Nominations close for Singapore vote; opposition widens fight

Nominations of candidates for Singapore’s May 7 election closed today as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s ruling party prepares to face the country’s most widely contested vote in decades.

The ruling People’s Action Party faces a contest in 82 out of 87 parliamentary seats, Channel NewsAsia said on its website today after candidates filed nomination papers. The elections department hasn’t released official figures after nominations closed at 12.30 p.m.

Lee, whose father Lee Kuan Yew was the island’s first prime minister, called for elections after his government delivered record economic growth in 2010. Singapore’s expansion has spurred inflation and pushed home prices to a record, prompting some citizens to debate the rising cost of living and urge the government to limit the influx of foreign workers.

 

“The incumbents have to put in more effort to reassure voters that they are on top of issues such as the increasing cost of living,” said Song Seng-Wun, an economist at CIMB Research in Singapore. “These are issues that will be exploited by the opposition. The PAP will have to work harder this time.”

 

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, will return to parliament unopposed as his Tanjong Pagar constituency, which has five seats in the lawmaking body, won’t be challenged by opposition candidates, according to Channel NewsAsia. That would mean that 2.21 million of the 2.35 million eligible voters will go to the polls on May 7, based on official voter numbers derived from elections department data.

 

CURRENCY CLIMBS

The last polls, held on May 6, 2006, returned the PAP to power with about 67% of the votes cast, down from 75% in the 2001 elections. Lee’s party has ruled the city state since before independence in 1965.

 

At the last elections, the PAP was uncontested in 37 of the 84 parliamentary seats.

 

Singapore’s dollar has risen to records this month and is the best performer in Asia excluding Japan in the past year against the U.S. currency, as the central bank allowed further gains to tame inflation. The currency traded as high as S$1.2301 a dollar today, the strongest level since at least 1981 when Bloomberg data began. The benchmark stock index has climbed about 2% since parliament was dissolved on April 19.

 

The parliament that was dissolved last week to make way for the May election was made up of 82 PAP lawmakers, two elected opposition politicians, one non-elected opposition member and nine non-elected independents. A law passed last year allowed as many as nine opposition politicians to sit in the legislative body even if the candidates lose.

 

CASINOS, SERVICES

Since he took office in August 2004, Lee lifted a ban on casinos, cut corporate taxes and boosted the financial and legal services industries to reduce the nation’s reliance on exports.

 

Gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 23.5% last quarter from the previous three months and the government predicts an expansion of as much as 6% this year. The economy grew a record 14.5% last year and wages increased an average 5.6%.

 

Singapore’s consumer prices are forecast by the central bank to be at the upper end of the 3% to 4% range in 2011, prompting the central bank to tighten monetary policy for the third time in a year this month. Policy makers in January introduced more measures to curb property speculation after private home prices and transactions reached records. Attempts to rein in property prices had started in 2009.

 

WEALTH GAP

The gap between Singapore’s most affluent and poorest people widened last year as higher wage earners received bigger increases in income.

 

Singapore’s Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, climbed to 0.48 last year from 0.478 in 2009, according to the statistics department. A reading of zero means income equality, while a reading of one means complete income inequality.

 

Immigration has been a key component of Singapore’s population and economic strategy.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people were granted citizenship and permanent residence in the past five years, as companies brought in workers for hotels, shipyards and restaurants. The population has increased by about 810,000 people since the end of 2005, government figures show.

 

Singaporeans have not been disadvantaged by the government’s labor strategy as the influx of foreign workers has boosted the economy, Prime Minister Lee said last week.

 

CREATING JOBS

“By allowing in a controlled number of foreign workers, far from disadvantaging our own people, we have created more good jobs for Singaporeans and more opportunities in our economy,” Lee said.

 

Still, the government has responded to Singaporeans’ concern that the island’s immigration policy led to crowded public transportation, more competition with newcomers for jobs, public housing and places in choice schools for their children. Lee said in August the government will spend $60 billion over the next decade to develop and double its rail network.

 

He has also said the government will slow the pace of immigration because the country can’t increase its population by more than 100,000 a year indefinitely.