History Investigation Essay: 1959 Singapore General Elections

1959 Singapore's First Fully Democratic Election The 1959 Singapore Legislative assembly general election was held in Singapore on 30 May 1959 to choose the members of the Legislative assembly of Singapore.This election was different from the previous elections as all the seats were completely determined by the population as per the new Constitution of Singapore of 1959. In previous elections,some seats were chosen by Singapore's colonial authorities. The candidates were nominated on 25 May while the actual polls were held on 30 May 1959.There was a total of 194 candidates. 35 candidates were independent while the remaining 159 candidates were fielded by 13 political parties. The People's Action Party won the general elections with 43 out of 51 seats.The People's Action Party became the ruling party of Singapore and currently still is the ruling party of Singapore.The 1959 election is strongly linked to Singapore's gain of self rule that followed after.Although the locals have more control over the Singapore, there are still some affairs that are under British control for example, external affairs and external defense. There are also some affairs that is under shared control like internal security.

I learnt that PAP was the political party that the more organised and suited to govern Singapore.As many sources showed that the voters voted PAP as it was the most organised,united and they had very little disagreements between their members out of the 13 parties, PAP was the one whom won majority of the votes.Thus this shows that PAP were very goal oriented and strive to achieve independence in Singapore as they did not spend their efforts on unnecessary stuff.Even though there were a lot of political parties that contested,PAP on the election as they had many supporters and impressed many of the locals.

I can see that in 1959, Singapore was slowly progressing to become an independent country. From the sources, I can infer that Singapore progressed from limited self-government 1955 to internal self-government 1959.Thus, this shows that Singaporeans had more control over the main aspects in Singapore and that there will be fair governing of Singapore.

I am able to infer that more people were interested in the election that will be able to grant Singapore internal self governance. There were more candidates and political parties that formed and contested in the 1959 elections compared to the 1955 elections. As there was a total of 13 contesting parties and 194 candidates in the 1959 elections compared to the 6 contesting parties and 79 candidates in 1955 elections. Therefore, this shows that more people wanted Singapore to be independent and be free from the British rule,thus, stepped forward to achieve that goal by forming their own political parties to contest in the elections.