CONFIDENTIAL
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Party (PAP), which has been re-elected 8 times. Lee Kuan Yew, the PAP leader, was Prime Minister from 1959-1990 when his chosen successor, Goh Chok Tong, took over. Lee remains a Senior Minister in the Cabinet. There are small but active opposition parties, which have felt some pressure from the government. first opposition MP since 1959 was elected in 1981. At the most recent general election in August 1991, 4 opposition MPs were returned and the PAP share of the vote fell by 2%. This has been interpreted as a desire on the part of Singaporeans for an increased parliamentary opposition without shaking the dominance of the PAP which has brought 30 years of stability and prosperity to Singapore.
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The opposition parties are weak and short of funds. Their leaders have been repeatedly put under pressure, as in the persecution of J B Jeyaratnam of the Worker's Party who was first elected to Parliament in 1981. Mr Jeyaratnam is Lee Kuan Yew's bete noire. He has had to face - amongst other things a £29m damages slander case brought against him by Lee Kuan Yew in 1982; being charged in 1983 with offences relating to the Worker's Party accounts and subsequently fined $$1,500; a retrial in 1985 on charges of false declaration of party accounts; his jailing for one month in 1986 with a fine of $5000 and loss of his parliamentary seat on charges of accounting malpractices; parliamentary approval of $26,000 fines on him in 1987; government's rejection in 1988 of the Privy Council's ruling that Jeyaratnam was not guilty of the 1986 charges; and the President's rejection of his appeal for a pardon in 1989. The Law Lords in 1988 commented that they wished to "record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgements the appellant [has] suffered a grievous injustice fined and publicly disgraced for offences of which [he] was not guilty" Mr Jeyaratnam is now eligible to run for parliament in the next by-election and would probably win given the widespread sympathy for him in Singapore as a victim of the government.
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6. The media is uncritical of the government and the foreign press, including the Far Eastern Economic Review, is subject to control. The Internal Security Act (ISA), derived from colonial legislation aimed at controlling the spread of communism, provides for detention without trial. It has subsequently been amended to ensure that preventive detention in Singapore remains a matter solely for the satisfaction of the executive and not subject to judicial review. In addition the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) (Amendment) Act empowers the government to detain certain suspected criminals without trial indefinitely. In August 1992, the government disclosed that about 1,000 alleged gangsters and drug traffickers were being held without trial. Appeals to the Privy Council in all but a few civil and criminal matters ended in 1989.
7. There has been speculation that Lee has carefully designed a succession programme so that his son BG Lee Hsien Loong would take over as Prime Minister after a decent interval with the current PM, Goh Chok Tong, at the helm. The BG was first elected in 1984 and was immediately appointed a Minister of State. He is currently a Deputy Prime Minister. It has recently been
CONFIDENTIAL