The old timers who witnessed the politics of the '60s, please feel free to correct me. Am I correct in assuming the PAP strategy of funding spoilers dates back to that era?
It looks like with the PE results, this old strategy of yore will cease. No point wasting an election deposit when the spoiler will not make any difference to the outcome, or even to the width of the winning margin.
I think that people are generally aware that voting for a spoiler will waste your vote. In 2011 some people didn't know which candidate would win. A small minority thought that it would be Desmond and so they voted for him.
In 2013, it's crystal clear that you shouldn't vote for Desmond, which is why his share of the votes fell. I remember as a voter during the PE, trying to guess which non-Tony Tan candidate to vote for. In the end, I guessed right. If more people guessed right, Tony Tan wouldn't be in the Istana.
I would say this time that the PAP really got trashed, nothing to do with whether in general spoilers work. Sometimes they do, other times they don't. But they were so soundly whacked this time, even the spoiler couldn't help them.
This election showed that WP is the premier opposition party. In 2016, voters will be faced with a problem they never really had to worry about before: what if there's a freak election result and we actually take power away from the PAP? The way they're going to answer this question is: swing voters in WP contested constituencies are more likely to vote opposition, swing voters in other parties contested constituencies are more likely to vote PAP. So it's the WP people who are going into parliament. As long as all Singaporeans agree on that, there will not be a freak result, and the optimum case of 20-30 seats for the opposition will be achieved.