Subject: This is already history....
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.[3]
Lee Kuan Yew eventually accused Lim Chin Siong and his supporters of being
Communists, even though according to the book Comet in Our Sky,[4] 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.[5]
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.
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. All serious opposition leaders since 1959
have been systematically sued, bankrupted and or imprisoned by Lee Kuan Yew
and his Judiciary.
Organization
Initially adopting a traditionalist Leninist 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 [ 6 ] 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. [ 7 ]
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 exco) which
performs the party's administration and oversees twelve sub-committees. [
8 ] 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.[9] 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".[10]
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.
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.
In 1976 the PAP resigned from the Socialist International after the Dutch
Labour Party had proposed to expel the party,[12] 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.
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 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 Lim Boon Heng.
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