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Explainer | Singapore election: the present and future of the People’s Action Party
- Pundits are all but certain that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s PAP will retain power easily after 61 uninterrupted years in power
- Here are some of the important figures running for office on July 10, from future leaders such as Lee’s designated successor Heng Swee Keat to old hands
Reading Time:6 minutes
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Singapore will hold Southeast Asia’s first general election of the coronavirus era on July 10, with pundits all but certain that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party (PAP) – which has governed for 61 uninterrupted years – will retain power easily.
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But as the nine-day campaign season kicked off this week, the 68-year-old leader said he expected the country’s small opposition players to give the PAP behemoth a “tough fight”.
Lee said candidates for the PAP – co-founded by his father Lee Kuan Yew – would need to battle hard to gain support with voters hurting from the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The party has won every election since 1959, when Singapore first gained self rule from Britain.
From 1968, three years after the country became an independent republic, the PAP has enjoyed an uninterrupted legislative supermajority.
Lee and other leaders have dismissed punditry that the vote will be a cakewalk due to voters’ flight to safety amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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