People's Action Party
Encyclopedia
The People's Action Party (abbrev
: PAP; ; ; ) is the leading political party
in Singapore
. It has been the city-state
's ruling political party
since 1959.
From the 1963 general elections
, the PAP has dominated
Singapore's parliamentary democracy and has been central to the city-state's rapid political, social, and economic development. However, it has been criticized for laws that suppress free speech and other civil liberties.
In the 2011 Singapore general election, the PAP won 81 of the 87 elected seats in the Parliament of Singapore
while receiving 60.14% of total votes cast, the lowest share garnered since independence.
The party was formed in 1954 by English-educated middle-class professional
men who had returned from their university education in the United Kingdom
.
In 1954, Lim Chin Siong
, along with his Chinese High senior, Fong Swee Suan, was introduced to Lee Kuan Yew
. Despite their ideological differences, the three men knew that they shared one common goal: to bring about full independence for Singapore. Together with Lee and others, Lim and Fong became founder members of the PAP on 21 November 1954.
In April 1955, Lim Chin Siong was elected as Assemblyman for the Bukit Timah
constituency. Then 22 years old, he was and remained the youngest Assemblyman ever to be elected to office. The following year, Lim and Lee represented the PAP at the London Constitutional Talks, which ended in failure: the British declined to grant Singapore internal self-government. On 7 June 1956, David Marshall
, disappointed with the constitutional talks, stepped down as Chief Minister, and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock.
Lee Kuan Yew eventually accused Lim Chin Siong and his supporters of being Communists, even though according to the book Comet in Our Sky, quoting two British scholars, no evidence was ever found that Lim was a Communist as had been revealed by declassified British government documents. Lee Kuan Yew imprisoned Lim Chin Siong without trial for many years, preventing him from competing against Lee as leader of the banned break-away opposition party the Barisan Sosialis
(Socialist Front).
The PAP first contested the 1955 elections
, in which 25 of 32 seats in the legislature were up for election. The party won three seats, one by its leader Lee Kuan Yew
, and one by co-founder of the PAP, Lim Chin Siong, the election going to the Workers Party's David Saul Marshall
.
David Marshall was vocally anti-British and anti-colonialist, and the British found it difficult to come to an agreement or a compromise. Eventually after failing to reach any agreement about a definite plan for self-government he resigned in 1956, following a pledge that he would achieve self-government or resign. Lim Yew Hock, another Labour Front member, took his place. He pursued an aggressive anti-communist campaign and managed to convince the British to make a definite plan for self-government. The Constitution of Singapore
was revised accordingly in 1958, replacing the Rendel Constitution with one that granted Singapore self-government and the ability for its own population to fully elect its Legislative Assembly.
However, Lim's tactics against the communists alienated a large part of the Singaporean Chinese electorate, the demographic targeted most during the anti-communist campaign. There were also allegations of civil rights violations as many activists were detained without trial with the justification of internal security and tear gas were used against demonstrating students from several Chinese schools, both anti-colonialist and anti-communist alike.
Following this initial defeat, the PAP decided to re-assert ties with the labour faction of Singapore by promising to release the jailed members of the PAP and at the same time getting them to sign a document that they supported Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP, in the hope that it could attract the votes of working-class Chinese
Singaporeans. (According to the book 'Comet in our Sky', Lee Kuan Yew was being deceptive at this time: while pretending to be on the side of the jailed labour members of the PAP, according to the authors he was secretly in collusion with the British to stop Lim Chin Siong and the labour supporters from attaining power, whom Lee had courted because of their huge popularity, without which Lee would most likely not have been able to attain power. 'Comet in our Sky' states that Lim Yew Hock deliberately provoked the students into rioting and then had the labour leaders arrested, which the authors say Lee Kuan Yew knew all along. "Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock
" - adds Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University, as reported in 'Comet In Our Sky' - "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election."
The result was successful for the PAP under Lee Kuan Yew's control who won the 1959 election, and has held power ever since. The 1959 election was also the first election to produce a fully elected parliament and a cabinet wielding powers of full internal self-government. The party has won a majority of seats in every general election since then.
