PAP returned to power in 2006 Parliamentary Elections, Singapore

May 7, 2006 The incumbent People's Action Party (PAP) has retained its power in the Singapore parliament after getting 66.6% of the valid votes. It maintained 82 of the available 84 seats after securing 45 of the 47 contested seats, together with 37 of the seats that it won on Nomination Day on 26th April through walkovers. The opposition parties Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Workers' Party (WP) also retained one seat each.

Despite having more seats contested in this election compared to the 2001 General Elections, the breakdown of seats remains unchanged from the previous election. However, the PAP only won a reduced majority, having only 66.6% of the valid votes compared to the 75% that it won in the previous election because of the spectre of terrorism and a poor economy then.

The PAP took all 7 contested Group Representation Constituencies (GRC) in Ang Mo Kio, Aljunied, East Coast, Jalan Besar, Tampines, Pasir Ris-Punggol and Sembawang, making up 38 of the seats. It also took seven of nine of the single seats in Bukit Panjang, Chua Chu Kang, Joo Chiat, MacPherson, Nee Soon Central, Nee Soon East and Yio Chu Kang.

Among the opposition parties, the WP had the best showing, taking 16.34% of the valid votes, which is an improvement over the 2.7% that in received in the previous election. In the Hougang ward, the incumbent Low Thia Khiang of the WP took 13,987 (62.74%) of the votes, defeating Eric Low Siak Meng of the PAP who only managed 8,306 (37.26%) of the votes while the remaining 277 votes were voided. The opposition win in Hougang is a big disappointment for PAP, which had dangled a carrot of some S$100 million in housing upgrading grants.

Despite losing all of its GRC contests, its best performance was in the controversial and hotly-contested Aljunied, where it took 43.9% of the votes against George Yeo's PAP team who won 56.08% of the votes. Just a few days before, James Gomez of the WP was heavily criticised by the PAP for a non-submission of a certificate proving of his status as a minority. It then became a heavily debated issue in the campaigning until the PAP decided that it should move on to more important issues. Opposition position poster girl Sylvia Lim of the WP Aljunied team seems to be the most likely to be appointed as a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) as she got the highest non-winning number of votes.

Chiam See Tong of the SDA beat PAP's Sitoh Yih Pin in the Potong Pasir ward with a margin of 8,242 (55.84%) over 6,518 (44.16%) votes. The remaining 186 of the votes were voided. This is an improvement over the previous election where he only won 52.4% of the votes. However, they did not manage to win any other seats. They received more than 30 percent votes for the seats that they did not win.

Contrary to the performance of the other opposition parties, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) performed poorly in this election compared to the previous election. It lost all the 7 seats that it contested and only received 4.06% of the valid votes compared to 8.1% in 2001. SDP blamed the losses on the ban of political podcasts. SDP also alleged that the media waged a relentless campaign against it and that the lawsuit against it by the PAP prevented it from raising the issue involving the National Kidney Foundation scandal.