Singaporean general election, 1955

2 April 1955

25 (of the 32) seats to the Legislative Assembly

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	David Marshall	Tan Chye Cheng	Lee Kuan Yew
Party	LF	PP	PAP
Leader's seat	Cairnhill	Cairnhill (defeated)	Tanjong Pagar
Last election	Did not contest	6 seats, 45.4%	Did not contest
Seats won	10	4	3
Seat change	New	2	New
Popular vote	42,300	38,695	13,634
Percentage	27.1%	24.8%	8.7
Swing	New	20.6%	New

Chief Minister before election

Newly created

Resulting Chief Minister

David Marshall
LF

Singapore

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General elections were held in Singapore on 2 April 1955 to elect the 25 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly. Nomination day was on 28 February 1955.

Background

Following the promulgation of the Rendel Constitution, the 1955 elections were the first occasion on which a majority of the seats were to be elected rather than be appointed by the colonial authorities. The new constitution was written after recommendations by a committee to grant local citizens more autonomy, headed by George Rendel, were passed.

According to the new Constitution, locals would share executive power with the colonial authorities and there would be a Chief Minister among elected legislators. The number of elected seats was increased to 25, with the British government appointing the remaining seven members.

The Governor of Singapore and Colonial Secretary posts were replaced by a Chief Secretary, who inherited the power to appoint four nominated Assembly Members. Also scrapped were the seats of the Solicitor-General, two directors, two ex-officios, the three commercial organisations and the City Council representative.

Campaign

For the first time, political parties were permitted to adopt a standard party symbol for all their candidates and independents to select theirs instead of balloting for them. The Progressive Party, representing the English-speaking bourgeois and Democratic Party fielded the largest number of candidates each. The Malay Union, the United Malays National Organisation and the Malayan Chinese Association ran together as the Singapore Alliance after leaving the three-party Labour Front (LF) alliance, which had consolidated into a single party.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party was a spent force as both AMs had left the party, with one moving to LF and one going independent. A seat was earlier vacated due to the demise of PP's popular C. J. P. Paglar, who died from a stroke.

Results

To the chagrin of the British, who had anticipated a PP victory and its leader, Tan Chye Cheng, to emerge as Chief Minister, it was the Labour Front that garnered the most seats and its chairman, David Marshall, thus became Singapore's first Chief Minister. Although the Labour Front was the largest winning party, it did not have the 13 seats to command a majority in the Legislative Assembly. As a result, Marshall had to seek a coalition with the Singapore Alliance which had collected three seats.

In its first elections, the newly formed People's Action Party, led by lawyer and former Progressive Party election agent Lee Kuan Yew, chose to field only a handful of candidates to protest against the Rendel Constitution and became the main opposition party after winning nearly all its contested seats.

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
Labour Front	42,300	27.1	10	New
Progressive Party	38,695	24.8	4	–2
Democratic Party	32,115	20.5	2	New
People's Action Party	13,634	8.7	3	New
Malayan Chinese Association (SA)	6,203	4.0	1	New
United Malays National Organisation (SA)	5,721	3.7	1	New
Labour Party	1,325	0.8	0	–2
Malay Union (SA)	1,233	0.8	1	New
Independents	15,098	9.7	3	+2
Invalid/blank votes	1,751	–	–	–
Total	158,075	100	25	+16
Registered voters/turnout	300,199	52.7	–	–
Source: Singapore Elections

References

Sr, Pugalenthi (1996) Elections in Singapore VJ Times International Pte Ltd, Singapore ISBN 981-221-025-3

External links

General Elections 1955 Singapore Elections

Elections and referendums in Singapore

General elections	1948 1951 1955 1959 1963 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1991 1997 2001 2006 2011 2015 Next

By-elections	1948 1952 1957 1961 1965 1966 1967 1970 1977 1979 1981 1992 2012 2013 2016

Presidential elections	1993 1999‡ 2005‡ 2011 2017

Local elections	1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1949 (Apr) 1949 (Dec) 1950 1951 1952 1953 1957

Referendums	1962

‡ uncontested

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