On independence from Britain in late 1962, Singapore joined the federation of Malaysia but left in 1965. Although the PAP was the ruling party in the state of Singapore, the PAP functioned as an opposition party at the federal level in the larger Malaysian political landscape. At that time (and ever since), the federal government in Kuala Lumpur was controlled by a coalition led by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). However, the prospect that the PAP might rule Malaysia agitated UMNO and the Malay nationalist belief in Ketuanan Melayu
. The PAP's decision to contest federal parliamentary seats outside Singapore, and the UMNO decision to contest seats within Singapore, breached an unspoken agreement to respect each other's spheres of influence, and aggravated PAP-UMNO relations
. The clash of personalities between PAP leader Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman
resulted in a crisis and led to the latter expelling Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia in August 1965. Upon independence, the PAP ceased operations outside Singapore, abandoning the nascent opposition movement it had started in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the Chinese-dominated opposition Democratic Action Party
(DAP) in Malaysia is historically linked to the PAP, while in Singapore, the Malay-dominated opposition Singapore Malay National Organization (PKMS) is historically linked to UMNO.
The PAP has held an overwhelming majority of seats in the Parliament of Singapore since 1966, when the opposition Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front), a left-wing group that split from PAP in 1961, resigned from Parliament after winning 13 seats following the 1963 state elections, which took place months after a number of their leaders had been arrested in Operation Coldstore
based on false charges of being communists according to 'Comet in our Sky' authors. This left the PAP as the only major political party. In the general elections of 1968
, 1972
, 1976
, and 1980
, the PAP won all of the seats in an expanding parliament. Opposition parties have not held more than four parliamentary seats since 1984, until 2011 where the Worker's Party won 6 seats.
party organization together with a vanguard cadre from its labour
-leaning faction in 1958, the PAP Executive later expelled the leftist faction, bringing the ideological basis of the party into the centre, and later in the 1960s, moving further to the right. In the beginning, there were about 500 so-called "temporary cadre" appointed but the current number of cadres is unknown and the register of cadres is kept confidential. In 1988, Wong Kan Seng
revealed that there were more than 1,000 cadres. Cadre members have the right to attend party conferences and to vote for and elect and to be elected to the Central Executive Committee (CEC), the pinnacle of party leaders. To become a cadre, a party member is first nominated by the MP in his or her branch. The candidate then undergoes three sessions of interviews, each with four or five ministers or MPs, and the appointment is then made by the CEC. About 100 candidates are nominated each year.
Political power in the party is concentrated in the Central Executive Committee (CEC), led by the Secretary-General. Most CEC members are also cabinet members. From 1957 onwards the rules laid down that the outgoing CEC should recommend a list of candidates from which the cadre members can then vote for the next CEC. This has been changed recently so that the CEC nominates eight members and the party caucus selects the remaining ten.
The next lower level committee is the HQ Executive Committee (HQ Ex-Co) which performs the party's administration and oversees twelve sub-committees. The sub-committees are:
, meritocracy
, multiracialism
, and Asian values
or communitarianism
. In January 1991 the PAP introduced the White Paper on Shared Values, which tried to create a national ideology and institutionalize Asian values. The party also says it has 'rejected' what it considers Western-style liberal democracy
. Some contest this, pointing to the presence of many aspects of liberal democracy in Singapore's public policy, specifically the welfare state
and recognition of democratic institutions. Professor Hussin Mutalib, however, opines that for Lee Kuan Yew "Singapore would be better off without liberal democracy".
The party economic ideology
has always accepted the need for some welfare spending, pragmatic economic interventionism
and general Keynesian economic policy
. However, free-market policies have been popular since the 1980s as part of the wider implementation of a meritocracy
in civil society
, and Singapore frequently ranks extremely highly on indices of "economic freedom
" published by economically liberal organisations such as the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund
.
Lee Kuan Yew
has also said in 1992: "Through Hong Kong watching, I concluded that state welfare and subsidies blunted the individual's drive to succeed. I watched with amazement the ease with which Hong Kong workers adjusted their salaries upwards in boom times and downwards in recessions. I resolved to reverse course on the welfare policies which my party had inherited or copied from British Labour Party
policies."
The party is deeply suspicious of communist
political ideologies, despite a brief joint alliance (with the pro-labour co-founders of the PAP who were falsely accused of being communists) against colonialism
in Singapore during the party's early years. It has since considered itself a social democratic
party, though in recent decades it has moved towards neoliberal
and free-market economy reforms.
