People's Action Party

The People's Action Party (PAP) is a major conservative political party in Singapore and is the contemporary governing political party represented in the Parliament of Singapore, followed by the opposition Workers' Party (WP).

The PAP was established in 1954 as a conventional centre-left party. Following its initial electoral success in 1959, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew sought to reposition the party ideologically toward the centre. In pursuit of this objective, he expelled the party's leftist faction, which reorganised as Barisan Sosialis, in 1961, during the period of Singapore's merger with Malaysia. Over the course of the 1960s and since then, the PAP continued its ideological shift towards the centre-right. After Singapore's separation from Malaysia and subsequent independence in 1965, the majority of opposition parties, excluding the WP, boycotted the 1968 general election. Consequently, the PAP secured all parliamentary seats in that election. In the ensuing decades, the PAP consolidated its political dominance through successive electoral victories. It consistently formed the executive branch of government and exerted substantial influence over key national institutions, including the country's sole trade union, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which is affiliated with the party, as well as the civil service.