The People's Action Party (abbrev: PAP; simplified Chinese: 人民行动党; traditional Chinese: 人民行動黨; pinyin: Rénmín Xíngdòng Dǎng; Malay: Parti Tindakan Rakyat; Tamil: மக்கள் செயல் கட்சி) has been Singapore's ruling political party since 1959. It is one of the two major parties in Singapore, the other being the Workers' Party.
Since the 1963 general elections, the PAP has dominated Singapore's parliamentary democracy and has been central to the city-state's rapid political, social, and economic development. However, it has been criticized for the passing of laws that suppress free speech and other civil liberties.
In the 2011 Singapore general election, the PAP won 81 of the 87 constituency elected (99 total) seats in the Parliament of Singapore while receiving 60.14% of total votes cast, the lowest share garnered since independence.
Read more about People's Action Party: Political Development, Organization, Ideology, Leadership
Famous quotes containing the words people, action and/or party:
“In this nadir of poetic repute, when the only verse that most people read from one year’s end to the next is what appears on greetings cards, it is well for us to stop and consider our poets.... Poets are the leaven in the lump of civilization.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.”
—Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)