The socialism practiced by the PAP during its first few deacdes in power was of a pragmatic kind, as characterised by the party’s rejection of nationalisation. According to Chan Heng Chee
, by the late Seventies, the intellectual credo of the government rested explicitly upon a philosophy of self-reliance, similar to the “rugged individualism” of the America brand of capitalism. Despite this, the PAP still claimed to be a socialist party, pointing out its regulation of the private sector, activist intervention in the economy, and social policies as evidence of this. In 1976, however, the PAP resigned from the Socialist International
after the Dutch Labour Party
had proposed to expel the party, accusing it of suppressing freedom of speech.
The PAP symbol is similar to the old Flash and Circle
used by the British Union of Fascists
under Sir Oswald Mosley
, and later under Mosley's Union Movement
. The meaning assigned to these symbols is also similar. The BUF and UM version (which was white and blue on red) was supposed to represent "the flash of action inside the circle of unity", while the PAP symbol (which is red and blue on white) stands for action inside "interracial unity". Furthermore, PAP members at party rallies have sometimes worn a "uniform" of white shirts and white trousers.
, who was Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. Lee handed over the positions of secretary-general and prime minister to Goh Chok Tong
in 1991. The current secretary general of the PAP and Prime Minister of Singapore is Lee Hsien Loong
, son of Lee Kuan Yew, who succeeded Goh Chok Tong on 12 August 2004.
The chairperson of the PAP is Khaw Boon Wan
.
, had initiated an effort to counter critics on the internet. It has members posting anonymously at internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views.
Abbreviation
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...
: PAP; ; ; ) is the leading political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. It has been the city-state
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...
's ruling political party
Ruling party
The ruling party or governing party in a parliamentary system is the political party or coalition of the majority in parliament. Within a parliamentary system, the majority in the legislature also controls the executive branch of government, thus leaving no possibility of dueling parties...
since 1959.
From the 1963 general elections
Singapore general election, 1963
The Singapore legislative assembly general election of 1963 was an election that took place in Singapore on 21 September 1963 following five days after the merger with Malaysia and therefore as an autonomous state of Malaysia...
, the PAP has dominated
Dominant-party system
A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a system where there is "a category of parties/political organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future." A wide range of parties have been...
Singapore's parliamentary democracy and has been central to the city-state's rapid political, social, and economic development. However, it has been criticized for laws that suppress free speech and other civil liberties.
In the 2011 Singapore general election, the PAP won 81 of the 87 elected seats in the Parliament of Singapore
Parliament of Singapore
The Parliament of the Republic of Singapore and the President jointly make up the legislature of Singapore. Parliament is unicameral and is made up of Members of Parliament who are elected, as well as Non-constituency Members of Parliament and Nominated Members of Parliament who are appointed...
while receiving 60.14% of total votes cast, the lowest share garnered since independence.
Political development
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
men who had returned from their university education in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
In 1954, Lim Chin Siong
Lim Chin Siong
Lim Chin Siong was an influential leftwing politician and trade union leader in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s.-Early life:Born in Telok Ayer Street, Lim studied first in Johor, before entering Singapore’s Catholic High School and Chinese High School in 1949 and 1950 respectively...
, along with his Chinese High senior, Fong Swee Suan, was introduced to Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
. Despite their ideological differences, the three men knew that they shared one common goal: to bring about full independence for Singapore. Together with Lee and others, Lim and Fong became founder members of the PAP on 21 November 1954.
In April 1955, Lim Chin Siong was elected as Assemblyman for the Bukit Timah
Bukit Timah
Bukit Timah is an area in Singapore and a hill in that area. Bukit Timah is located near the centre of the Singapore main island. The hill stands at an altitude of 163.63 metres and is the highest point in the city-state of Singapore...
constituency. Then 22 years old, he was and remained the youngest Assemblyman ever to be elected to office. The following year, Lim and Lee represented the PAP at the London Constitutional Talks, which ended in failure: the British declined to grant Singapore internal self-government. On 7 June 1956, David Marshall
David Saul Marshall
David Saul Marshall was the leader of the Singapore Labour Front and became the first Chief Minister of Singapore in 1955....
, disappointed with the constitutional talks, stepped down as Chief Minister, and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock.
Lee Kuan Yew eventually accused Lim Chin Siong and his supporters of being Communists, even though according to the book Comet in Our Sky, quoting two British scholars, no evidence was ever found that Lim was a Communist as had been revealed by declassified British government documents. Lee Kuan Yew imprisoned Lim Chin Siong without trial for many years, preventing him from competing against Lee as leader of the banned break-away opposition party the Barisan Sosialis
Barisan Sosialis
The Barisan Sosialis is a former Singaporean left-wing political party formed in 1961, by left-wing members of the People's Action Party and led by Dr Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong.-Formation:...
