Nobody is betting that Singapore’s powerful ruling party will lose Friday’s election. Yet a weakening economy and the fact that, for the first time, all the city-state’s voters will be given a choice of who they want in power provides the greatest electoral test yet for the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong.
Also worrying for the 63-year-old leader is the fact that he will be facing the polls for the first time without his father, the first prime minister of Singapore, who transferred much legitimacy to his son after three decades as premier.
Having transformed the impoverished island into an economic powerhouse, Lee Kuan Yew died in March aged 91. The younger Lee will be hoping his father’s wide support base did not die with him.