Ruling party wins majority

Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP) won a majority in snap parliamentary elections, official results showed early yesterday, with the party poised to form a new government and reverse setbacks suffered in 2011.

The PAP only needed 45 seats to hold on to power, and crossed that threshold in the early hours as official results were being announced district-by-district by the Elections Department.

The party, led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, has been in power for 56 years, and held 80 of the 87 seats in the previous parliament.

An earlier official sampling of the votes cast showed the PAP was poised to win 83 of the 89 seats up for grabs in yesterday's vote.

There had been no doubt the PAP would win, but the victory margins it established in the early count showed a marked improvement over results in 2011, when its share of votes cast plunged to an all-time low of 60 percent.

The main opposition Workers' Party (WP) lost one of seven seats it held in the previous parliament.

Lee, who led a six-member PAP team to a landslide victory in the central district of Ang Mo Kio, thanked voters in his ward and across the country for the resounding mandate.

Lee, son of independence leader Lee Kuan Yew, had urged voters to look at the PAP's performance record against the opposition's demands for reform.

It was the first time all seats were being contested in Singapore history.