly, we are socially active in the new media.

If there is a lesson in this General Election, it is that Internet is the new grassroots. If the PAP has felt that they were fighting a hard battle in this election, future campaigns will be even harder. More voters will bring political discussion to the Internet. It is time for PAP to rethink their grassroots strategy.