Ruling Party Sweeps General Election

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s party won all but two seats in the island nation’s general election. The ruling People’s Action Party, or PAP, won the election before the votes were cast when opposition parties decided to contest only 36 of Parliament’s 83 seats. They had held four seats in the old assembly. Goh, who waged a fierce campaign focused on voters’ pockets and sensitive racial issues, was jubilant. “This is a watershed election,” he said. Voters, he said, “have rejected Western-style liberal democracy and freedoms. . . .” Goh said at the start of the nine-day election campaign that he did not want opposition members in Parliament disrupting the nation’s progress.