(Socialist Front).
The PAP first contested the 1955 elections
Singaporean general election, 1955
The 1955 Legislative Assembly General Elections was held in Singapore on 2 April 1955 to elect twenty-five elective seats on the Legislative Assembly...
, in which 25 of 32 seats in the legislature were up for election. The party won three seats, one by its leader Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
, and one by co-founder of the PAP, Lim Chin Siong, the election going to the Workers Party's David Saul Marshall
David Saul Marshall
David Saul Marshall was the leader of the Singapore Labour Front and became the first Chief Minister of Singapore in 1955....
.
David Marshall was vocally anti-British and anti-colonialist, and the British found it difficult to come to an agreement or a compromise. Eventually after failing to reach any agreement about a definite plan for self-government he resigned in 1956, following a pledge that he would achieve self-government or resign. Lim Yew Hock, another Labour Front member, took his place. He pursued an aggressive anti-communist campaign and managed to convince the British to make a definite plan for self-government. The Constitution of Singapore
Constitution of Singapore
The Constitution of Singapore is the supreme law of Singapore and it is a codified constitution.The constitution cannot be amended without the support of more than two-thirds of the members of parliament on the second and third readings . The president may seek opinion on constitutional issues...
was revised accordingly in 1958, replacing the Rendel Constitution with one that granted Singapore self-government and the ability for its own population to fully elect its Legislative Assembly.
However, Lim's tactics against the communists alienated a large part of the Singaporean Chinese electorate, the demographic targeted most during the anti-communist campaign. There were also allegations of civil rights violations as many activists were detained without trial with the justification of internal security and tear gas were used against demonstrating students from several Chinese schools, both anti-colonialist and anti-communist alike.
Following this initial defeat, the PAP decided to re-assert ties with the labour faction of Singapore by promising to release the jailed members of the PAP and at the same time getting them to sign a document that they supported Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP, in the hope that it could attract the votes of working-class Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
Singaporeans. (According to the book 'Comet in our Sky', Lee Kuan Yew was being deceptive at this time: while pretending to be on the side of the jailed labour members of the PAP, according to the authors he was secretly in collusion with the British to stop Lim Chin Siong and the labour supporters from attaining power, whom Lee had courted because of their huge popularity, without which Lee would most likely not have been able to attain power. 'Comet in our Sky' states that Lim Yew Hock deliberately provoked the students into rioting and then had the labour leaders arrested, which the authors say Lee Kuan Yew knew all along. "Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock
Lim Yew Hock
Lim Yew Hock , later renamed Haji Omar Lim Yew Hock, was Singapore’s second Chief Minister from 1956 to 1959. He is known for suppressing the communist movements and leading the all-party delegation that won internal self-government for Singapore....
" - adds Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University, as reported in 'Comet In Our Sky' - "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election."
The result was successful for the PAP under Lee Kuan Yew's control who won the 1959 election, and has held power ever since. The 1959 election was also the first election to produce a fully elected parliament and a cabinet wielding powers of full internal self-government. The party has won a majority of seats in every general election since then.
On independence from Britain in late 1962, Singapore joined the federation of Malaysia but left in 1965. Although the PAP was the ruling party in the state of Singapore, the PAP functioned as an opposition party at the federal level in the larger Malaysian political landscape. At that time (and ever since), the federal government in Kuala Lumpur was controlled by a coalition led by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). However, the prospect that the PAP might rule Malaysia agitated UMNO and the Malay nationalist belief in Ketuanan Melayu
Ketuanan Melayu
Ketuanan Melayu is a political concept emphasizing Malay preeminence in present day Malaysia. The Malays of peninsular Malaysia claimed a special position and special rights owing to their long domicile and the role of the Malay rulers of the nine Malay states...
. The PAP's decision to contest federal parliamentary seats outside Singapore, and the UMNO decision to contest seats within Singapore, breached an unspoken agreement to respect each other's spheres of influence, and aggravated PAP-UMNO relations
PAP-UMNO relations
The sometimes turbulent relationship between the People's Action Party and United Malays National Organisation , which were, and still are, the ruling parties respectively of Singapore and Malaysia, has affected the recent history of both states.-Origins:Both parties have common roots, being...
