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People's Action Party
Leader	Lee Hsien Loong
Founded	1954
Headquarters	PCF Building 57B New Upper Changi Road #01-1402 Singapore 463057
Ideology	Social Democracy, Asian values, Meritocracy, Centrism
Official colours	White

The People's Action Party (abbrev: PAP; Chinese: 人民行动党; Pinyin: Rénmín Xíngdòngdǎng; Malay: Parti Tindakan Rakyat; Tamil: மக்கள் செயல் கட்சி) is a centre-left 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 political, social, and economic development. At the same time, it has been criticized for heavy-handed laws and policies that suppress dissent and free speech.

In the 2006 Singapore general election, the PAP won 82 of the 84 elected seats in the Parliament of Singapore while receiving 66.6% of total votes cast.

Political development

A PAP Merdeka rally at Farrer Park on August 17, 1955.

The party was formed in 1954 by English-educated middle-class professional men who had returned from their university education in the United Kingdom. The PAP first contested the 1955 elections, in which 25 of 32 seats in the legislature were up for election. The party won 3 seats, one by its leader Lee Kuan Yew. The PAP has controlled the Singapore government since the party won the 1959 general election, which was 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.

Between 1963 and 1965, Singapore was a part of Malaysia. Although it 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, 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 decision of the PAP 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 heated 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 of Singapore, abandoning the nascent opposition movement it had started in Malaysia. Nonetheless, 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 itself occurred months after a number of their leaders had been arrested in Operation Coldstore. The resignation 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 4 parliamentary seats since 1984.

Organization

Initially adopting a traditionalist Leninist party organization together with a vanguard cadre from its communist-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 60s, moving further to the right. In the beginning, there were about 500 so-called "temporary cadre" appointed¹ 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.²

Political power in the party is concentrated in Central Executive Committee (CEC), led by the Secretary-General. Most of the members in the CEC are also cabinet members. From 1957 onwards the rules said 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 party regards ethnic diversity and representation of women as very important.

The next lower level committee is the HQ Executive Committee (HQ exco) which performs party's administration and oversees twelve sub-committees.³ The sub-committees are:

1. Branch Appointments and Relations
2. Constituency Relations
3. Information and Feedback
4. New Media
5. Malay Affairs
6. Membership Recruitment and Cadre Selection
7. PAP Awards
8. Political Education
9. Publicity and Publication
10. Social and Recreational
11. Women's Wing
12. 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: pragmatism, 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 has 'rejected' what they considered Western-style liberal democracy. Some claim largely as a political statement because of the heavy utilisation of many aspects of liberal democracy in Singapore's public policy, specifically the welfare state and recognition of democratic institutions. Professor Hussin Mutalib, however, states that for Lee Kuan Yew "Singapore would be better off without liberal democracy"⁴

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 on Singaporean 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."⁵

The party is deeply suspicious of communist political ideologies, despite a brief joint alliance with the communists against colonialism in Singapore during the party's early years. It has since considered itself subscribing to social democratic ideologies, though the party has clearly moved to towards neoliberal and pro-market reforms since the 1970s.

In 1976, the PAP resigned from the Socialist International, after the Dutch Labour Party had proposed to expel the party.

The PAP symbol is similar to the old Flash and Circle used by British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Mosley, and later under the Union Movement with the same leader. 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".

Leadership

For many years, the party was led by former PAP secretary-general Lee Kuan Yew, who was Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. Lee Kuan Yew 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 August 12, 2004.

The chairperson of the PAP is Lim Boon Heng.

PAP's general election results

1955: won 3 of 25 elected seats,NA %. The PAP began as an opposition party with Lee Kuan Yew as opposition leader. The Labour Front won 13 seats and was the governing party.

1959: won 43 of 51 seats, with 53% of the vote (since 1959, voting in Singapore has been compulsory).

1963: won 37 of 51 seats, with 47% of the vote (opposition votes were spilt between the Barisan Sosialis Party and the United People's Party).

1968: won all of the seats, with 84% of the vote.

1972: won all of the seats, with 69% of the vote.

1976: won all of the seats, with 72% of the vote.

1980: won all of the seats, with 77% of the vote.

1984: won all except 2 seats, with 65% of the vote.

1988: won 80 of 81 seats, with 63% of the vote.

1991: won 36 of 40 contested seats, with 61% of the vote.

1997: won 34 of 36 contested seats, with 65% of the vote.

2001: won 27 of 29 contested seats, with 75% of the vote.

2006: won 45 of 47 contested seats, with 66.6% of the vote.

Activities

Internet

In February 2007, The Straits Times reported that PAP's "new media" committee, chaired by Ng Eng Hen, has initiated an effort to counter critics in the Internet. It has members posting anonymously at Internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views.⁶

See also

• Barisan Sosialis
• Democratic Action Party

References

Citations

General references

External links

• People's Action Party - Official website

v • d • e Political parties in Singapore Democratic Progressive Party (Singapore) - National Solidarity Party - People's Action Party - Reform Party (Singapore) - Singapore Democratic Alliance (Singapore Malay National Organisation, Singapore People's Party) - Singapore Democratic Party - Workers' Party of Singapore Portal:Politics - List of political parties - Politics of Singapore

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• This page was last modified on 20 November 2008, at 01:30.

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