Parliament has been dominated by the peple's Action party (PAP) since 1959 and ruling party members are quick to use harsh civil and criminal defamation laws to silence and bankrupt political oppnents and critical media outlets With bloggers and online discussion groups increasingly offering alternative views and a virtual channel for expressing dissent the government has begun to crack down on postings it deems offensive In May 2014 blogger Roy Ngerng published a critique of the government's management of a state pension fund prompting a defamation lawsuit from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Ngerng publicly apologized for the blog post and offered to settle the matter