. The clash of personalities between PAP leader Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman
Tunku Abdul Rahman
Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, AC, CH was Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955, and the country's first Prime Minister from independence in 1957. He remained as the Prime Minister after Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore joined the...
resulted in a crisis and led to the latter expelling Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia in August 1965. Upon independence, the PAP ceased operations outside Singapore, abandoning the nascent opposition movement it had started in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the Chinese-dominated opposition Democratic Action Party
Democratic Action Party
The Democratic Action Party, or DAP is a secular, multi-racial, social democratic Malaysian political party.The DAP is one of the three major opposition parties in Malaysia, along with the PKR and PAS, that are seen as electable alternatives to the Barisan Nasional coalition of parties...
(DAP) in Malaysia is historically linked to the PAP, while in Singapore, the Malay-dominated opposition Singapore Malay National Organization (PKMS) is historically linked to UMNO.
The PAP has held an overwhelming majority of seats in the Parliament of Singapore since 1966, when the opposition Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front), a left-wing group that split from PAP in 1961, resigned from Parliament after winning 13 seats following the 1963 state elections, which took place months after a number of their leaders had been arrested in Operation Coldstore
Operation Coldstore
Operation Coldstore was a security operation launched in Singapore on 2 February 1963 in which at least 111 anti-government left-wing activists were arrested and detained, including key members of the opposition political party Barisan Sosialis...
based on false charges of being communists according to 'Comet in our Sky' authors. This left the PAP as the only major political party. In the general elections of 1968
Singaporean general election, 1968
General elections were held in Singapore on 19 April 1968, the first after independence from Malaysia. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 58 seats, the first of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat...
, 1972
Singaporean general election, 1972
General elections were held in Singapore on 2 September 1972. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 65 seats, the second of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat...
, 1976
Singaporean general election, 1976
General elections were held in Singapore on 23 December 1976. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 69 seats, the third of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat...
, and 1980
Singaporean general election, 1980
General elections were held in Singapore on 23 December 1980. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 75 seats, the last of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat...
, the PAP won all of the seats in an expanding parliament. Opposition parties have not held more than four parliamentary seats since 1984, until 2011 where the Worker's Party won 6 seats.
Organization
Initially adopting a traditionalist LeninistLeninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
party organization together with a vanguard cadre from its labour
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
-leaning faction in 1958, the PAP Executive later expelled the leftist faction, bringing the ideological basis of the party into the centre, and later in the 1960s, moving further to the right. In the beginning, there were about 500 so-called "temporary cadre" appointed but the current number of cadres is unknown and the register of cadres is kept confidential. In 1988, Wong Kan Seng
Wong Kan Seng
Wong Kan Seng is a politician from Singapore. A member of the governing People's Action Party , he served as the country's Deputy Prime Minister from 2005 to 2011...
revealed that there were more than 1,000 cadres. Cadre members have the right to attend party conferences and to vote for and elect and to be elected to the Central Executive Committee (CEC), the pinnacle of party leaders. To become a cadre, a party member is first nominated by the MP in his or her branch. The candidate then undergoes three sessions of interviews, each with four or five ministers or MPs, and the appointment is then made by the CEC. About 100 candidates are nominated each year.
Political power in the party is concentrated in the Central Executive Committee (CEC), led by the Secretary-General. Most CEC members are also cabinet members. From 1957 onwards the rules laid down that the outgoing CEC should recommend a list of candidates from which the cadre members can then vote for the next CEC. This has been changed recently so that the CEC nominates eight members and the party caucus selects the remaining ten.
The next lower level committee is the HQ Executive Committee (HQ Ex-Co) which performs the party's administration and oversees twelve sub-committees. The sub-committees are:
- Branch Appointments and Relations
- Constituency Relations
- Information and Feedback
- New Media
- Malay Affairs
- Membership Recruitment and Cadre Selection
- PAP Awards
- Political Education
- Publicity and Publication
- Social and Recreational
- Women's Wing
- Young PAP
Ideology
Since the early years of the PAP's rule, the idea of survival has been a central theme of Singaporean politics. According to Diane Mauzy and R.S. Milne, most analysts of Singapore have discerned four major "ideologies" of the PAP: pragmatismPragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
, meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
, multiracialism
Multiracialism
Multiracialism is a concept or ideology that promotes a society composed of various races, while accepting and respecting different cultural backgrounds...
