Singapore’s PAP Fails to Regain Support in By-Election

Singapore’s ruling party lost a by-election in the opposition-controlled Hougang district, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong signaling more measures are needed to regain support after its worst vote result last year.

Png Eng Huat, a 50-year-old businessman from the Workers’ Party, defeated ruling People’s Action Party candidate Desmond Choo, 34, a trade union official, at the May 26 polls. Png won 62.1 percent of valid votes in northeastern suburb for the seat left vacant after Yaw Shin Leong. Yaw, who won 64.8 percent of votes in 2011, was expelled by the Workers’ Party in February for “indiscretions in his private life.”