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Singapore's Ruling Party, Opposition to Intensify Campaigning


April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Singapore's ruling party and opposition candidates will intensify campaigning after the government set May 6 as the date for the city-state's first election since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong came to power. Lee's party, which won 82 of the 84 directly elected Parliamentary seats in the 2001 election, may win by default if not enough opposition candidates register on April 27.


Lee's father, Lee Kuan Yew, ruled Singapore for three decades, transforming the city-state from a colonial backwater into one of Asia's most prosperous nations. Now Lee, 54, is seeking his own mandate to remake the country as it faces increasing competition for investments from India and China. ``For him, the election would be a significant milestone,'' said David Cohen, director of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. ``People are more than satisfied with his handling of the job, and with the economic picture looking brighter I don't think political instability is a factor for Singapore.''


Singapore's economy has rebounded from three recessions since 1998 and is expected by the government to expand as much as 6 percent this year. The election date was announced a day after the benchmark Straits Times Index rose to a record. While the government gave little more than two weeks' notice for the election, campaigning has been underway for months. The People's Action Party, which has ruled Singapore since independence about four decades ago, criticized opposition parties for not announcing their candidates. The opposition has focused on pressing the government to set a date for the polls.


Lee's Challenge


Lee, who was a brigadier-general in Singapore's army, will seek a mandate from voters more than a year before the election is due. He took over as premier in August 2004 from Goh Chok Tong, who replaced the elder Lee in 1990. Lee's challenge will be to convince voters that a second generation of leaders from the ruling party can maintain the economic prosperity created by their predecessors. More than half of Singapore's citizens were born after independence.


Singapore's per-capita national income surged more than 50- fold to $25,000 in 2004, the second highest in Asia after Japan, compared with 16 percent in 1965, according to ``The Economic Prospects of Singapore,'' a book on the city by Winston Koh, associate dean for the School of Economics & Social Sciences at Singapore Management University.


`Priorities'


In February, Lee said in his budget speech the government will spend a record S$2.6 billion ($1.6 billion) in the year starting April in bonuses to its citizens in a bid to help low- income earners. ``We've two priorities, one is moving ahead, creating opportunities, investing in education, involving Singaporeans in shaping our own future,'' Lee said on April 15. ``Two, staying together, helping those who need help, the low income, those burdened by medical costs and older citizens.''


The last parliamentary election was held in November 2001, when Goh's government won 75.3 percent of the vote, a decade after he took over as prime minister. Lee on Oct. 6 predicted a smaller winning margin for his election because the 2001 vote came in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. ``I have no doubt that when we go, we will have strong support and win a strong mandate, but I would say that the previous elections were what we hoped to be truly exceptional circumstances,'' Lee said in October.


`Positive'


Since Lee was sworn in, he has made at least two changes to his Cabinet. Tony Tan, his deputy prime minister who coordinated national security, retired in September. Cedric Foo, a junior defense minister, quit last April to become deputy president of Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., which operates Asia's fourth-largest container shipping company. Lee also added new members to a Cabinet that still includes ministers from his father's rule.


``None of them have stumbled and the new Cabinet, with a mixture of young and experienced, has seen a generally positive report card,'' said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK Goh Research in Singapore.


Singapore is often criticized for not fostering opposition within its political system. ``I get the impression that it's not a fair system for the opposition,'' Frithjof Schmidt, a member of the European Parliament, said during a visit to Singapore on Nov. 22. ``I am deeply concerned about it. I can't believe how a successful country isn't advancing in the normal routes of democracy.''


Singapore's government counters that argument by saying that citizens have elected the ruling party through democratic elections since the city-state's independence. In 2001, four opposition parties and two independent candidates contested the PAP for 13 districts.


`Competitiveness'


The island-state has virtually no natural resources and a total land area of 683 square kilometers, about 3.5 times the size of Washington D.C. Since the former British colony was thrown out of a federation with Malaysia 40 years ago, it has emerged as one of the world's four key foreign exchange trading centers and also runs the biggest container port globally.


``The focus in Singapore has always been on keeping competitiveness in the economy and the Singaporean authorities have been task-masters in doing exactly that,'' said Callum Henderson, head of global currency strategy in Singapore at Standard Chartered Plc.


Former prime ministers still hold key roles in the Cabinet. Goh, who served as prime minister for 14 years after succeeding Lee Kuan Yew, is a senior minister. The elder Lee became a minister mentor, playing an advisory role to ministers and the Cabinet.


The younger Lee oversaw a revival in the city's economic fortunes during his stint as finance minister and head of the central bank. He retained the finance minister role when he became prime minister, and handed over the reins of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the central bank, to Goh.


Temasek


Lee's wife, Ho Ching, is chief executive of Temasek Holdings Pte, a state investment company owned by the finance ministry, which manages about $64 billion in assets including controlling stakes in seven of Singapore's 10 biggest publicly traded companies by revenue. Singapore has been re-shaping its economy to cut its dependence on electronics exports as manufacturers such as Seagate Technology Inc. shift factories to Malaysia and China, where labor is cheaper.


The city-state is using tax breaks to lure pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer Inc. to build factories, has introduced stem-cell legislation to attract more biotechnology researchers, and is focusing on service industries such as banking and tourism to fuel growth and employment.


``Singapore is doing a good job,'' said Jim Rogers, who co- founded the Quantum hedge fund with George Soros. ``It's opening up to the outside world and letting its people do new things.''


To contact the reporter on this story:
Linus Chua in Singapore [email protected]
Last Updated: April 20, 2006 19:03 EDT