Singapore: Governing party secures decisive win | BBC

Singapore’s governing People’s Action Party (PAP) has won a decisive victory in the general election. Results showed the PAP had secured 83 of 89 seats, winning nearly 70% of the ballots cast. The party has won every election since independence in 1965. Patriotic feeling over the death of long-term leader Lee Kuan Yew may have swelled the vote, analysts said. The opposition, running in all constituencies for the first time, had hoped to challenge the PAP’s dominance. But the results were a marked improvement over the 2011 vote for the PAP, when it took 80 of the 87 seats but saw its share of votes drop to an all-time low of 60%.

Singapore: Ruling Party Set to Extend 50-Year Rule as Singaporeans Vote | Bloomberg

Singaporeans headed to the polls with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party expected to handily win re-election even as it faces a contest in every district for the first time since independence. The party that has ruled Singapore for more than five decades will have an indication soon after 8 p.m. how it performed compared to 2011, when it won with its smallest share of the popular vote since 1965. The Elections Department will conduct a sample count, where 100 random ballot papers are counted in each polling station once voting ends. The poll gives Singaporeans a chance to assess how Lee’s administration has fared in tackling issues that hurt it in 2011, including living costs, public transport disruptions and immigration. The PAP moved after that vote to further boost spending on lower-income families and the elderly, and has sought to capitalize on the groundswell of patriotism that followed massive celebrations last month to mark the nation’s modern founding.