Asia-Pacific

Singapore's PAP wins general election

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-05-07 09:44

SINGAPORE -- Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong won 82 of the 84 parliamentary seats in the country's 10th general election held on Saturday, according to the figures released by the Returning Officer.

Established in 1954, the PAP has won all the general elections and stayed in power since Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965.

It lost Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC) and Potong Pasir SMC to the Workers' Party (WP) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) respectively this time, the same result as in the last general election held in November 2001.

The PAP, which secured 37 seats uncontested on nomination day on April 27, competed with three opposition parties, namely the WP,the SDA and the Singapore Democratic Party, for 47 seats in all the nine SMCs and seven of the 14 Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs).

Some 1.2 million Singaporeans cast their votes at 422 polling stations island wide Saturday which began at 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) and ended at 8:00 p.m. local time (1200 GMT).

This is Lee's first general election since he became Prime Minister in August 2004 and it is also for the first time since 1988 that the PAP did not win a majority of the total seats available to declare victory in a general election on nomination day.