People's Action Party

The PAP was officially registered as a political party on 21 November 1954. Convenors of the party include a group of trade unionists, lawyers and journalists such as Lee Kuan Yew, Abdul Samad Ismail, Toh Chin Chye, Devan Nair, S. Rajaratnam, Chan Chiaw Thor, Fong Swee Suan, Tann Wee Keng and Tann Wee Tiong.[18] The political party was led by Lee Kuan Yew as its secretary-general, with Toh Chin Chye as its founding chairman. Other party officers include Tann Wee Tiong, Lee Gek Seng, Ong Eng Guan and Tann Wee Keng.[19]

The PAP first contested the 1955 general election in which 25 of 32 seats in the legislature were up for election. In this election, the PAP's four candidates gained much support from the trade union members and student groups such as the University Socialist Club, who canvassed for them.[20] The party won three seats, one by its leader Lee Kuan Yew for the Tanjong Pagar division and one by PAP co-founder Lim Chin Siong for the Bukit Timah division.[21][22] Then 22 years old unionist Lim Chin Siong was and remained the youngest Assemblyman ever to be elected to office. The election was won by the Labour Front headed by David Marshall.[23]

In April 1956, Lim and Lee represented the PAP at the London Constitutional Talks along with Chief Minister David Marshall which ended in failure as the British declined to grant Singapore internal self-government. On 7 June 1956, Marshall, disappointed with the constitutional talks, stepped down as Chief Minister as he had pledged to do so earlier if self-governance was not achieved. He was replaced by Lim Yew Hock, another Labour Front member.[24] Lim pursued a largely 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.

PAP and left-wing members who were communists were criticised for inciting riots in the mid-1950s.[25][26] Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan and Devan Nair as well as several unionists were detained by the police after the Chinese middle schools riots.[27] Lim Chin Siong was placed under solitary confinement for close to a year, away from his other PAP colleagues, as they were placed in the Medium Security Prison (MSP) instead.[28]

The number of PAP members imprisoned rose in August 1957, when PAP members from the trade unions (viewed as "communist or pro-communist") won half the seats in the CEC. The "moderate" CEC members, including Lee Kuan Yew, Toh Chin Chye and others, refused to take their appointments in the CEC. Yew Hock's government again made a sweeping round of arrests, imprisoning all the "communist" members, before the "moderates" re-assumed their office.[29]

Following this, the PAP decided to re-assert ties with the labour faction of Singapore in the hope of securing the votes of working-class Chinese Singaporeans, many of whom were supporters of the jailed unionists. Lee Kuan Yew convinced the incarcerated union leaders to sign documents to state their support for the party and its policies, promising to release the jailed members of the PAP when the party came to power in the next elections.[30] Ex-Barisan Sosialis member Tan Jing Quee claims that Lee was secretly in collusion with the British to stop Lim Chin Siong and the labour supporters from attaining power because of their huge popularity. Quee also states that Lim Yew Hock deliberately provoked the students into rioting and then had the labour leaders arrested.[31] Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University argued that "Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election".[31] Lee Kuan Yew eventually accused Lim Chin Siong and his supporters of being communists working for the Communist United Front, but evidence of Lim being a communist cadre was a matter of debate as many documents have yet to be declassified.[32][33]

The PAP eventually won the 1959 general election under Lee Kuan Yew's leadership.[34] The election was also the first one 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. Lee, who became the first Prime Minister,[35] requested for the release of the PAP left-wing members to form the new cabinet.[36]

In 1961, disagreements on the proposed merger plan with Malaysia and long-standing internal party power struggle led to the split of the left-wing group from the PAP.[37][38][39]

Although the "Communist" faction had been frozen out of ever taking over the PAP, other problems had begun to arise internally. Ong Eng Guan, the former Mayor of the City Council after PAP's victory in the 1957 Singapore City Council election, presented a set of "16 Resolutions" to revisit some issues previously explored by Chin Siong's faction of the PAP: abolishing the PPSO, revising the Constitution, and changing the method of selecting cadre members.[40]^:82

Although Ong's 16 Resolutions originated from the left-wing faction led by Lim Chin Siong, that faction had only reluctantly asked the PAP leadership to clarify its position on them,[41] as they still thought that the party with Lee Kuan Yew at the helm was a better alternative than Ong who was regarded as mercurial and a tyrant.[28] However, Lee took the stance taken by the left-wing PAP members as a lack of confidence in his leadership. This issue caused a rift between the "moderate" PAP members (led by Lee) and the "left-wing" faction (led by Lim).

