Decline
After Singapore's independence from Malaysia, the party's members of parliament began resigning one by one in 1966. Though the Barisan Sosialis' official position was to 'take the fight to the streets', its morale was already eroding due to its failure to stop the merger. In the by-elections for these vacant seats, the PAP had a clean sweep. Calls for blank ballots by the Barisan Sosialis went unheeded. By 1968, there were no opposition members of parliament and it was 13 years before an opposition party won a single seat during the Anson by-election of 1981.
In an election rally in 1980, party chairman Dr Lee Siew Choh apologised to the voters for Barisan Sosialis's actions in 1966. In 1988, the Barisan Sosialis was officially dissolved and its members, led by Dr Lee Siew Choh, joined the Workers' Party of Singapore.
Read more about this topic: Barisan Sosialis
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
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