, and Asian values
Asian values
Asian values was a concept that came into vogue briefly in the 1990s to justify authoritarian regimes in Asia, predicated on the belief in the existence within Asian countries of a unique set of institutions and political ideologies which reflected the region's culture and history...
or communitarianism
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...
. In January 1991 the PAP introduced the White Paper on Shared Values, which tried to create a national ideology and institutionalize Asian values. The party also says it has 'rejected' what it considers Western-style liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
. Some contest this, pointing to the presence of many aspects of liberal democracy in Singapore's public policy, specifically the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
and recognition of democratic institutions. Professor Hussin Mutalib, however, opines that for Lee Kuan Yew "Singapore would be better off without liberal democracy".
The party economic ideology
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the whole economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy...
has always accepted the need for some welfare spending, pragmatic economic interventionism
Economic interventionism
Economic interventionism is an action taken by a government in a market economy or market-oriented mixed economy, beyond the basic regulation of fraud and enforcement of contracts, in an effort to affect its own economy...
and general Keynesian economic policy
Economic policy
Economic policy refers to the actions that governments take in the economic field. It covers the systems for setting interest rates and government budget as well as the labor market, national ownership, and many other areas of government interventions into the economy.Such policies are often...
. However, free-market policies have been popular since the 1980s as part of the wider implementation of a meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
in civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
, and Singapore frequently ranks extremely highly on indices of "economic freedom
Economic freedom
Economic freedom is a term used in economic and policy debates. As with freedom generally, there are various definitions, but no universally accepted concept of economic freedom...
" published by economically liberal organisations such as the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
and the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
.
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
has also said in 1992: "Through Hong Kong watching, I concluded that state welfare and subsidies blunted the individual's drive to succeed. I watched with amazement the ease with which Hong Kong workers adjusted their salaries upwards in boom times and downwards in recessions. I resolved to reverse course on the welfare policies which my party had inherited or copied from British Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
policies."
The party is deeply suspicious of communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
political ideologies, despite a brief joint alliance (with the pro-labour co-founders of the PAP who were falsely accused of being communists) against colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
in Singapore during the party's early years. It has since considered itself a social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
party, though in recent decades it has moved towards neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
and free-market economy reforms.
The socialism practiced by the PAP during its first few deacdes in power was of a pragmatic kind, as characterised by the party’s rejection of nationalisation. According to Chan Heng Chee
Chan Heng Chee
Professor Chan Heng Chee is Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United States. She received this appointment in July 1996.During her tenure as ambassador to the U.S., bilateral relationship improved tremendously. In May 2003, Singapore and U.S. signed the US-Singapore Free Trade...
, by the late Seventies, the intellectual credo of the government rested explicitly upon a philosophy of self-reliance, similar to the “rugged individualism” of the America brand of capitalism. Despite this, the PAP still claimed to be a socialist party, pointing out its regulation of the private sector, activist intervention in the economy, and social policies as evidence of this. In 1976, however, the PAP resigned from the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
after the Dutch Labour Party
Labour Party (Netherlands)
The Labour Party , is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Since the 2003 Dutch General Election, the PvdA has been the second largest political party in the Netherlands. The PvdA was a coalition member in the fourth Balkenende cabinet following 22 February 2007...
had proposed to expel the party, accusing it of suppressing freedom of speech.
The PAP symbol is similar to the old Flash and Circle
Flash and Circle
The Flash and Circle is the second and best known symbol of the British Union of Fascists. It was chosen to represent "action within unity"...
used by the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
under Sir Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, and later under Mosley's Union Movement
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
. The meaning assigned to these symbols is also similar. The BUF and UM version (which was white and blue on red) was supposed to represent "the flash of action inside the circle of unity", while the PAP symbol (which is red and blue on white) stands for action inside "interracial unity". Furthermore, PAP members at party rallies have sometimes worn a "uniform" of white shirts and white trousers.
Leadership
For many years, the party was led by former PAP secretary-general Lee Kuan YewLee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
, who was Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. Lee handed over the positions of secretary-general and prime minister to Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong is the Senior Minister of Singapore and the chairman of the central bank of Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He also served as the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore from 28 November 1990 to 12 August 2004, succeeding Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime...
in 1991. The current secretary general of the PAP and Prime Minister of Singapore is Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong is the third and current Prime Minister of Singapore. He is married to Ho Ching, who is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Temasek Holdings. He is the eldest son of Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew....
, son of Lee Kuan Yew, who succeeded Goh Chok Tong on 12 August 2004.