Ong was then expelled, and he resigned his Assembly seat to challenge the government to a by-election in Hong Lim in April 1961, where he won 73.3% of the vote.[42] This was despite the fact that Lee Kuan Yew had made a secret alliance with Fong Chong Pik, the leader of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), to get the CPM cadres to support the PAP in the by-election.[41]

The breakaway group of members formed the Barisan Sosialis with Lim Chin Siong as Secretary-General.[43] Aside from the Chinese union leaders, lawyers Thampoe Thamby Rajah and Tann Wee Tiong,[44] several members from the University Socialist Club such as James Puthucheary and Poh Soo Kai joined the party.[45] 35 of 51 branches of the PAP and 19 of 23 branch secretaries defected to Barisan.

After gaining independence from Britain, Singapore joined the federation of Malaysia in 1963. Although the PAP 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 and until the 2018 general election, the federal government in Kuala Lumpur was controlled by a coalition led by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). However, the prospect that the PAP might rule Malaysia agitated UMNO. 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 Rahman forcing Singapore to leave Malaysia on 9 August 1965. Upon independence, the nascent People's Action Party of Malaya, which had been registered in Malaysia on 10 March 1964, had its registration cancelled on 9 September 1965, just a month after Singapore's exit. Those with the now non-existent party applied to register People's Action Party, Malaya which was again rejected by the Malaysian government, before settling with the Democratic Action Party.

The PAP has held an overwhelming majority of seats in the Parliament of Singapore since 1966, when the opposition Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) resigned from Parliament after winning 13 seats following the 1963 general election which took place months after a number of their leaders had been arrested in Operation Coldstore based on false charges of being communists.[31] It subsequently achieved a monopoly in an expanding parliament (winning every parliamentary seat) for the next four elections (1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980). Opposition parties returned to the legislature at a 1981 by-election. The 1984 general election was the first election in 21 years in which opposition parties won seats. From then until 2006, the PAP faced four opposition MPs at most. Opposition parties did not win more than four parliamentary seats from 1984 until 2011 when the Workers' Party won six seats and took away a Group Representation Constituency (GRC) for the first time for any opposition party. Even so, it still holds a supermajority in the legislature, to the point that Singapore is effectively a dominant party system.

Political power in the party is concentrated in the CEC, led by the Secretary-General. The Secretary-General of the PAP is the leader of the party. Because of the PAP electoral victories in every general election since 1959, the Prime Minister of Singapore has been by convention the Secretary-General of the PAP since 1959. 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.

Historically, the position of Secretary-General was not considered for the post of Prime Minister, but rather the Central Executive Committee held an election to choose the Prime Minister. There was a contest between PAP Secretary-General Lee Kuan Yew and PAP treasurer Ong Eng Guan. Lee won the leadership and inaugurated the first Prime Minister of Singapore.[48]

Since that election, there is a tradition that Singapore's Prime Minister is the Secretary-General of the winning party with the majority of the seats.

People's Action Party supporters during the 2011 general election

The next lower level committee is the HQ Executive Committee (HQ Ex-Co) which performs the party's administration and oversees 12 sub-committees.[49] The sub-committees are the following:

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

An additional two more were later added, totalling 14:

13. PAP Seniors Group (PAP.SG)

14. PAP Policy Forum (PPF)

Election	Seats up for election	Seats contested by party	Seats won by walkover	Contested seats won	Contested seats lost	Total seats won	Change	Total votes	Share of votes	Resulting government	Party leader
1955	25	4	0	3	1	3 / 25	3	13,634	8.7%	Opposition	Lee Kuan Yew
1959	51	51	0	43	8	43 / 51	40	281,891	54.1%	Majority
1963	51	51	0	37	14	37 / 51	6	272,924	46.9%	Majority

Legislative Assembly by-elections

Election	Seats up for election	Seats contested by party	Seats won by walkover	Contested seats won	Contested seats lost	Total seats won	Change	Total votes	Share of votes	Resulting government	Party leader
1968	58	58	51	7	0	58 / 58	21	65,812	86.7%	Won all seats	Lee Kuan Yew
1972	65	65	8	57	0	65 / 65	7	524,892	70.4%	Won all seats
1976	69	69	16	53	0	69 / 69	4	590,169	74.1%	Won all seats
1980	75	75	37	38	0	75 / 75	6	494,268	77.7%	Won all seats
1984	79	79	30	47	2	77 / 79	2	568,310	64.8%	Supermajority
1988	81	81	11	69	1	80 / 81	3	848,029	63.2%	Supermajority
1991	81	81	41	36	4	77 / 81	3	477,760	61.0%	Supermajority	Goh Chok Tong
1997	83	83	47	34	2	81 / 83	4	465,751	65.0%	Supermajority
2001	84	84	55	27	2	82 / 84	1	470,765	75.3%	Supermajority
2006	84	84	37	45	2	82 / 84		748,130	66.6%	Supermajority	Lee Hsien Loong
2011	87	87	5	76	6	81 / 87	1	1,212,514	60.14%	Supermajority
2015	89	89	0	83	6	83 / 89	2	1,576,784	69.86%	Supermajority
2020	93	TBA

Parliamentary by-elections