The chairperson of the PAP is Khaw Boon Wan
Khaw Boon Wan
Khaw Boon Wan is a politician from Singapore. He is currently the country's Minister for National Development and the Chairman of the governing People's Action Party . He was previously the Minister for Health from August 2004 to May 2011...
.
Legislative Assembly
| Election | Seats up for election | Seats contested by party | Seats won by walkover | Contested seats won | Contested seats lost | Total seats won (Change) | Total votes | Share of votes | Outcome of election |
| 1955 Singaporean general election, 1955 The 1955 Legislative Assembly General Elections was held in Singapore on 2 April 1955 to elect twenty-five elective seats on the Legislative Assembly... |
25 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 (3) | 13,634 | 8.7% | PAP in opposition. Labour Front Labour Front The Labour Front was a political party in Singapore. It was founded before the 1955 legislative council elections by David Saul Marshall, Singapore's first chief minister in 1955 and Lim Yew Hock, Singapore's second chief minister... forms government. |
| 1959 | 51 | 51 | 0 | 43 | 8 | 43 (40) | 281,891 | 54.1% | PAP majority |
| 1963 | 51 | 51 | 0 | 37 | 14 | 37 (6) | 272,924 | 46.9% | PAP majority |
Parliament
| Election | Seats up for election | Seats contested by party | Seats won by walkover | Contested seats won | Contested seats lost | Total seats won (Change) | Total votes | Share of votes | Outcome of election |
| 1968 Singaporean general election, 1968 General elections were held in Singapore on 19 April 1968, the first after independence from Malaysia. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 58 seats, the first of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat... |
58 | 58 | 51 | 7 | 0 | 58 (21) | 65,812 | 86.7% | PAP wins all seats |
| 1972 Singaporean general election, 1972 General elections were held in Singapore on 2 September 1972. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 65 seats, the second of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat... |
65 | 65 | 8 | 57 | 0 | 65 | 524,892 | 70.4% | PAP wins all seats |
| 1976 Singaporean general election, 1976 General elections were held in Singapore on 23 December 1976. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 69 seats, the third of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat... |
69 | 69 | 16 | 53 | 0 | 69 (4) | 590,169 | 74.1% | PAP wins all seats |
| 1980 Singaporean general election, 1980 General elections were held in Singapore on 23 December 1980. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won all 75 seats, the last of four consecutive elections in which they repeated the feat... |
75 | 75 | 33 | 38 | 0 | 75 (6) | 494,268 | 77.7% | PAP wins all seats |
| 1984 Singaporean general election, 1984 General elections were held in Singapore on 22 December 1984. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 77 of the 79 seats, marking the first time since 1963 that they had not won every seat... |
79 | 79 | 30 | 47 | 2 | 77 (2) | 568,310 | 64.8% | PAP majority |
| 1988 Singaporean general election, 1988 General elections were held in Singapore on 3 September 1988. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 80 of the 81 seats... |
81 | 81 | 11 | 69 | 1 | 80 (3) | 848,029 | 63.2% | PAP majority |
| 1991 Singaporean general election, 1991 General elections were held in Singapore on 31 August 1991. The result was a victory for the People's Action Party, which won 77 of the 81 seats... |
81 | 81 | 41 | 36 | 4 | 77 (3) | 477,760 | 61% | PAP majority |
| 1997 | 83 | 83 | 47 | 34 | 2 | 81 (4) | 465,751 | 65% | PAP majority |
| 2001 | 84 | 84 | 55 | 27 | 2 | 82 (1) | 470,765 | 75.3% | PAP majority |
| 2006 | 84 | 84 | 37 | 45 | 2 | 82 | 748,130 | 66.6% | PAP majority |
| 2011 | 87 | 87 | 5 | 76 | 6 | 81 (1) | 1,212,514 | 60.1% | PAP majority |
Internet
In February 2007 The Straits Times reported that PAP's "new media" committee, chaired by Dr Ng Eng HenNg Eng Hen
Dr Ng Eng Hen is a politician from Singapore. A member of the governing People's Action Party , he is currently the country's Minister for Defence and Leader of the House.-Early life:Ng was born in Singapore in 1958...
, had initiated an effort to counter critics on the internet. It has members posting anonymously at internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views.
Presidential Elections
The PAP did not formally endorse any candidate in the 2011 presidential election. However, 3 of the 4 candidates were former party members.External links
- People's Action Party - Official website